The head of one of New York’s top civil rights groups castigated City Council Speaker Corey Johnson Monday for failing to back a menthol cigarette ban as he moves to put the kibosh on flavored e-cigarettes.
“For decades, Big Tobacco has aggressively marketed menthol cigarettes to communities of color, leading to disproportionate health outcomes compared to white smokers,” wrote Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP’s New York chapter, in a letter sent to Johnson and obtained by The Post.
“Every day the menthol loophole is left open, dozens more addicts are made in our city — and they’re mostly black and brown.”
The City Council is currently considering two bills — one that would ban the sale of menthol cigarettes and one for flavored e-cigs.
Dukes said if Johnson really “care[s] about the health of young people and communities of color in New York” then he needs to back both pieces of legislation “immediately.”
Johnson has said he supports the vaping ban but is undecided over the menthol-smokes ban and has yet to schedule it for a vote. Bill sponsor Councilman Fernando Cabrera (D-the Bronx) has enough votes to pass it.
Johnson’s office deflected the criticism.
The speaker “is concerned about the health impacts of menthol flavors in tobacco products,” said spokesman Jacob Tugendrajch. “He is aware this is a major problem and he is talking to stakeholders and actively seeking solutions.”
Johnson is using a Juul to break a decade-old smoking habit.
Influential Harlem civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton has opposed a menthol cigarette ban, saying it could create “another Eric Garner situation” because the legislation fails to address how cops would enforce such a law.
“Eric Garner was killed during an encounter selling loosies,” Sharpton said in January, referring to the Staten Island man who died in 2014 after being taken down by a cop amid a dispute over selling illegal smokes.
Sharpton heads the National Action Network, which has received funding from tobacco giant RJ Reynolds — the maker of the nation’s top-selling menthol cigarette brand, Newport.
Cabrera declined to say whether he believes politics is preventing Johnson from supporting the ban of menthol cigarettes.
However, he said he expects both his bill and the flavored e-smokes ban to be approved before the Council breaks for the winter holidays.
“My sense is this all will get done before Christmas – and that’s how it should be!” Cabrera said in a phone interview Monday. “How many more times do we have to hear stories about young people dying?”
The push to ban menthol cigarette sales citywide comes amid an even larger groundswell of support to pull e-cigarettes — with flavors like cotton candy and bubble gum — off store shelves amid a national crisis that has seen more than a dozen people die from vaping-related illness.
Cabrera said the council wants both proposed bans to be voted on simultaneously so that kids who vape don’t turn to menthol cigarettes as an alternative.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this month ordered a temporary, 90-day ban statewide on flavored e-cigarette products as New York attempts to deal with a vaping health crisis. He wants the state legislature to draft a law that would make the ban permanent.