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How the tobacco industry targeted Black Americans with menthol smokes
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The Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to ban menthol cigarettes, which the tobacco industry has aggressively marketed toward African Americans since 1964.
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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a ban on menthol cigarettes. NPR's Andrew Limbong reports these cigarettes grew popular among Black people after a marketing campaign.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: There's this classic sketch from Season 2 of "Chappelle's Show."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CHAPPELLE'S SHOW")
DAVE CHAPPELLE: Welcome to the show "I Know Black People."
LIMBONG: Dave Chappelle does his best game show host and asks people various questions about Black culture. And the very second question is...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CHAPPELLE'S SHOW")
CHAPPELLE: Why do Black people love menthols so much?
LIMBONG: One of the contestants hems and haws until she says...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CHAPPELLE'S SHOW")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (As character) I don't know. That's crazy.
CHAPPELLE: That is correct. No one knows.
KEITH WAILOO: Well, the fact is that a lot of people know why.
LIMBONG: Keith Wailoo, history professor at Princeton University.
WAILOO: And it's the product of an elaborate and complicated push that really began in the mid-1960s, around 1964, in fact.
LIMBONG: He's the author of the book "Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing And The Untold Story Of The Menthol Cigarette." And he says in 1964, federal regulators banned tobacco companies from advertising to youths - no more advertising on college campuses or handing out free loosies (ph) to young people. So instead, they just pivoted that energy towards Black people. And the type of advertising went beyond just knowing what kind of imagery to use.
WAILOO: It's the intimate understanding of Black social structure. Who are the people who are influence-makers in a community? The importance of finding those influence-makers - they could be a barber; they could be a bellhop; they could be a numbers runner - and giving them free samples.
LIMBONG: And then they'd hand out those cigs to other people. The companies also gave a bunch of money to Black periodicals.
WAILOO: A lot of Black periodicals like Ebony became so dependent on tobacco advertising that they were reluctant - and I would say more than reluctant, silent - about the devastating health impact of smoking in the Black community.
LIMBONG: Same with campaign donations to Black lawmakers. The FDA's proposal on banning menthol cigarettes said that the move could potentially prevent somewhere between 90- and 240,000 deaths among Black people over 40 years. And, says Wailoo, it will interrupt a process that has been creating new smokers for generations.
Andrew Limbong, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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