GOP Senator Accuses Biden Administration Of Targeting Black Smokers

On Wednesday, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas accused the Biden administration of unfairly targeting “black smokers” while attempting “to legalize weed for white college kids.”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Cotton referenced a report that a coalition of health organizations and politicians is trying to get the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a ban on menthol cigarettes.

From Newsmax:

“Joe Biden wants to ban menthol cigarettes, which are favored by black smokers. Meanwhile, he wants to legalize weed for white college kids and mail out free crack pipes,” Cotton wrote.

Joe Biden wants to ban menthol cigarettes, which are favored by black smokers. Meanwhile, he wants to legalize weed for white college kids and mail out free crack pipes.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 15, 2023

“The administration’s ban is paternalistic, it’s hypocritical, and it creates a huge black market for Mexican cartels and Hezbollah. And all because Mike Bloomberg told him to.”

The administration’s ban is paternalistic, it’s hypocritical, and it creates a huge black market for Mexican cartels and Hezbollah.

And all because Mike Bloomberg told him to.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 15, 2023

Bloomberg had published an opinion editorial in 2021 advocating for Biden’s FDA to consider a ban on the cigarettes, citing data that showed its connection to 378,000 extra premature deaths from 1980 to 2018.

The FDA proposed the ban one year later but did not finalize it. Now, a coalition is pushing for the ban to go through but is facing pushback from tobacco companies and some criminal justice reform advocates.

The FDA has proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. As CBS News' @DinaDemetrius reports, the Biden administration believes the change could significantly reduce disease and death. pic.twitter.com/9crYD29xvU

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 28, 2022

Among those pushing back is Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network group sent a letter to the administration last year warning that such a ban could adversely affect Black communities.

Sharpton urging Biden admin to stub out menthol cigarette ban, claims a black market could lead to deadly clashes like Eric Garner’s https://t.co/WPeRRvVtbT pic.twitter.com/QvmjUiprGy

— New York Post (@nypost) November 13, 2023

“Advocates for the proposed rule have not been able to explain why the preferred product for Black adult smokers will be subject to ban while the select products of most will remain legal and available,” the letter read.

From the Newsweek:

The Food and Drug Administration sent final rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget regarding a ban on menthol cigarettes in October. As CNN reports, advocates for the ban say that restricting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon that the U.S. State Department characterizes as a terrorist organization, has previously been linked to illegal cigarette smuggling schemes both within the U.S. and abroad. In the 1990s, U.S. officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) discovered that a portion of the profits made from a contraband cigarette scheme sold between North Carolina and Michigan were being put toward funding Hezbollah.

In the 1990s, a Hezbollah cell in the US made $8M arbitraging state and local cigarette tax rates and used the money to finance terror operations. They even got a $1.6M loan from the gov’t to open a gas station where they resold the smuggled cigarettes https://t.co/hQQZS9n9IX pic.twitter.com/TXEY2AoORu

— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) November 16, 2018

A similar scheme was discovered in New York in 2013, CNN previously reported, when 16 Palestinian men, some of whom had ties to known terrorist organizations, were indicted for smuggling contraband cigarettes across several state lines.