NEWS NOW: Whatever the case may be, Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the Consumer Choice Center, says this is something that even the Obama FDA refused to do.

“The Obama administration saw that people like Al Sharpton and a former CEO of the NAACP opposed banning menthol, because menthol cigarettes are the flavor of choice for African-American smokers, and thought it would be bad in this environment to have more negative interactions between African-Americans in the community,” Stier explains. “The police and leadership in the black community have been opposed to this.”

Stier adds that black smokers will not just simply give up the habit.

“One black smoker told The Wall Street Journal that if they take away his menthol cigarettes, he’ll just switch to Marlboro,” Stier continues. “The FDA should be advising people that it is the right thing to do to quit smoking, but we’re not going to achieve smoking cessation through product bans. Instead, we can achieve them through education and harm reduction, that is switch to much lower risk e-cigarettes, which can help you quit smoking and, according to Public Health England, are 95 percent less harmful than cigarette smoking.”

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