Big Tobacco’s “Market Priorities”
There is a recurring ad on YouTube that I have started noticing more and more, and it has to do with the tobacco and racial profiling. The ad featured someone from a social media organization called “Truth Initiative”, and she was spreading word of the way that “Big Tobacco” is targeting African-Americans as “market priorities”. She went on to explain that Big Tobacco is advertising up to ten times as many ads in black neighborhoods than in any other neighborhoods.
Upon further inspection, I discovered several other alarming truths. The menthol variety of cigarettes was the main tobacco product that was targeting these ethnic groups. Advertisements for menthol cigarettes, specifically the brand “Kool” menthols, would often feature African-Americans posing with a menthol in hand. The people in these advertisements were also often being presented as a classic representation of their race. In the photos attached we can see a man with dreadlocks and holding a trumpet - the mid 1900’s stereotype of an black jazz musician. Another advertisement featured a woman with hoop earrings. When I searched for advertisements promoting a different brand of cigarettes, say Marlboro for example, the ads had classic American cowboys posing with cigarettes. This plays a huge role in who buys what kind of tobacco product as it has the personal aesthetic appeal, something as personal as race.
Menthol cigarettes, for those who do not know, are a kind of tobacco product with a variety of chemicals and herbs that create a “chilled” and “icy” feeling while smoking. As a result they have been proven to be more addictive than non-menthol cigarettes, making them arguably the worst kind of cigarette you could get addicted to. Because of this, there has been an even larger push to the anti-tobacco use movement, especially against menthols. Menthols are facing a great chance of being banned in many states, and even more so in the European Union, where the same statistics on race and tobacco products apply. The proposed ban on menthols is very likely and still possible, though the recent events of “Brexit” have caused a delay in the European Union. The ban of menthols would result in a possibly healthier society, causing even more people to lean towards quitting smoking. However, one article suggests that, despite the obvious racial profiling and marketing priorities of menthol tobacco products towards African Americans, it would actually be more racist to ban them. An article by Milo Yiannopoulos and published by the DailyDot suggests that “The Menthol ban isn’t just stupid- it’s racist”. Yiannopoulos provides shocking statistics showing that seventy percent of all African American smokers use mentholated cigarettes. This percentage rises when only younger age groups are recorded.
When looking at mortality rates among African Americans and lung cancer brought on by smoking, results are varied. Lung cancer is the second most prominent cancer among African Americans, though it kills more of them than any other kind of cancer. The same article on the DailyDot states that menthol smokers have lower rates of cancer than any other kind of tobacco user, and that they also smoke fewer cigarettes a day than do plain tobacco smokers.
So what is the real issue here? The marketing priority of African- Americans for tobacco menthol products? Or the impending likelihood of a ban on an ethnic favored product? It is possible to write an essay on either side here, as both sides are experiencing a loss or some kind of harm. Racial profiling is not okay, market priorities is something that has always been going on. With the amount of African American tobacco users smoking menthols, would it then be wrong to take away a product they favor? I have no real answer for this controversial issue at the moment, but perhaps a ban on menthols is not a way to approach this challenge.
Works cited:
1. TOBACCO USE AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
Initiative, Truth. "Tobacco Is a Social Justice Issue: Racial and Ethnic Minorities." Truth Initiative. Truth Initiative, 13 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
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