Black smokers and the proposed menthol ban are being used as a wedge issue in the 2024 election.
A conservative advocacy group is planning on using the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed menthol cigarette ban as a tool to sway Black Americans from president Joe Biden and Democrats, according to CNN.
The Liberty Policy Foundation’s hopes its mid-six-figure ad campaign in South Carolina, which targets African Americans, small business owners, and young Americans leaning independent, will determine whether leveraging the proposed ban can sway voter opinion and lower the number of votes cast for the president in the South Carolina primary.
Similar campaigns are scheduled to follow in potential swing states North Carolina, Virgina, Nevada, and Michigan.
According to CNN, the ad for South Carolina features a female voiceover saying, “President Biden keeps talking about uniting Americans, bringing us together, so why is he pushing policies that continue to divide us? Like his proposal to criminalize menthol cigarettes. Community leaders have warned Biden about the unintended consequences of banning menthol cigarettes” while showing headlines related to the death of Eric Garner, an African American who died after police held him in a chokehold. Police alleged Garner had been selling cigarettes illegally.
The choice to highlight Garner’s case is an interesting one since at the time of Garner’s death there was no menthol ban in place, nor had it been proposed yet. In addition, Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, was among a group of Black community leaders, activists, and advocates, condemning the proposed ban and warning that it would only result in more racial profiling and policing of Black people. Speaking at a panel discussion last August, Carr said, “Even though the medical profession says that it’s not going to be a policing issue, they’ll [police] be the ones imposing the consequences [of a menthol ban],” “This [ban] is not the answer. We have to do other things; we have to educate, counsel, treat. Stop the ban—it’s not the answer.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congressional Black Caucus, however, support the proposed menthol cigarette ban.
The proposed ban has become a contentious political issue for the Biden administration due to the divide among Black leaders. So far a decision on the matter has been postponed three times.