I was behind my parents ’red Ford Monarch. The sky was clear and the air was still very hot at night for the cloak. My dad was driving his car and the smoke from his Kool Mild was like ginger. I don’t have a seat belt. The window is halfway down. It was as if the moon was following our car.
In the 1980s, when Bill Cosby was God; When cars were made like tanks and everyone had a phone at home. While cable is only a few channels and a smoker can smoke anywhere: in the office, in restaurants and, if it’s fun, even on the public bus. მაქვს I saw.
We were wild then; ⁇o One was worried then. Everyone seems to care now – aAbout black lungs, black health.
The government plans to ban menthol cigarettes andHe feels he is racist.
In 1925, Lloyd “Spood” Hughes doesn’t feel too hot. He was a heavy smoker, but somewhere he had a cold. One night, he put his smoke next to the menthol crystals of the cigar and the next day a menthol cigarette was born.
Before that, cigarettes tasted like garbage. But somehow white men and some white women still smoke them. It’s a luxury item for the wealthy (remember the long black mouths from all the black and white movies? You see, “Breakfast with Tiffany”), and because of this, blacks don’t attend. Eventually, however, cigarette manufacturers realized something: Because they weren’t focused on African Americans, blacks didn’t smoke.
So everything has changed. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kools creators began sponsoring jazz festivals and their advertisements. He started drawing poorly lit images Saxophonist. The spelling of “Kool” with “K” was also used as a target by blacks because the trend was talked about back then. Cool and Newport changed their marketing campaigns to aggressively target blacks with two of the most well-known African American publications, Ebony and Jet, which It reaches a third of the adult black population. About one-third of the ads in both magazines are cigarettes.
And it worked: Blacks have become the biggest consumers of menthol cigarettes.
In 1964, after reviewing some 7,000 articles, Surgeon General Luther Terry concluded that Smoking leads to lung cancer and heart disease. Surely this is enough to bring the product to market? No. Despite Terry’s insistence that the government do something about the cigarettes, they just continued to sell them. Oh wait, that’s not true. They issued a warning that came out of the packaging and recognized that smoking was dangerous to health, but they did so until 1969, about five years after Terry’s discovery. This language will change in 1984, after the enactment of Congress 1984 International Smoking Education ActThat called for all cigarette packs and advertisements with the following message: “Warning to the general surgeon: smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and can complicate pregnancy.”
This will lead to the Heckler report. Until 1985, no one cared about racial health inequality. They may be interested, but no one watched them until 1985, when Margaret Heckler, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, was fired. Report of the Secretary’s Working Group on the Health of Blacks and MinoritiesWhich is the first time the U.S. government has looked at the role of race in health care.
One of the report’s most surprising findings is that an estimated 60,000 excessive deaths occur each year due to health inequality in the United States. It was almost until America recognized that racism existed in medical care. This is the first time career and healthcare have come together on a national stage. Inside the big report is the conclusion that blacks are more prone to hypertension and cardiovascular disease than their white counterparts.
If America could study this measure in 1985 (a working group was established in 1984 and a report published the following year), it would certainly monitor the impact of menthol cigarettes on blacks, in particular. Because it has long been said that menthol makes cigarette smoking easier and harder. But this study will not be conducted until 1998. And T.1998 Surgeon General Report “Tobacco use among US racial/ethnic minorities“ I saw a little warning that no one cared then.
Black smokers are fewer smokers but die from heart attack, stroke and other tobacco -related causes than white smokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York Times article noticed last year. “Eighty-five percent of black smokers use brands other than Newport, Cool and Menthol, which are easier to get addicted to and harder to quit than regular tobacco.”
This means that black smokers are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes and, as a result, more likely to die. America knew this in 1998. Want to know how long ago? Now, a child born in 1998 can drive a car, go to war, and legally buy and smoke menthol cigarettes. So we know, at least, that America knew about the dangers of menthol smoking about 24 years ago and did nothing to stop it.
But let’s first look at why there was a sudden ban on menthol cigarettes in the black community NowLet’s take a look at the menthol industry. The addition of tobacco menthol reduced the pungent taste and facilitated smoking. So why not create all sorts of flavors to attract new smokers? This is exactly what flavored e-cigarettes have been doing over the years, with great new flavors like Gummy Bear, Funnel Cake, Fruit Punch, Berry Crunch Grain, and Blueberry Lemonade. Surely this has been going on for some time, considering how long menthol has been on the market?
No. When these flavors enter the market, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration He forbade them.
“They are attracted to taste. They are addicted to nicotine, ”said Matthew Myers, president of the Children Without Tobacco campaign. He says Late last year. “Without perfumes, these products are less attractive to children: 85% of children who use e-cigarettes use flavored ones.”
But it’s not just an assortment of flavors. This is menthol.
“Taste is the main reason why teens are starting to use e-cigarettes,” the report said on April 22nd. Truth Initiative reading. “The study showed that consumption of mint and menthol e-cigarettes among high school users increased from 16% in 2016 to 57.3% in 2019. Of high school JUUL users, 67.5% said their favorite flavor was like menthol. Another study conducted before JUUL launched its other flavors on the market found that mint was one of the most popular flavors among high school students among JUUL consumers, but less than with menthol.
“The authors of the study warn that leaving mint and menthol flavors on the market undermines the goal of removing the spices, which is to prevent children from using e-cigarettes. , “the report said.
Do you see where I’m going here? No need to worry about thinking.
I have no memory of my father being covered in the smoke of Kool Mild. He did not stop smoking. Not after two heart attacks, or after you stop eating. My last memory of my father was about my birthday. I took the kids to see it. He was weak and he could barely control himself. He let go when my family left the house and shook hands with us as we left. I saw in the rearview mirror that he was smoking a cigarette.
The ban on menthol cigarettes has long since passed, but America knows it. Black life has always been a byproduct of white life, our security spin-off. This is the impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement – you know, the part that always disappears and indirectly says, “I don’t care?”
Source: Huffpost