US President Biden Abandons Plan to Ban Menthol Cigarettes After Backlash

US President Joe Biden’s administration has abandoned its plan to ban menthol cigarettes, as the White House emphasized the benefits of this issue for public health, but found that moving forward with it would this plan angered voters, especially those of African descent, in the year of the presidential elections.

The Biden administration said Friday it was “postponing a decision on imposing a ban” on those cigarettes because it needed further consultation with experts, without specifying a timetable for reconsider the decision, according to a report published by the newspaper. Wall Street Journal.

Mint cigarettes represent more than a third of the cigarettes sold in the American market each year, and are often used by smokers of African descent or those coming from American countries. -Right.

According to a newspaper analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, more than 80 percent of African Americans use mint cigarettes, compared to 30 percent of white Americans, or 51 percent of Americans of South American origin, according to data going back. back to 2017. 2020.

African American community leaders expressed their opposition to banning these cigarettes, which would lead to the creation of a black market for cigarette mints if they were to be banned.

Xavier Becerra, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the proposed ban “has sparked significant backlash from the civil rights and justice movements.”

He noted that there will be more discussions, which “will take longer.”

In 2021, the Biden administration began policies to ban menthol cigarettes, with the goal of reducing the propensity of young people to smoke and increasing smoking cessation rates, as part of a campaign to reduce the death rate to reduce cancer.

Despite decades of anti-smoking campaigns, about half a million people die each year in the United States as a result of smoking, which costs about 300 billion dollars annually in health services and lost productivity, which according to the Food and Drug Administration itself.

Nicotine itself does not cause cancer, heart disease, or lung disease, according to the Food and Drug Administration, but it does cause addiction and thus the death of hundreds of thousands of smokers each year in America.

Menthol is a substance found naturally in mint plants, and has been added to cigarettes since the 1920s to provide a cooling sensation in the mouth, which reduces throat irritation caused by cigarette smoke never smoked.