I have long opposed legislation designed to force consumers to make more healthy choices by banning certain products like New York’s unlawful “Big Gulp” law under then Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Now, the Biden Administration is moving forward to ban menthol cigarettes because they are too popular with consumers.
In April 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is now moving forward to “help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit” and “to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”
Tobacco remains a lawful product. These measures are not based on a finding that menthol or flavoring increases the carcinogenic risk of smoking. Rather, the fear is that they are too popular and will only serve to increase sales. It is the same premise used to ban advertising at sporting events and calls to put graphic imagery on products.
It is akin to pushing green energy policies by banning a non-electric car model because it is wildly popular. If the Administration wants to seek a ban on tobacco, it should do so. However, consumers should be allowed lifestyle choices, including unhealthy choices from high-fat diets to alcohol abuse.
These paternalistic measures tend to only shift costs and markets. If the consumers want menthol cigarettes, they are likely to turn to the black market with the assistance of criminal gangs smuggling the products over the border. It is a variation of the Coase theorem where an “entitlement” will not necessarily dictate outcomes. It can raise and shift costs. In terms of the outcome, the market often controls: The question is not simply what law favors but what is more valued by the consumers. The Administration can add transactional costs, but it is the market demand that is likely to drive supply. Transactional costs can alter the outcome, but those costs must overwhelm the market demand.
If this proves correct, the move will fuel a criminal black market while reducing tax revenues.
I do not question the danger of these products in reaching younger potential smokers. I also enthusiastically support government educational programs designed to discourage young people from using this addictive product. Smoking carries a terrible price for users and society. However, so long as it is a lawful product, individuals should be allowed to make these decisions over their own health and lifestyle.
Go ahead, Joe, do it!
“In 2020, approximately 81% of non-Hispanic Black adults who currently smoked cigarettes used menthol cigarettes, compared to 34% of non-Hispanic White adults. Aug 23, 2023”
Next thing you know they’ll be banning malt liquor.
“Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is now moving forward . . .”
Leftist politicians use the government’s police powers to force on you their view of “healthy choices” for your body.
“[The Biden] administration is unabashedly and unrepentantly pursuing the silencing of those with opposing views.”
Those same politicians compel you to accept their view of “healthy speech.”
There is a name for a regime that controls an individual’s body and mind: Totalitarianism.
Professor Turley’s post discusses the black market for menthol cigarettes. Was the pun intended?
Alcohol Prohibition – outlawing beer, wine and liquor – was one of the rare times rights and freedoms that were taken away. The federal government, driven by religious extremists, played nanny-state and Americans hated it.
How is an unelected bureaucrat more concerned about you, than you are?
It was a huge and complete disaster that greatly increased crime rates and created black markets (robbing government treasuries of tax revenue).
That’s legalization of some drugs would actually reduce rates, increase tax revenues, safer products and better care for those with addition problems.
The U.S. Constitution should only be amended to expand rights and freedoms.
No one on the Left will attempt to address the following issue: Bill Clinton is directly responsible for the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children and is free/
Re: Bill O’Brien
All presidents do this. Presidents make big decisions. People live or die on those big decisions. It’s unfortunately a part of the job.
Contrast that with Trump ignoring the pandemic in Asia in later 2019 and early 2000. Trump’s big decision, to ignore it, resulted in America’s highest casualty rate – exceeding 9/11 and exceeding World War Two deaths.
Trump’s inaction also created today’s high inflation rates, since Biden was forced to deal with Trump’s inaction. If Biden had not done something to preserve jobs, America would have had a deep economic recession – possibly a another Great Depression.
All thanks to Trump ignoring the Covid pandemic. Presidents make big decisions with big consequences.
Nakba must be explained. Nakba, the proper understanding of what took place in the late 1940’s, is the key to end the Israeli/Palestinian war.
Nabka: failed 1948 Genocidal War of Annihilation rejecting UN Peaceful Partition, on the heels of the 1942 failed Nazi abetting Farhud to bring death camps to the M.E.
Next they will be banning french fries.
The problem with leftist politicians [Democrats] is they want to be our nannies. They just can’t bring themselves to leave us alone.
But it is not as if they follow their own rules. Does Obama smoke menthol cigarettes?
They closed hair salons, but not for Nancy. They closed restaurants, but not for Gavin. They blocked an EV charging station so no one could use it but Jennifer Granholm. Because those services weren’t “essential” for anyone else.
All true! Sadly true. It’s hard not to think of them as scum because they behave as scum.
Svelaz, Welcome back a day late! I was wondering if you could please tell us the circumstances involving your apparent ban in June of this year and your return now. I have been trying with no success to get information from JT and Darren about why people are banned and censored on this blog and it would be great if you could shed some light based on your experience. Thanks.
Biden’s Handlers should ban sex outside of marriage. But that would put a dent on Hunter’s sexcapades. The following CDC release is terrible news. The CDC’s talking points are even worse.
Self-control is never mentioned today. It needs to be woven into our societal fabric again. With the fall of religious practices by Americans, lip-service not withstanding, our society predictably has collapsed bigly. The answer to self-destructive human behavior is not government edits. It is self-control, introspection, finding meaning in life and working towards a purposeful, honorable, dignified existence.
U.S. Syphilis Cases in Newborns Continue to Increase: A 10-Times Increase Over a Decade
New CDC data reveal that more than 3,700 babies were born with syphilis in 2022, which was more than 10 times the number in 2012. The increase in newborn syphilis follows rising syphilis cases among women of reproductive age combined with social and economic factors that create barriers to high-quality prenatal care and ongoing declines in the prevention infrastructure and resources.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/s1107-newborn-syphilis.html
What can you expect from a batty and corrupt federal government that warns of the dangers to pregnant women of half a glass of wine or second-hand smoke while insisting that they be injected with an unsafe and ineffective experimental ‘vaccine’ known to have serious side effects?
As for makers of menthol cigarettes perhaps they should give ‘royalties’ to government bureaucrats. That seems to have worked for Covid ‘vaccines’.
Batty Government!?? They are worried about the futures of pregnant men!
You just lost the black smokers vote.
Never mind black market, lost tax revenue.
why bother to win any voting block when you can rig elections with the FBI, CIA, DOJ, MSM, Big Tech, etc
Listen to this guy.
You can vote all day long; it’s irrelevant.
Karl Marx and “Crazy Abe” Lincoln’s “dictatorship of the hired help,” aka the global communist American Deep Deep State “Swamp,” determines the outcomes of elections all on its own.
More cartel enabling regulations. One has to wonder at times
This isn’t on point, but there is a growing body of evidence supported by many physicians who believe fat is an essential part of a healthy diet, not the carbs and sugar that are fattening our society. One name for this, the carnivore diet, is much discussed on You Tube videos. I’m not an advocate, but it has transformed my 50-year-old son and banished a number of health issues. I’m not following this diet, but I do wish people with a large audience would explore and expose the bad diet advice that’s has been we Americans. Just look around.
Menthol Cigarettes Heavily Marketed To Blacks
Menthol cigarettes have been historically heavily marketed toward Black Americans. And that’s had a strong enough impact that when the Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes yesterday, the agency specifically noted that the move would save the lives of 92,000 to 238,000 African Americans.
According to a 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 85% of Black smokers preferred menthol cigarettes.
The FDA had banned flavored cigarettes from being manufactured or sold in 2009. But menthol cigarettes slipped by because of a split in the Black Congressional Caucus — many of whom looked to campaign donations and support, said Wailoo.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-targeted-black-americans-with-menthols
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Professor Turley never mentions that menthol cigarettes are disproportionately consumed by Blacks. Yet any Google search of the subject turns up multiple entries.
Back in 2007, Senator Mike Enzi offered an amendment to ban menthol cigarettes to the Waxman/Kennedy/Philip Morris sponsored legislation that gave (after its enactment in 2009) FDA authority to regulate tobacco products.
But none of the black members of US Congress would support Enzi’s amendment simply because Enzi was a Republican and they were all partisan Democrats.
As the one who authored the amendment offered by Enzi, I was furious because none of many government funded black health agencies and activist would support Enzi’s bill, and instead attacked Enzi as trying to derail the bill.
“. . . Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes . . .”
I’m sure Blacks will be happy to know that the Left regards them as too helpless and immature to make their own decisions.
Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes yesterday, the agency specifically noted that the move would save the lives of 92,000 to 238,000 African Americans.
The Bll of Rights does not have, “but to save lives” exception.
Strange with all the modern day ability to anyalyze history, some are so willfully ignorant of what is happening. 250 years ago a few self educated men could grasp the danger inherent in the tyranny of govt power. But today people like you willfully kneel down to worship the tryanny.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
CS Lewis
OT:
-Zelensky cancels elections to focus on fighting for democracy
-Harvard installs Jew detectors at all entrances
-Planned Parenthood says correct term for unborn baby is “womb colonizer”
-Progressive Christians warn of politician who actually believes Christian things (Mike Johnson)
-Rashida Tlaib says “Heil Hitler” was just an aspirational call for freedom
-Researchers discover miracle cure for gender dysphoria called “deleting TikTok”
-Biden checks his latest poll numbers to see if Israel still has right to defend itself
(Babylon Bee)
OT – 2020 WAS RIGGED
“New emails show DHS created Stanford ‘disinfo’ group that censored speech before 2020 election”
New emails show officials at the Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before the 2020 election, according to a House Judiciary Committee report exclusively obtained by [Josh Christenson].
– Josh Christenson
The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance.
Karl Marx’s thesis, the one “Crazy Abe” espoused, is enslavement and governmental control, provision and sustenance – “the dictatorship of the hired help.”
The Biden Administration will ban cigarettes but will kill over 100,000 people a year based on their open border policy permitting drugs to enter the country while allowing the drug cartels to distribute those drugs to our youth.
Does anyone remember how an insane idea of limiting Americans to 3 beers per week was silently abandoned? This seems similar in its idiocy factor but you can never tell with this religious woke fanatics – much like islamic jihadists, they are willing to go down for their principles.
Democrats must have the underground menthol cigs pipeline complete. Aholes.
I imagine that they also have all the talking points ready that will blame this catastrophe on Trump.
Would that make them ash-holes? 😊