Council: New tobacco control laws could help close the racial gap on cancer

Council: New tobacco control laws could help close the racial gap on cancer

An interactive report from the Council on Foreign Relations examines how nationwide bans on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, as proposed by the Biden administration on April 28, 2022, could help shrink the racial gap in U.S. lung cancer death rates. “We find that the ban, if implemented effectively, would indeed close the disparity in U.S. lung cancer death rates due to smoking between non-Hispanic Black Americans and other U.S. racial and ethnic groups; and prevent youth from smoking,” the authors write. They note that while the U.S. would not be the first nation to ban menthol, it would be the largest. Read the report.