3 ms·

I read a bit about this yesterday and it's really annoying to me. On one hand I totally understand the idea--tobacco is super harmful and kills hundreds of thou

I read a bit about this yesterday and it's really annoying to me. On one hand I totally understand the idea--tobacco is super harmful and kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and menthol seems to be more of a 'gateway' into tobacco use than traditional tobacco but at the same time this feels highly paternalistic and condescending to black communities (who are one of the key populations referenced in admin/fda talks about the need for this bill). I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior.

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
I’m actually a proponent of this only because it brings menthol in line with the rest of the FDA’s enforcement on the matter. Back in my smoking days, I used to like Djarum Blacks (a brand of clove cigarette). Around the start of the 2010’s the FDA banned all sales of flavored cigarettes, ostensibly to “protect the children”, obviously. Menthol cigarettes, arguably the smoothest and easiest to smoke cigarette that serves to make smoking more approachable, were very notably exempted from that ban. As an anecdote, my wife when she smoked found every non-menthol flavored cigarette to be disgusting and only smoked menthol. Djarum Blacks and many other smaller cigarette brands and types fell under the ban. Djarum Blacks were forced to wrap their cigarettes in different paper and rebrand them as an inferior “cigar” product and other brands disappeared entirely. People, myself included, shifted their smoking habit to arguably worse-for-you menthol cigarettes, sold primarily by Big Tobacco. The exemption was one of the biggest Big Tobacco handouts of the 21st century, the other one being the enforcement of chemical certification of vape products.
- gavinray 5y ago
  My mom used to smoke cloves when I was a little kid on occasion, and I remember that cigarettes smelled disgusting but damn those cloves smelled delicious. I never wound up trying one as an adult (I've tried regular/mentholated cigarettes, both disgusting but I'm glad I know for sure). Cloves are banned now?
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
    They are still sold, but they are called “Filtered Clove Cigars” now and are not as good - among several things: they are harder to draw now, they lost a lot of the characteristic “firecracker” pop (a popping noise that happens as the cloves burn that’s very similar to wood settling in a campfire) and are harsher to smoke. I suspect if one wanted to find them in their original, better form the easiest thing to do would be to import them from Indonesia somehow - the kretek, which is the Indonesian name for the clove cigarette, originated from there and it’s an extremely popular cigarette in Indonesia.
- jrs235 5y ago
  And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! What if we didn't look at anything but health outcomes (and liberties)? (I probably prefer the vice tax... as long as the public is expected to pay for the health issues of individuals who make crappy choices...)
  - robonerd 5y ago
    > And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! A narrative cynically bought and paid for by tobacco industry propagandists: > The disproportionate toll of menthol cigarettes among African Americans compared with the general population is a social injustice. The black community has long been subjected to the predatory marketing of mentholated tobacco products, particularly in lower income areas, where there are not only more advertisements, but more promotions and cheaper prices for menthol cigarettes when compared with more affluent neighbourhoods.7 Tobacco companies also heavily rely on their cooptation of community leaders to defuse tobacco control efforts.8 Black-led organisations with financial ties to the tobacco industry have played a critical role in disseminating misinformation throughout the black community. Such misinformation, for example, includes the idea that local policies prohibiting the sale of mentholated tobacco products are racist and will increase the criminalisation of individuals who possess or smoke them, exploiting legitimate concerns about racist policing to defend the tobacco industry’s targeted predation on the black community. PDF: https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea3284d40b1e9322915cf8b82.pdf https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea...
- mistrial9 5y ago
  .. before "EarthShine" or after?
lazyier 5y ago
It should be more than annoying. It is a denial of human autonomy.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  "denial of autonomy" is probably the least useful way to criticize a law, there are hundreds of necessary laws that plainly deny autonomy
- smt88 5y ago
  It doesn't stop people from making their own menthol cigarettes. It just stops companies from profiting from killing people with them.
tialaramex 5y ago
> pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes It's an attractive idea, but we're talking about the US so there are two big problems: * AFAIK the FDA does not actually have tax raising powers, and it's not going to get granted any tax raising powers, so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something. Good luck with that. * Most tax powers which do exist lie with States, and States are always cash poor, so a "pigouvian" tax quickly becomes a must-have revenue stream. Then one of the two bad things happens. The State encourages the sin you wanted people to stop, because that drives tax revenue, or worse the State gradually adds stuff which isn't a sin to the same tax. You wake up and either there's a TV advert paid for by the State explaining how "A pack a day helps Maggie keep her lungs strong and local schools benefit!" or else you discover that the milk on your breakfast cereal now includes "Menthol tax" because "Menthol" now includes "Dairy products, root vegetables, writing paper and non-religious ornaments" after the State found a hole in its budget.
- chad___homenim 5y ago
  > big problems > so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something Yes, that's the entire point of our system of government. We are not governed by executive dictate, rather by laws created by elected representatives beholden to their constituents. This is not a "big problem," it is a cornerstone for preventing your rights from being trampled upon. The straw man you write about your local state doing this is something you invented in your head.
CharlesW 5y ago
> I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior. How do pigouvian taxes address the problem, which is that Big Tobacco is using flavored products to target kids and people of color?
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Because higher prices on more elastic products, especially for price constrained consumers like youth and lower income people, are correlated with decreased usage of such products. https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago

I’m actually a proponent of this only because it brings menthol in line with the rest of the FDA’s enforcement on the matter. Back in my smoking days, I used to like Djarum Blacks (a brand of clove cigarette). Around the start of the 2010’s the FDA banned all sales of flavored cigarettes, ostensibly to “protect the children”, obviously. Menthol cigarettes, arguably the smoothest and easiest to smoke cigarette that serves to make smoking more approachable, were very notably exempted from that ban. As an anecdote, my wife when she smoked found every non-menthol flavored cigarette to be disgusting and only smoked menthol. Djarum Blacks and many other smaller cigarette brands and types fell under the ban. Djarum Blacks were forced to wrap their cigarettes in different paper and rebrand them as an inferior “cigar” product and other brands disappeared entirely. People, myself included, shifted their smoking habit to arguably worse-for-you menthol cigarettes, sold primarily by Big Tobacco. The exemption was one of the biggest Big Tobacco handouts of the 21st century, the other one being the enforcement of chemical certification of vape products.

gavinray 5y ago
My mom used to smoke cloves when I was a little kid on occasion, and I remember that cigarettes smelled disgusting but damn those cloves smelled delicious. I never wound up trying one as an adult (I've tried regular/mentholated cigarettes, both disgusting but I'm glad I know for sure). Cloves are banned now?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
  They are still sold, but they are called “Filtered Clove Cigars” now and are not as good - among several things: they are harder to draw now, they lost a lot of the characteristic “firecracker” pop (a popping noise that happens as the cloves burn that’s very similar to wood settling in a campfire) and are harsher to smoke. I suspect if one wanted to find them in their original, better form the easiest thing to do would be to import them from Indonesia somehow - the kretek, which is the Indonesian name for the clove cigarette, originated from there and it’s an extremely popular cigarette in Indonesia.
jrs235 5y ago
And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! What if we didn't look at anything but health outcomes (and liberties)? (I probably prefer the vice tax... as long as the public is expected to pay for the health issues of individuals who make crappy choices...)
- robonerd 5y ago
  > And if I recall correctly, one argument for not banning menthol cigarettes was because it would affect the black community disproportionately! A narrative cynically bought and paid for by tobacco industry propagandists: > The disproportionate toll of menthol cigarettes among African Americans compared with the general population is a social injustice. The black community has long been subjected to the predatory marketing of mentholated tobacco products, particularly in lower income areas, where there are not only more advertisements, but more promotions and cheaper prices for menthol cigarettes when compared with more affluent neighbourhoods.7 Tobacco companies also heavily rely on their cooptation of community leaders to defuse tobacco control efforts.8 Black-led organisations with financial ties to the tobacco industry have played a critical role in disseminating misinformation throughout the black community. Such misinformation, for example, includes the idea that local policies prohibiting the sale of mentholated tobacco products are racist and will increase the criminalisation of individuals who possess or smoke them, exploiting legitimate concerns about racist policing to defend the tobacco industry’s targeted predation on the black community. PDF: https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea3284d40b1e9322915cf8b82.pdf https://www.savingblacklives.org/_files/ugd/29e3b2_51eb6e3ea...
mistrial9 5y ago
.. before "EarthShine" or after?

lazyier 5y ago

It should be more than annoying. It is a denial of human autonomy.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
"denial of autonomy" is probably the least useful way to criticize a law, there are hundreds of necessary laws that plainly deny autonomy
smt88 5y ago
It doesn't stop people from making their own menthol cigarettes. It just stops companies from profiting from killing people with them.

tialaramex 5y ago

> pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes It's an attractive idea, but we're talking about the US so there are two big problems: * AFAIK the FDA does not actually have tax raising powers, and it's not going to get granted any tax raising powers, so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something. Good luck with that. * Most tax powers which do exist lie with States, and States are always cash poor, so a "pigouvian" tax quickly becomes a must-have revenue stream. Then one of the two bad things happens. The State encourages the sin you wanted people to stop, because that drives tax revenue, or worse the State gradually adds stuff which isn't a sin to the same tax. You wake up and either there's a TV advert paid for by the State explaining how "A pack a day helps Maggie keep her lungs strong and local schools benefit!" or else you discover that the milk on your breakfast cereal now includes "Menthol tax" because "Menthol" now includes "Dairy products, root vegetables, writing paper and non-religious ornaments" after the State found a hole in its budget.

chad___homenim 5y ago
> big problems > so now instead of an FDA intervention you're relying on Congress to do something Yes, that's the entire point of our system of government. We are not governed by executive dictate, rather by laws created by elected representatives beholden to their constituents. This is not a "big problem," it is a cornerstone for preventing your rights from being trampled upon. The straw man you write about your local state doing this is something you invented in your head.

CharlesW 5y ago

> I'm much more of a fan of using pigouvian taxes to try to drive desired outcomes but let people who really want to engage in a behavior do so, as long as they pay the true cost of that behavior. How do pigouvian taxes address the problem, which is that Big Tobacco is using flavored products to target kids and people of color?

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Because higher prices on more elastic products, especially for price constrained consumers like youth and lower income people, are correlated with decreased usage of such products. https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0146.pdf