Imagine a police officer snatching a “suspicious” Black man off the street to spend the weekend in jail. The probable cause? Dealing Newport cigarettes.
A growing under-the-radar movement to criminalize menthol cigarettes is starting us on a slippery slope toward just such a scenario on a street corner near you. San Francisco was the first city to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, followed by Contra Costa County, California, and the city of Oakland.
In Minnesota, St. Louis Park banned the sale of flavored tobacco, while Minneapolis, St. Paul and Shoreview passed new limits on its sale. Both chambers of the New Jersey legislature now are considering prohibition against the sale and distribution of menthol and clove cigarettes, which would be the nation’s first statewide ban.
Why is this so important? The World Health Organization points out that menthol is used more frequently by younger smokers, women and minorities, and it is more enticing for people both to start and continue smoking. While fighting tobacco addiction is a worthy public health goal — and menthol products can be especially dangerous — criminalization is an imperfect solution.
At this point, a business in these areas would face only a fine or the loss of a license for selling the banned items — and it’s no offense for someone to possess menthols. But these policies set minority communities on a dangerous path. As a retired veteran sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department, I am most concerned about the unintended consequences of targeting menthol. Why not ban all tobacco products?
You have to start with the legacy of the War on Drugs in the 1970s and the War on Crime in the 1990s, both of which caused soaring incarceration rates of Black men and women. Considering that more than 80 percent of Blacks who smoke prefer menthol tobacco, I see an additional pathway to the penal system.
Let’s not pretend that some police officers don’t already have a plethora of ways at their disposal to engage members of minority communities under the guise of probable cause, reasonable suspicion and investigative stops. There are plenty of examples of how these “investigative stops” can quickly escalate into lethal uses of force.
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