Why menthol cigarettes have a chokehold on Black smokers

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the U.S., flavored cigarettes have been banned since 2009, with one glaring exception: menthols. That exception was supposed to go away in 2023, but the Biden administration quietly delayed the ban on menthols. Why? Well, an estimated 85 percent of Black smokers smoke menthols — and some (potentially suspect) polls have indicated that a ban on menthols would chill Biden's support among Black people. Of course, it's more complicated than that. The story of menthol cigarettes is tied up in policing, advertising, influencer-culture, and the weaponization of race and gender studies. Oh, and a real-life Black superhero named Mandrake the Magician.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's good? You're listening to Code Switch? I'm Jean Dembe. And I'm B. A. Parker.
0:07.0	I have a weird question for you.
0:10.0	True. Did you or anyone in your family smoke ever?
0:15.0	I don't smoke. I never have. I, well that's not true. I tried once in grad school and I cough too hard for that to ever become my personality.
0:24.0	But a lot of my older aunts and uncles were lifetime smokers.
0:28.0	Okay. What kind of cigarettes did your aunt and uncle smoke?
0:32.0	I'm curious.
0:33.0	Mainly cools but there were a couple of Newport people.
0:37.0	Mm-hmm just as I suspected menthols, okay?
0:40.0	Yeah, wait, what about you?
0:42.0	I smoked the cigarette one time in my life.
0:45.0	I was drunk, it tasted like minty burning, ugh.
0:47.0	But my mom smoked for most of my young life.
0:50.0	She quit when I went to college.
0:51.0	Shops to my mom's.
0:52.0	But she smoked Benson and Hedges menthol
0:55.5	lights. I remember that mint green packaging that they used to come in.
0:58.6	I mean that does sound classy. Benson and Hedges. It sounds kind of British or like some 80s cop drama that aired on CBS like
1:07.8	Cagny and Lacy or Jake and the Fat Man.
1:11.5	Yes, as somebody who grew up in the 80s, I remember being a little kid and being able to buy her cigarettes from the carryout, like for her.
1:20.0	I was a little kid, I can go to the little cigarette machines with the funky
1:23.0	nabi leaver Jones oh my god what a what a time memory unlocked dark dark times
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.