Menthol cigarette ban: What's the effect on retailers who sell tobacco products?
Menthol cigarette ban: What's the effect on retailers who sell tobacco products?
Even after the menthol ban was enforced in California and Massachusetts, the Biden White House is still undecided on enforcing the menthol ban nationwide.
Forty-one states and the District of Columbia spend less than half of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends on their state tobacco prevention programs — even though cigarette smoking resulted in health care costs of more than $600 billion in recent years.
While that may sound like a lot of money, Statista guesstimates that worldwide tobacco products are projected to generate a revenue of $965.1 billion in 2024. (This includes profits for smokeless tobacco products — dry snuff, moist snuff, plug/twist, loose-leaf chewing tobacco, snus and dissolvable products.)
American Indians and Alaska natives have the highest smoking rate of any racial or ethnic group. But when it comes to menthol cigarettes, about three in four (77.4%) are African-American compared to 23% of white people.
Recommended Read: “Will the menthol cigarette ban make Biden lose black voters? ~ With cigarettes linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths, the menthol ban is needed in the black community”
And the tobacco industry clearly does not want to lose one of its most popular and consistent demographics as a customer. Menthol scientifically has proven to be the kind of “cooling” mint-like flavor that makes it easier to start smoking and harder to quit smoking. Other addictive flavors are found in cigars (i.e., strawberry, grape, cocoa, fruit punch), which may also be on the chopping block because of its appeal to “make the cigars easier to use, particularly among youth and young adults.” This is why all eyes are on whether President Joe Biden will enforce the menthol ban, which has already been requested by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act).
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“If the White House does not at least make an internal decision this week and Biden does not win a second term, a new president could kill the regulation before it ever gets started,” said Daniel Karon, a Cleveland attorney who teaches consumer law at the University of Michigan Law School and The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, to CNN.
Not only will this ban affect consumers (outside of California and Massachusetts, where there’s already a state-run menthol ban) who may or may not take their frustration out on Biden’s potential second term as president. This will also have a trickle-down effect on the profits of both large and small brick-and-mortar stores. If the ban goes into effect, here’s what retailers can expect to happen after the March deadline.