FILE – Menthol cigarettes and other tobacco products are displayed at a store in San Francisco on May 17, 2018. Anti-smoking groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, over a long-awaited ban on menthol cigarettes, which has been idling at the White House for months. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is again delaying a sweeping plan to ban menthol cigarettes.
The decision is certain to infuriate anti-smoking advocates but could avoid angering Black voters ahead of November elections.
Biden’s top health official said Friday the administration would take more time to consider feedback on the ban.
The announcement is another setback for the health officials at the Food and Drug Administration.
They drafted the ban and predicted it would prevent hundreds of thousands of smoking-related deaths.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton warned that President Joe Biden‘s push to ban menthol cigarettes could create a “huge black market” for groups like Hezbollah to sell in the United States.
The White House has long sought to ban menthol cigarettes, which health advocates say can be more addictive and harder to quit than other tobacco products. But Biden’s administration has faced pushback on the plan from both sides of the aisle, including recent critics who warn that the ban could worsen the illegal drug market in the U.S.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, Cotton, of Arkansas, claimed that Biden’s plan to bar menthol cigarettes was “paternalistic” and “hypocritical,” and raised concerns about how the ban could impact national security.
Senator Tom Cotton is pictured at the U.S. Capitol on February 9, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Cotton warned on Wednesday that the Biden administration’s push to ban menthol cigarettes could open an opportunity for Lebanon militant group Hezbollah to trade contraband cigarettes in the U.S. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“Joe Biden wants to ban menthol cigarettes, which are favored by black smokers,” Cotton wrote. “Meanwhile, he wants to legalize weed for white college kids and mail out free crack pipes.”
“The administration’s ban is paternalistic, it’s hypocritical, and it creates a huge black market for Mexican cartels and Hezbollah,” Cotton added. “And all because Mike Bloomberg told him to.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House Press Office via email for comment Wednesday evening.
The Food and Drug Administration sent final rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget regarding a ban on menthol cigarettes in October. As CNN reports, advocates for the ban say that restricting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars could save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon that the U.S. State Department characterizes as a terrorist organization, has previously been linked to illegal cigarette smuggling schemes both within the U.S. and abroad. In the 1990s, U.S. officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) discovered that a portion of the profits made from a contraband cigarette scheme sold between North Carolina and Michigan were being put toward funding Hezbollah.
A similar scheme was discovered in New York in 2013, CNN previously reported, when 16 Palestinian men, some of whom had ties to known terrorist organizations, were indicted for smuggling contraband cigarettes across several state lines.
Tensions between militant groups such as Hezbollah and the Western world have risen in the past month after Palestinian militants Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel October 7, subsequently launching the Israeli government’s heaviest-ever military response on the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah leadership has touted that the group has a “plan and vision” for its involvement in the war, and conflict between the Israeli military and Hezbollah has escalated along the northern border of Israel.
Cotton’s statement on Wednesday arrived a day after Republican Congressman Andrew Garbarino, of New York, and Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz, of Florida, signed a joint letter that warned the pending FDA ban on menthol cigarettes could lead to “unintended national security consequences.”
“If there was ever a moment to pause and reevaluate the potential impact of every U.S. policy choice on our national security, this is the time,” the lawmakers wrote.
“It is well-documented that Hezbollah is a leader in the illicit cigarette trade—not halfway around the world but right here in the Western Hemisphere,” the letter continued, which was addressed to Biden.
“There have been cases in which Hezbollah and Hamas cells have smuggled cigarettes into the United States to send the revenue overseas,” read the letter. “Given Hezbollah’s established cigarette business and its ties to the Mexican drug cartels, we cannot discount the potential for this FDA-proposed rule to open a massive revenue stream for this Hamas-allied foreign terrorist organization.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
