My next guest, totally unrelated to the spear jam bands or the Grateful Dead, is on to talk about something that happened, and in the flurry of activity, this one slid right past me and I didn't even see it. On day two of the Trump administration, the FDA withdrew its proposed menthol cigarette ban, citing enforcement concerns and potential unintended consequences. And enjoining me now to talk about it is Brian Knuckles, a Youngian psychotherapist turned journalist and policy
writer and a Young Voices contributor. He just wrote an op ed about this decision. And Brian, first of all, welcome to the show. And second of all, you're actually arguing that this is a victory for harm reduction by not banning menthol cigarettes. Explain that to me.
Absolutely. Mandy, first of all, a big fan of the show. I'm so excited to be here, and absolutely I want to talk about, yeah, how bureaucratic, top down bands often lead to unintended consequences. If you want to reduce harm, hitting the FDA and golf is probably the worst thing you could do. And this Trump's reversal of this band is a huge win for harm reduction, public health and agency for people as well.
I thought this ban when the Biden administration was talking about banning specifically menthol cigarettes, like, everybody knows that there is a stereotype exists, and it exists for a reason that African Americans seem to smoke menthol cigarettes at a higher rate than white people. And you know what, every black person, this is anecdotal. Every black person I know has always smoked Newports if they were smoking. So in
my world, there was some truth to that. And when I found out Biden was just going to ban menthol cigarettes, I thought, how patronizing to black people to essentially say you're making this bad choice, we don't like it, so we're going to take away what you do like and hope that you stop. Wasn't that wasn't that kind of the end game that they were going for.
I mean, you speak about it being in a buildal with This was a stated directive coming from the Biden administration that we can protect we know better than the black community. They can have the cigarettes because they'll die.
This was stated in the FBA's policy briefs. So you're absolutely right, and I do agree there, you know, I explored from a kind of pragmatic lens and the piece, but I mentioned that at the end, I mean from a liberty nanny state perspective, these bands are pretty offensive and to particularly target black people, I agree, it's very patronizing.
So when you talk about harm reduction when it comes to smoking, we recently went through this with Zin and you had the Denver City Council trying to ban flavored vaping because they're like, oh, the children or whatever. But the reality is is that those non tobacco methods of getting nicotine are used by a lot of people to quit smoking. How is menthol or mental cigarettes? How would that be used in harm reduction if anyway?
Well, how I like to think about it is there's kind of two dimensions to harm reduction. One is we accept human nature. People like to smoke. Whether you find it gross or you don't like it, or you wish your parents didn't smoke, people will smoke. It's part of accepting human nature. People over the world smoke, So there's that aspect of it, and so just kind of accepting that at framing and no matter what Michael Bloomberg or Joe Biden says, people are probably going to smoke, and
that's the way it is. So that's one dimension. And then there's also choice based strategies to mental health and recognizing with innovations, if we get the venture capitalists and the money behind things, we will innovate. And if you trust trust the free enterprise method, people don't like to die, you know, so people will probably people will choose over time healthier solutions. And so yeah, the metthol My connection to menthol was just one, people like menthol, so banning
it befo. We're just going to get it ellestively. And two the mechanism of mental the coolness, yes, love it. It's yeah, that's something interesting that we can maybe learn from for safe for alternatives. I got to think that.
And to your point that there are always going to be people who are going to smoke, I would say, at this point in our society right think about it. We all know smoking is bad for us. We all know smoking causes lung cancer and emphasema. We know it causes COPD, we know that it smells, it makes you
look old, it ages your skin. And yet even though we've raised taxes to where cigarettes last time I looked, we're like nine to fifty in Colorado, we still have a percentage of the population that is still smoking.
So what in the world are.
You going to do that is going to make that population stop. They're either going to get sick, they're going to get broke, right, and that's why they're going to stop smoking. Those are the only two reasons. So to act as if somehow more government intervention is going to get those hardcore I call them lifers right, their lifers, they're lifetime smokers. It's not going to work. It has to come from within them, and they're going to work
around the government. I do want to talk to you about how these menthal bands could potentially create a black market. Tell me about that.
Well, there's a lot of evidence that this happened. So this national ban isn't coming out of nowhere. It's been tried in California and Massachusetts, and the evidence is clear people did not stop smoking month als cigarette. So the illicit markets emerged, you know, like they often do when
you ban something that people like, Unlicit markets emerged and use. Actually, ironically, in Massachusetts, the stated intention, like you mentioned earlier, was to prevent black people from smoking mental slightly, very slightly less than one percent decrease in overall or use of menthols, but among black women and kick there there's like a forty percent increase and they're still trying to figure that one out.
Well, I think that becomes a status symbol. It's kind of like people who for years and years and now it's not as much a big deal because Cubas opened up a little bit. But man, I lived in Southwest Florida and there were men who had boxes of Cuban cigars that I mean, they walked around with these things under their arm like they were like a trophy, and there was a trophy aspect to it, because then it
becomes contraband, right, so now you've made it cool. You've made it like rebellious to have a pack of Newports, which is so ridiculous. But I always think of Eric Garner, and I don't know if you remember Eric Garner in New York City, but Eric Garner was selling, as they call him, in New York loosies because cigarette taxes in New York are so oppressive. I think cigarettes there are
like twelve to fifty a pack. So it created this black market where people would stand and sell loose cigarettes and ended up with him being taken to the ground in by police and a choke cold in him dying. And so that's the kind of unintended consequences that you're talking about. And I think that anytime you tell grown ass adults who should be able to make their own choices, that we're not going to let you have something, it just makes it more popular than it did before.
Yeah, it's a great it's a very incisive point. You make an idea about the Eric partner. I actually hadn't put that together, but great point. A death another death that we can attribute to the state. Absolutely, I have to admit that when if the state tells me how to do something, I am very myself very likely to start doing it. I think the red rulves amongst us will find that appealing.
Well, you know, I hope everybody stops smoking. I'm a former smoker, so I you know, I always hope that people decide to spend their money on something more worthwhile, like anything else. But ultimately, as a libertarian, small libertarian, I'm gonna I'm gonna fight for you're right to continue to smoke.
I really am. I hate it. I hate the.
Habit, but people should be allowed to make their own decisions. Brian Knuckles is my guest. Thank you so much for making time for me today.
Brian absolutely, Mandy, it's a pleasure. In good luck, I'll see you soon