The Biden administration said Friday it would again delay a decision on a regulation aiming to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes, citing the “historic attention” and “immense amount of feedback” on the controversial proposal by the Food and Drug Administration.
“This rule has garnered historic attention and the public comment period has yielded an immense amount of feedback, including from various elements of the civil rights and criminal justice movement,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
Not all black voters smoke menthol. Menthol is an equal opportunity killer.
But some do - with enough correlation to matter.
Black voters are the only reason menthols aren’t already illegal. It’s an exception to bans on flavored cigarettes.