Menthol: Follow the Money
In August of 2025, I went to the National Conference on Tobacco or Health. During my attendance, I sat through a session discussing laws and regulations around tobacco sales. One of the speakers, a well-established advocate for public health, and more importantly for this story, a white man, claimed to not know why menthol seems to be so much more popular in the Black Community. I was sat in front of two black women who audibly scoffed at his ignorance before another woman on the panel on stage interjected and stated that we did know why the Black Community used menthol – excessive predatory sales tactics by big tobacco. As more states pursue flavor bans for nicotine products, it’s important that we don’t forget about or continue to exclude menthol from such regulations.
What is menthol?
Derived from the peppermint plant, menthol is a mild anesthetic and common additive to various health products (toothpaste, mouthwash, cough drops etc.). When used in tobacco products, the anesthetic increases the bioavailability of nicotine and helps to ease the smoking of it and lengthen the drag one can take with a cooling sensation. As a result, menthol products are considered to be much easier to get dependent on, and much harder to quit than other available tobacco products.
How was menthol marketed?
Initially, the flavored tobacco was pushed towards health-conscious smokers, with the claim that the soothing nature of menthol would help to treat colds. In the 1950s, companies switched tactics and now began targeting women, stating that the product would make their breath smell better and be more fashionable than others on the market. It wasn’t until the 1960s that tobacco companies started fully focusing on the Black Community as primary consumers of the menthol market. Menthol billboards towered over predominantly Black neighborhoods as vans roamed the roads giving away free packs like a street corner dealer. Black publications like Ebony and Jet began running ads for menthols, and community events found sponsors in Big Tobacco. In 1964, federal regulators barred tobacco companies from advertising to youth, one of their key demographics up to that point. They were no longer allowed to advertise on college campuses or hand out cigarettes to people under 21. This contributed to the full fixation on the Black Community, who would now face the full brunt of tobacco advertising and predatory practices. Rather than giving cigarette samples to college kids, now they gave them to black influential figures in the community like a local bellhop or barber, who could then surreptitiously build the market. The NAACP admits that even their organization was a recipient of big tobacco donations up until the early 2000s.
Today, neighborhoods with higher Black populations have more tobacco stores. Stores with higher Black customers have more advertisements for tobacco and more space on shelves for menthol products. Tobacco corporations utilize coupons and discounts, price deals that are most often utilized by Black Communities, women, and young people. The predatory practice even goes as far as to promote menthol cigarettes near candy displays in stores close to schools with a larger attendance of Black children.
In a 1981 released corporate document of RJ Reynolds, the company stated “the Black segment has been identified as the Brand’s Special Market priority” for the Salem brand. Internal documents from Newport revealed that their 1992 brand plan was targeted “primarily to young ethnic adult smokers ages 18-24” and that “the ethnic market could be a major source of new business for the brand that we plan to exploit it.”
We can see the focus on menthol-flavored products in the sheer number of variants for sale. Marlboro sells 11 variants, such as Black Menthol, Smooth Ice, and Bold Ice. Camel sells 12 variants, such as Crush Smooth and Crush Rich. Newport sells 7 variants, such as Smooth, Boost, and Boost Gold.
And what has this predatory advertising resulted in? In 2022, Robert Jackler, MD, and Stanford School of Medicine’s Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in Otolaryngology notes that whilst overall smoking rates in the U.S. were on the decline, menthol users were rising. The rise was attributed to these advertising practices that targeted Black Americans, women, and teenagers in our communities.
What’s the impact?
The 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found 85% of Black smokers had a preference for menthols. Further, between 1980 and 2018, 40% of excess deaths due to menthol smoking were linked to Black smokers, despite Black people only making up approximately 12% of the U.S. population. Not only are Black Americans smoking more menthols, which we’ve established as being more addictive than non-menthol cigarettes, but the impacts of tobacco-use appear to be more severe in the Black population. Black Americans are 6% more likely to be diagnosed with tobacco-related cancer, and 17% more likely to die from such cancer. The three leading causes of death in the Black American population are heart disease, cancer, and stroke, collectively resulting in approximately 45,000 deaths per year. Smoking contributes to the development and/or exacerbation of all three of these health problems.
A 2011 study asked the question: what would have happened if the United States banned menthol cigarette sales nationwide? Their results found that by 2050, more than 600,000 lives could be saved, 250,000 of which would have been Black lives. Another study found that menthol cigarettes resulted in 1.5 million new smokers, 157,000 smoking related premature deaths, and 1.5 million years of life lost among Black Americans between 1980 and 2018.
Looking back at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, it’s clear that the mystery of why the Black American population uses menthol more heavily than other demographics isn’t a mystery at all. The Black Community has been subject to predatory marketing practices meant to exploit and harm. I’ll end this with a question, which I’m sure most readers will already know the answer to:
If we have all this evidence about the harm and targeting of menthol products, why were they excluded in the ban of flavored cigarettes in 2009?
Sources
American Heart Association. 2022, October 4). Report: Tobacco industry continuing decades-long targeting of Black communities, women, youth with menthol products. American Heart Association. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/report-tobacco-industry-continuing-decades-long-targeting-of-black-communities-women-youth-with-menthol-products
Calhoun, C. (2022, August 2). Cheryl Calhoun OpEd on Menthol Cigarettes. American Lung Association. https://www.lung.org/blog/end-menthol-black-community
CDC (2024, May 15). Unfair and Unjust Practices and Conditions Harm African American People and Drive Health Disparities. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco-health- equity/collection/african-american-unfair-and-unjust.html
Cuevas, K., & Sy, S. (2024, January 18). How menthol cigarettes have disproportionately affected Black Americans. PBS News. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-menthol- cigarettes-have-disproportionately-affected-black-americans
D’Ardenne, K. (2022, October 18). How menthol cigarette ads target Black people, women and teens. Stanford Medicine. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2022/10/how-menthol- cigarette-ads-target-black-people-women-and-teens.html
Kathuria, H., Ewart, G., Neptune, E. R., & Upson, D. (2024). Unveiling the Tobacco Industry's Exploitative Legacy: A Call for Racial Equity through a Menthol Ban. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 21(9), 1245–1246. https://doi.org/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202405-476ED
Limbong, A. (2022, April 29). How the tobacco industry targeted Black Americans with menthol smokes. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095291808/tobacco-industry-targeted-black-americans-with-menthols
Mendez, D., & Le, T. T. (2022). Consequences of a match made in hell: the harm caused by menthol smoking to the African American population over 1980 – 2018. Tobacco Control, 31, 569-571. doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056748