Local opinion: Menthol ban would hurt minority communities

As an elected official I wear two hats, first as a school board member in the Sunnyside Unified School District and second as a State Representative in Southern Arizona. Both of my elected positions involve representing minority majority communities.

Racial disparities in the criminal justice system are no accident, but rather are rooted in a history of oppression and discriminatory decision making that have deliberately targeted people of color. We must work to undo these harmful policies. My community has felt the pain of these harmful policies.

With a criminal legal system that incarcerates Blacks at nearly six times the rate of white Americans and a prison population that is 67% Black and Latino, any prohibition on menthol cigarettes, as the Federal Drug Administration has proposed, promises continued over-criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color.

However, instead of working to right the historic wrongs in our criminal justice system against people of color I’m deeply worried about further criminalization of communities of color.

This FDA menthol ban will criminalize a product that is overwhelmingly used by black and brown Americans leading to criminal penalties and more negative interactions with law enforcement. Those interactions can end in tragedy. Eric Garner died in 2014 from an illegal chokehold having been stopped by police for suspicion of selling single cigarettes in violation of state law. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote this about banning menthol tobacco products: “I can think of a lot of things this society needs. Another reason to consider Black people guilty-until-proven-innocent is not one of them.”

Prohibitionist policies have a demonstrable record of failure and a legacy of generational harm for communities of color. FDA would be wise to take stock of this history and FDA should also look to our neighbor to the north for further proof that this is an ill-advised policy direction. Canada implemented a ban on flavored tobacco products, including menthol, starting in 2016. Research has shown that nearly four in five Canadian menthol smokers kept smoking after the ban with most of them switching to non-menthol products and others buying menthol from alternative sources.

Rather than finding yet another way to over-police communities of color via a menthol ban, FDA and the Administration should be massively investing in community-based healthcare solutions that make sense for these communities. The evidence is conclusive that consumer education, public awareness campaigns, therapeutic interventions and other non-prohibition-based policies work in driving down overall smoking rates (just as they do with drug use), including in communities of color.

This is the moment to root out structural and systemic racism in our criminal justice system and our society and reimagine public safety for the benefit of our people and the character of our country. Rather than further that important mission, the FDA menthol ban will act as on obstacle on the road to a more just and equitable society.

Proponents of the ban talk about protecting children and yet time and time again it is children of color that get caught up in our criminal justice system. Let’s invest in our public schools and give children access to vital resources instead of creating yet another reason to lock up some of our most vulnerable children.