US President Joe Biden speaks after signing a bill providing billions of dollars in new aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
The Biden administration has postponed plans to ban menthol cigarettes, a proposal the Food and Drug Administration announced years ago.
“There are still more conversations to be had, and it will take much longer,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Friday.
The US Food and Drug Administration announced its plans to ban menthol tobacco cigarettes in 2021, followed by its proposed rules for the ban in 2022. The move was intended to improve the health of people most vulnerable to smoking them, including children and Black Americans.
According to the FDA, approximately 85% of black smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared to only 30% of white smokers. Black men have the highest lung cancer death rate in the United States, and black men and women are much less likely to be diagnosed with the disease at an early stage, when it is often most treatable, than white Americans.
The proposed ban — and now the delay — has raised questions about the impact it could have on Black voters months before the contentious presidential election.
The ban has been postponed at least once, with promises to take effect by the end of last year. At the time, the White House quietly updated its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website to reflect that any final ban on menthol would not happen until at least March.
At the time of the delay in December, an official with the national public health group working to remove the products from the market told NBC News they were “deeply concerned” that the ban would not take effect before the 2024 election.
“It becomes more difficult to do everything in an election year, because people are dispersed and the bandwidth is extended,” the official said in December.
Becerra's statement did not clarify whether the Biden administration would impose the ban or not, and did not provide any other details about the talks about it.
After the postponement was announced Friday afternoon, anti-smoking and health advocates began expressing their frustration.
“Full two years after the release of proposed rules supported by extensive scientific evidence — and more than a decade since the FDA began examining menthol cigarettes — the FDA has failed to take decisive action to remove these deadly and addictive products from the market,” said Nancy Brown, president. Executive Director of the American Heart Association in a statement. “The administration’s inaction enables the tobacco industry to continue aggressively marketing these products and attracting and addicting new users.”
