Rev. Michael Eric Dyson tells Detroiters tobacco marketing devastates communities

Detroit — Detroit native and academic the Rev. Michael Eric Dyson shared his personal and political battle against tobacco with a crowd of about 100 people Saturday at the Detroit Historical Museum.

Dyson, 64, distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University, said marketing menthol cigarettes to youth is an attempt seduce them to participate in practices that harm them.

"We're concerned, rightfully so, about gun violence in our communities ... but this is equally devastating, taking out many more lives with a kind of pass that is given to menthol that is never conceded to gun violence," Dyson said.

Saturday's gathering was a Juneteenth Lunch & Learn event hosted by Making It Count Community Development Corp., a Detroit-based nonprofit whose mission is to reduce health disparities among the Black community in Detroit and throughout the state.

Dyson reflected on how he was enticed by tobacco when he was growing up near Fernwood Street on the city's west side.

Dyson told the crowd he saw big personalities smoking cigarettes and cigars and wanted to follow their example by buying candy that looked like tobacco products. But he said after he witnessed an attempted robbery at a corner store that sold the candy, he stopped buying it and never took an interest in tobacco again.

A study published by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids noted approximately 45,000 African Americans die from smoking-related disease annually.

Minou Jones, founder and CEO of the Making It Count Community Development Corp., said in addition to seeing how Blacks are disproportionately impacted by tobacco use, losing her father to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in November fuels her fight to save Black lives from tobacco.

Jones said she personally knew 10 people who died from tobacco including her grandmother, aunt and best friend.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Black Americans are among the highest tobacco-related mortality rates of racial or ethnic group in the United States, and are more likely to die from smoking-related diseases than Hispanic people and Non-Hispanic White people.

The CDC found that 2.55 million middle and high school students reported e-cigarette use in 2022 and 84.9% used e-cigarettes with flavors other than tobacco.

Michael Smith, 17, of Oak Park said he sees the ways vaping is marketed to those in his age group and believes it's done to perpetuate tobacco addiction beyond cigarettes.

"Every time I walk into a gas station, I see the same mentholated products in my community to replace old smokers with new smokers," he said.

Smith said the whole community, not just youth, needs to address youth tobacco use.

"This is not just a 'you' issue, its an 'us' one," Michael Smith, 17, of Oak Park said. "This is a social justice concern."

In April 2022 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed rules to prohibit menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.” 

The FDA said in 2019 more than 18.5 million people ages 12 and older in the U.S. smoked menthol cigarettes "with particularly high rates of use by youth, young adults, and African American and other racial and ethnic groups."

The agency said modeling studies estimated a 15% reduction in smoking within 40 years if menthol cigarettes were no longer available in the United States, and that 324,000 to 654,000 smoking attributable deaths overall (92,000 to 238,000 among African Americans) would be avoided.

The FDA extended the public comment period on the rules from June to August 2022 but has yet to enact them

jaimery@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @wordsbyjakkar