After more than 17 years of legal battles and public health advocacy, the U.S. tobacco industry will soon be free from a rare form of accountability: the court-mandated requirement to publicly admit wrongdoing.
Beginning on July 1, Big Tobacco no longer must post corrective statements in stores, on cigarette packaging, or through other public messaging. This requirement stemmed from a 2006 federal court ruling that found major tobacco companies guilty of engaging in a decades-long conspiracy to deceive the American public about the dangers of smoking.
Let that sink in. The court found that companies like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds knowingly lied — about nicotine addiction, the risks of secondhand smoke, and the targeting of children in advertising — and only then were they ordered to publicly correct the record. Now, those statements are ending. But the damage lingers.
Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 480,000 Americans each year. Black communities, low-income neighborhoods, and youth have disproportionately borne this burden — often by design.
Menthol cigarettes were heavily marketed to Black Americans.
A 2019 CBS News report quoted a study of historic internal company documents in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
“In 1953, Phillip Morris commissioned the Roper organization to conduct a general survey of Americans’ smoking habits. The only menthol cigarette on the survey and the only one of any importance in the early 1950s was Kool.
“The Roper survey showed that only 2% of White Americans preferred the Kool brand. By contrast, the survey reported that 5% of African Americans preferred Kools (Roper, 1953). This small difference in preference was successfully parlayed by Brown & Williamson executives, and later by the tobacco industry, into the 70% vs. 30% difference that we see today between Black and white menthol smokers, respectively.”
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released last January, 80.9% of Black American adult smokers used menthol cigarettes, compared to 43.4% of adult smokers overall.
In addition:
-Black American smokers have disproportionately used menthol cigarettes for decades. As a result, between 1980 and 2018, menthol cigarettes were responsible for 1.5 million new smokers and 157,000 deaths among Black Americans.
-In 2018, more than half (51.4%) of Black American middle and high school students who smoked used menthol cigarettes, compared with 50.6% of Hispanic smokers and 42.8% of White smokers.
-Black American youth also have higher past 30-day menthol cigarette use compared to other races (56% vs. 47%) between 2018–2020.
Research shows that Black American smokers start to smoke later compared to those of other races. However, Black American adults who smoke menthol cigarettes are less likely to quit compared to other races and have lower quit rates than Black Americans who smoke non-menthol cigarettes.
According to the Truth Initiative, which states its mission “is to prevent youth and young adult nicotine addiction and empower quitting for all,” shares on its website that Black Americans have a higher prevalence of smoking compared with other racial and ethnic groups.
“They are disproportionately affected by tobacco use in several ways. For example, Black Americans have higher death rates from tobacco-related causes and are more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke,” a statement which is backed up by American Lung Association research.
The tobacco industry has targeted Black Americans and strategically marketed its products to appeal to the community for decades, including by placing more advertising in Black neighborhoods and in publications popular with Black audiences.
The most striking example is menthol cigarettes, which are easier to smoke and harder to quit. 80.9% of Black American smokers use menthol cigarettes, and about 45,000 Black Americans die from smoking-related disease each year. Experts believe that racial differences in socioeconomic factors and secondhand smoke exposure may play a role.
The corrective statements were never about punishment. They were about the truth. For once, Big Tobacco had to say aloud what it had long known and long concealed: that smoking kills, that it’s engineered to be addictive, and that it was sold with ruthless disregard for human life. These statements weren’t ads — they were public health interventions.
The end of this court order is not a sign that the tobacco companies have changed. It’s a sign that the legal clock has run out. But while their court-ordered speech may end, our obligation to speak up continues.
Now is not the time for complacency. With new products like e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches flooding the market — and often escaping regulatory scrutiny — we risk repeating history. We must push for policies that reduce tobacco use, hold the industry accountable, and protect future generations from being deceived and addicted.
Corrective statements may be coming down, but our fight for health equity and tobacco justice and liberation must remain on full display.
Charles Debnam is a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist (CTTS). He is chair of the Washington, DC Tobacco Free Coalition, and the D.C. representative for the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council.