The tobacco industry has strong ties with the African-American community by both benefiting them and by killing them perhaps more than any other enterprise. The tobacco industry was well ahead of most corporate America when it began using black models in ads, placing advertisements in black-oriented media, sponsoring black civil leaders and politicians when no one else would, and hiring and promoting black employees. The tobacco companies made the African-American community economically dependent on them while at the same time heavily targeting the African-American community to smoke through advertising and creating special brands of menthol cigarettes in an attempt to appeal to blacks. The ties between the tobacco companies and the African-American community are being challenged as awareness grows of the heavy toll tobacco takes on minorities and the industry’s strategic efforts to lure them to smoke.
In July of 1994 the National Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the biggest public anti-smoking campaign aimed specifically at African-Americans. The $200,000 public-advertising campaign encouraged individual blacks to stop smoking and it called on African-American organizations to re-examine their ties to tobacco and take an active role in the anti-smoking movement. The National Association of Black Journalists turned down a $40,000 donation from Phillip Morris.
“It was a tough decision because tobacco companies have long been supporters of black media when very few others have. But we couldn’t take money from an organization deliberately targeting minority populations with a substance that clearly causes cancer. We simply have to become more aggressive in our fund-raising so we can do without it,” said the group’s president Thomas Morgan.
The National Association of African-Americans for Positive Imagery, the Uptown Coalition for Tobacco Control and Public Health and current and former smokers of menthol cigarettes filed a national class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry on October 19, 1998. The lawsuit charges that the tobacco industry targeted mentholated brands to the African-American community and cigarettes containing menthol may be more dangerous than regular cigarettes. The lawsuit seeks a total ban on mentholated tobacco products, and requires that tobacco companies publicly disclose all of their research on menthol and its health effects. African-Americans account for 10 percent of US smokers, but they account for 80 percent of the menthol market. African-Americans are 30 percent more likely to die from smoking-related diseases than whites. The lawsuit, the first to be brought against the tobacco industry under civil rights law, is based on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1870. The Act was intended to prevent targeting black people in ways that take advantage of them.
70% of African American smokers indicated that they want to quit smoking completely. The prevalence of cessation however,(the percentage of persons who have smoked at lease 100 cigarettes and quit) is higher among Whites (51%) than among African Americans (35%).
Tobacco companies target both the African American and Hispanics communities with intensive merchandising: billboards, advertising in media-oriented events and sponsorship of civic groups and athletic, cultural and entertainment events.
African American communities are overly targeted with cigarette advertising. Since the tobacco MSA (Master Settlement Agreement), every African American adult is annually exposed to 892 tobacco ads. Expenditures for magazine advertising of mentholated cigarettes, which is most preferred among African Americans, increased from 13% of total expenditures in 1998 to 49 percent in 2005.