African Americans and Big Tobacco have a long and abusive history, and it's time to break it off. This devastating and addictive drug from the former slave states continues to take the lives of too many members of our community, and that is not an accident.
It has to do with marketing, unequal access to treatment and healthcare, and the effects of discrimination and economic injustice.
Tobacco companies spend $9 billion every year marketing their deadly, costly products. Make no mistake, they continue to deliberately prey upon black communities and our youth, and the 2014 California Tobacco Advertising Survey exposes the tactics they use. Menthol cigarettes are 28 to 55 cents cheaper in African American neighborhoods in California. Predominantly African American neighborhoods have 2.6 times more tobacco ads than predominantly white neighborhoods.
In other words, Big Tobacco works hard to prey on communities they perceive as "valuable customers." And African Americans are particularly "valuable" to the tobacco companies: when we start smoking, we tend to smoke much longer. Without equal access to treatment programs and basic medical care, the off-ramps from addiction are fewer and farther between - and, as multiple studies have shown, smoking is strongly correlated with both experiences of racial discrimination and poverty. Smokers perceive nicotine as a way to handle stress, and being Black and being poor in America are stressful.
The results are deadly.
Smoking-related illness is the number one cause of death in the African-American community, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. In California, one in five African-American adults smoke - more than any large ethnic group. Low-income African Americans smoke at even higher rates, and black children are disproportionately affected by exposure to secondhand smoke.
Taking on the tobacco industry is far bigger than a battle for our health; it is part of a larger movement for racial and economic justice. That is the reason that my organization, the Service Employees International Union California (SEIU), and the California NAACP both support Prop 56.
Here's why Prop 56 will work: it will raise the price of cigarettes - including the menthols that tobacco companies peddle to black people and the fruity-flavored, kid-themed e-cigarettes that they are using to entice children into addiction. Studies show that the most price-sensitive group is young African Americans, so that more youth will be kept safe. In addition, the funds raised by Prop 56 will help increase healthcare access for lower-income families by offsetting the cost of tobacco-related diseases, and additional money goes to desperately needed addiction treatment programs.
The Institute of Medicine, the US Surgeon General and the World Health Organization all agree that increasing the price of tobacco products is the single most effective way to reduce tobacco use.
But tobacco companies are spending tens of millions trying to make sure that doesn't happen in California. Despite their claims otherwise, Phillip Morris USA and RJ Reynolds have no regard for black children, except for the fact that they signify the next generation of tobacco addicts.
These two tobacco giants have contributed almost all of the $56 million so far to oppose Prop 56.
They are saturating Californians' radios, TVs and Internet with deceptive ads that have been widely discredited by independent sources. They have spent more than $200 million on campaign contributions to defeat tobacco taxes in California in the last ten years.
We must not underestimate what these tens of millions of dollars and armies of lawyers and PR teams can do.
Big Tobacco has never been our friend, despite the lure of marketing dollars and donations. Its history of exploitation extends back to our nation's founding crimes against us and continues today in the form of tens of thousands of needless deaths.
It is time to vote yes on Prop 56 and show Big Tobacco the door.