The Biden administration is reportedly planning to propose an immediate ban on menthol cigarettes, a product that has long been targeted by anti-smoking advocates and critics who claim that the tobacco industry has aggressively marketed to Black people in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the administration could announce a ban on menthol and other flavored cigarettes as soon as this week.

Roughly 85 percent of Black smokers use such menthol brands as Newport and Kool, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Research has also found that menthol cigarettes are easier to become addicted to and harder to quit than unflavored tobacco products, along with other small cigars popular with young people and African Americans.

Civil rights advocates claim that the decision should be greeted by Black communities and people of color who have been marketed to by what they describe as the predatory tobacco industry.

Black smokers generally smoke far less than white smokers, but suffer a disproportionate amount of deaths due to tobacco-linked diseases like heart attack, stroke, and other causes.

Anti-smoking advocates like Matthew L. Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, also greeted the move to cut out products that appeal to children and young adults.

“Menthol cigarettes are the No. 1 cause of youth smoking in the United States,” he said. “Eliminating menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars used by so many kids will do more in the long run to reduce tobacco-related disease than any action the federal government has ever taken.”

However, groups including the American Civil Liberties Group (ACLU) has opposed the move, citing the likelihood that such an action could lead to criminal penalties arising from the enforcement of a ban hitting communities of color hardest.

In a letter to administration officials, the ACLU and other groups including the Drug Policy Alliance said that while the ban is “no doubt well-intentioned” it would also have “serious racial justice implications.”

“Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties, which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction,” the letter explained. “A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement.”

On Wednesday, the three men who were previously charged in the gruesome killing of Ahmaud Arbery last year in the state of Georgia were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.

Arbery, 25, had been jogging in a neighborhood in Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020, when Travis McMichael, 35, and his father, Gregory McMichael, 65, began pursuing him in their pickup truck before shooting him dead with a pump-action shotgun.

William “Roddie” Bryan,” 51, had been driving behind them in a separate truck and filming the incident. According to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Richard Dial, McMichael then stood over Arbery’s lifeless body and called him a “f**king [n-word].” In separate footage, a Confederate flag sticker could be seen attached to the McMichaels’ truck.

Video of the incident didn’t come to light until it was leaked by a retired police officer who said that he wanted “the public to know the truth” about the slaying of the young Black man, according to his attorney.

The Department of Justice alleged Wednesday that the men confronted and ultimately killed Arbery “because of his race.”

The killing of Arbery by the apparent vigilantes sparked outrage internationally and across the country, with many saying that it shows the suspicion and violent racism often faced by Black joggers

The McMichaels were also each charged with “carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence,” noted the DOJ press release.

As the FBI announced Tuesday that it is investigating the killing last week of unarmed Black man Andrew Brown Jr. by North Carolina sheriff’s deputies, civil rights and racial justice groups joined the victim’s relatives in demanding authorities release full police body camera footage of the shooting. 

Five days after Brown, 42, was shot dead in his car outside of his Elizabeth City home by a team of SWAT-style Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies attempting to serve search and arrest warrants for alleged drug offenses, authorities on Monday allowed two of the slain man’s relatives and their lawyers to view a heavily redacted 20-second video of the killing. 

After viewing the video, Brown family attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter said the deputies “were shooting and saying, ‘Let me see your hands,’ at the same time. Let’s be clear, this was an execution. Andrew Brown was in his driveway, and his hands were on the steering wheel.”

“They were still shooting at him after his car had already crashed into a tree,” she added. 

An independent autopsy performed by Dr. Brent Wayne Hall, a former medical examiner for five North Carolina counties, found that Brown was shot five times.

According to family attorney Wayne Kendall, four rounds from the deputies’ barrage glanced his right arm. Kendall said Brown was then shot in the back of the head as he tried to drive away to save his life. 

“Yesterday I said he was executed. This autopsy report shows me that was correct,” Khalil Ferebee, one of Brown’s seven children, said at a Tuesday press conference. 

The restricted and incomplete nature of the video viewing sparked widespread outrage, with advocates calling on authorities to release all of the footage. 

“We do not feel that we got transparency,” said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is also representing Brown’s family, at the Tuesday news conference. “We only saw a snippet of the video, and they determined what was pertinent. Why couldn’t the family see all of the video? They only showed one bodycam video, even though we know there were several.”

The North Carolina NAACP released a statement Tuesday demanding an “immediate review of the body cameras.”

“Here we are again outraged to hear of yet another Black man dead, allegedly at the hands of those who are supposed to protect and serve,” the statement said. “The murder of Andrew Brown in Elizabeth City, North Carolina… on the morning after the guilty-on-every-count verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin screams for increased scrutiny of the policing system.” 

Appearing on Democracy Now! on Tuesday, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II—co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach—said that “a warrant is not a license to kill” and that “the tapes should be released.” 

“They waited 120 hours to get 20 seconds,” Barber, who is also the longtime chair of the North Carolina NAACP, said of local authorities. “That is absolutely ridiculous.”

“When something happened like this in Columbus, it was released almost immediately,” he added, referring to the police killing of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in the Ohio capital on the day before Brown’s death. 

Another Brown family lawyer, Bakari Sellers, also called for the full video’s release, saying that “police can’t sweep this under the rug.” 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and state Attorney General Josh Stein, both Democrats, have also called for the video’s release. 

Although ongoing protests against Brown’s killing—now in their sixth day—have been peaceful, Elizabeth City Mayor Bettie J. Parker on Monday declared a local state of emergency in which she said that “our citizens and businesses must be protected from violence and damage.”

Parker said the state of emergency will continue “until deemed no longer necessary to protect our citizens.”

In response, Barber and other religious leaders on Tuesday declared a “moral emergency” in Elizabeth City. 

“What we see happening in Elizabeth City with a man shot in the back and the inept way the investigation is being handled by the district attorney and sheriff is a moral failure,” Barber said outside a local church. 

Also on Tuesday, the FBI’s Charlotte office announced it was opening an investigation into Brown’s killing. The North Carolina Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the incident. 

Seven Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies—who found no guns or drugs on Brown or in his vehicle—have been placed on administrative leave following the killing. 

Republished from CommonDreams.org under Creative Commons