The NBCC Opposes Flavored Cigar Ban Based on Economic, Social Damage, & Perpetuation of Injustice
The largest Black business association in the world and is dedicated to economically empowering and sustaining African-American communities through entrepreneurship and capitalistic activity within the United States.
Distrust in these (health) systems, traditionally by ethnic minorities and vulnerable peoples—and now increasingly by the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder fashioned by income inequality”
WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, August 24, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization reaching 100,000 Black owned businesses, has written the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opposing the Agency’s proposed ban on flavored cigars. NBCC maintained that the rule could “result in economic and social damage and the perpetuation of injustice in our communities here and abroad, with little if any benefit to public health and perhaps even harm to these communities’ physical well-being.” Charles H. DeBow, III, NBCC Chief Executive Officer, called upon FDA to “immediately withdraw— Charles H. DeBow, III, CEO of The National Black Chamber of Commerce
this rule and re-examine the costs to the economy and the stability and safety of African American communities,” asserting that the proposed ban would:
1. Hurt Black-owned small businesses, their workers and their communities, in particular at least 70 Black-owned cigar-makers, convenience stores, “pillars of inner-city communities” which frequently provide a first rung up on the job ladder, serve as oases in inner- city food deserts, and serve as a major source of SNAP food sales.
2. Damage and the leading exporter of cigars to the United States, the Dominican Republic, a country predominantly populated by people of color.
3. Drive up the booming illicit and counterfeit markets in tobacco products, ensuring that enforcement of a flavor ban would “bring African Americans, already the subject of over policing, into further confrontations with law enforcement personnel.”
4. Potentially halt the extraordinary reductions in youth cigar usage over recent years, including in minority communities, as illicit sales are certain to target them, and
5. affect overall compliance by communities of color with public health authorities, and “by extension, progress toward health equity and justice,” as the rule could deepen “historic distrust in medicine and government (that) is associated with poor health outcomes” in those communities and had already been worsened by government agencies’ missteps on COVID.
NBCC’s full comment is reproduced here.
Charles DeBow
National Black Chamber of Comm
+1 202-220-3060
admin@nationalbcc.org
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