The American Lung Association is deeply dismayed that the White House continues to delay the lifesaving rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. Every day that President Biden fails to finalize these rules, he loses an incredible opportunity to reduce the death and disease associated with tobacco use. Ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars would have helped eliminate the dramatic health inequities in who uses tobacco products in the United States.
Join us in telling President Biden he can save hundreds of thousands of lives by ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. Please sign the petition below to tell the President he must finalize these rules.
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Letter to President Biden:
Dear President Biden,
We are writing today to urge you to quickly finalize rules that would end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. We are dismayed in the delay of this rule as it gives the tobacco industry more time to predatorily target and hook youth as well as members of historically underrepresented communities, including Black individuals to their deadly products. There is no reason the White House should further delay the opportunity to address the number one cause of death among the Black community in the U.S. and to reduce the number of young people from ever trying tobacco in the first place.
The science and data are clear: Ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars will save lives. It will also help reduce the unjust disparities in tobacco use caused by the tobacco companies targeting certain communities with menthol cigarettes. Tobacco use claims the lives of 45,000 Black individuals every year. It is also a major contributor to three of the leading causes of death among Black individuals: heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
Menthol cigarettes are often the first cigarette youth and young adults try and can increase the chance they become regular users of cigarettes. Researchers have estimated that menthol cigarettes were responsible for 10 million more people who smoke and 378,000 additional smoking-related deaths between 1980-2018, or almost 10,000 deaths every year.
Research shows that ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars will mean people will quit smoking. One study estimates almost one million smokers would quit smoking within 17 months of the end of the sale of menthol cigarettes, including almost a quarter of a million Black individuals living in the U.S..
Let's not allow this opportunity to save Black lives pass by. We urge you to finalize the rules that will end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.