African-American group warns against tobacco industry funding

On the occasion of Black History Month in the United States, a leader of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council questions the National Museum of African American History and Culture about the funds the museum received from Altria, the American manufacturer of Marlboro.

Can an African-American organization receive funding from the tobacco industry when you know the history of the industry? That’s the question Philip Gardiner, a leader of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC), posed in essence to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) – an institution in Washington DC that is supposed to honor the memory of African-American people.[1].

As Philip Gardiner points out, this question resonates all the more strongly during this Black History Month – a month dedicated since 1976 to the history of the African-American community in the building of the United States. In his letter to the NMAAHC, Gardiner recalls that the labor-intensive tobacco culture was one of the main reasons for the slave trade between Africa and the Americas. In some African countries, tobacco was even used as a currency to obtain new slaves.[2]For several decades, tobacco companies have been targeting African-Americans by selling them menthol cigarettes.

Menthol Cigarette Marketing Targets African Americans

Since the late 1950s, menthol cigarette marketing has been heavily oriented toward African-Americans, with formidable effectiveness. While 51% of African-Americans smoked menthol cigarettes in 1953, this proportion is now 85% among African-American adults and 94% among young African-Americans. However, menthol reduces the harshness of tobacco, allows for deeper inhalation, and facilitates the absorption of nicotine, which not only reinforces the establishment of tobacco addiction, but also promotes the appearance of multiple pathologies linked to smoking.

This consumption of menthol cigarettes would explain in particular why, in parallel with socio-demographic factors African Americans have significantly higher rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, especially lung cancer, and other tobacco-related diseases.

The toll that the African-American community pays for smoking is immense, with 45,000 African-Americans succumbing to it each year. According to Philip Gardiner, the tobacco industry's responsibility for this massacre is all the greater because since 2008, manufacturers have been multiplying all possible remedies in order to prevent or delay the ban on menthol flavors in tobacco and nicotine products, thereby perpetuating smoking among African Americans and other minorities.

A call to return money collected from the tobacco industry

For African-American organizations that have already received funding from the tobacco industry, Philip Gardiner advises simply to return it, so as not to perpetuate the human losses inflicted on the African-American community. A suggestion he addresses not only to the NMAAHC, but to all other African-American organizations that accept funding from the tobacco industry and thus allow it to regain respectability through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) operations.

Philip Gardiner also calls for a ban on menthol flavours in all tobacco products and a halt to the production of menthol cigarettes, hoping that the search for profit will not prevail over the preservation of African-American lives. Finally, he calls for a ban in the United States on sponsorship and patronage activities by the tobacco industry, similar to what is already practiced in many other countries and prescribed by the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

For more information on the menthol issue, check out our decryption.

Keywords: African Americans, AATCLC, NMAAHC, menthMF

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[1] Gardiner P, Black history has taught us that Big Tobacco is not an ally, The Washington Post, published February 13, 2023, accessed February 15, 2023.

[2] Proctor R, Golden Holocaust, The Tobacco Industry Conspiracy, Paris, Ed. Equateurs, 2014.