Sparks flying over Hochul’s proposed menthol ban as backers unveil new ad campaign

ALBANY — The battle over Gov. Hochul’s plans to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes and hit smokers with an additional dollar-per-pack tax is heating up as supporters launch a new ad campaign.

Tobacco Kills NY, a statewide coalition including civil rights and health advocates, unveiled a major ad campaign Thursday highlighting the harms of flavored tobacco products and pushing back on opponents to the governor’s proposals.

“Black and brown New Yorkers have been targeted by Big Tobacco for generations with lies and dangerous products, making our rates of disease and death far higher than white smokers,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, which is part of the coalition “Now Big Tobacco continues to fund misinformation campaigns that confuse the facts about our important legislation to remove deadly menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products from stores.”

The group’s ads will air statewide throughout the month of March as legislative leaders and the governor’s office work on crafting a final state spending plan ahead of an April 1 fiscal deadline.

Hochul, hoping to drive down tobacco use among younger New Yorkers and lower smoking levels in minority communities, included legislative changes banning all flavored tobacco products and increasing taxes on cigarette purchases in her $227 billion budget proposal last month.

State Health Department data shows that menthol cigarettes are used by over half of all adult smokers, while 86% of Black and 72% of Hispanic smokers exclusively smoke menthol.

Tobacco Kills NY’s new push comes days after a new Siena College poll showed the majority of New Yorkers supports the proposed ban on menthol-flavored tobacco products, with 57% in favor versus 35% against.

Respondents also gave the thumbs up to Hochul’s $1-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes, with only a third reporting they are against the measure.

Critics, however, have slammed the proposed prohibition, arguing it won’t decrease smoking rates so much as it will be a boon for black market cigarette sales and harm convenience small business owners.

Kent Sopris, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS), joined local business owners and law enforcement officials Thursday outside of an upstate shop to push back on the ban.

“These regressive policies will increase crime and strengthen the illegal market, rob state and local governments of much-needed tax revenue and put legitimate retailers out of business,” Sopris said. “What it won’t do is stop smoking and the more New Yorkers hear the facts the more they realize that prohibition doesn’t work.”

Sopris and others also point out issues that arose after neighboring Massachusetts became the first state to ban all flavored tobacco products in 2020. The prohibition led to sales of cigarettes in New Hampshire increasing by 22% and in Rhode Island by 18%.