Thoughts on Rush Limbaugh …

Thoughts on Rush Limbaugh…

This is not new news. Rush Limbaugh died in February 2021 during my hiatus.

Obviously, he was a racist, promoted racism, did his share to bring toxicity to the airwaves and to today’s political discourse. So, there were a lot of reasons to hate him.

I’m not a fan of pissing on the dead, but really, Rush Limbaugh did a lot of damage in the world. Among the awful things about him was the misinformation and lies he repeated about smoking.

Rush’s infamous Fuck You smoking protrait

Limbaugh was a heavy cigar smoker much of his life and not coincidentally died of lung cancer. He also spread the lie that not only did secondhand smoke not cause cancer, neither did smoking itself.

According to Snopes, this is a real quote from Rush Limbaugh:

“There is no conclusive proof that nicotine is addictive. And the same thing with cigarettes causing emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease…”

I always suspected that Rush knew 90 percent of what he spouted was pure bullshit. But, he spouted it because he knew his audience loved it. Rush loved to light up a cigar for the cameras and blow cigar smoke into the lens as a clear “Fuck you” to the libs.

Well, lung cancer had the last laugh. Lung cancer had the ultimate “Fuck you” to Rush. There was no deathbed confession of his wrongs, no public statement of “My God, what have I done…?” Good for him. He’s dead. And frankly, the world is a better place without him. I’m not going to lie. And I’m not going to play nice about it.

Menthol cigarettes finally banned

Menthol Cigarettes finally banned

First of all, with a new presidential administration in place with Joe Biden, big changes are happening with oversight toward the tobacco industry. The big thing that happened last week is menthol cigarettes were FINALLY banned by the Food and Drug Administration last week.

Also to be banned are surgary cigars like Swisher Sweets.

The ban isn’t immediate. It has to go through a lengthy comment period and should take effect in about a year.

This has been a point of controversy for many years. The FDA some time ago banned candy- or sugar-flavoured cigarettes, but punted on menthols. Even though technically, menthol is a sweet, candy-like flavouring.

The biggest reason the FDA kicked the can down the road is that candy-flavoured cigarettes, while clearly directed at getting teens to take up smoking, were never that big a part of the cigarette market.

Menthols, on the other hand, are a HUGE part of the tobacco market. In fact, Newport cigarettes, a menthol brand, was once upon a time Lorrilard’s biggest brand. According to this CNN article, menthols make up 33 percent of the tobacco market in the U.S.

Weirdly enough, Kool cigarettes, another menthol brand were once my parents’ favourite brand. What makes it weird is to be honest, they could be kind of racist, and menthol cigarettes were heavily marketed toward Black people.

From the CNN article:

“Despite the tremendous progress we’ve made in getting people to stop smoking over the past 55 years, that progress hasn’t been experienced by everyone equally,” said Mitch Zeller with the FDA’s Office of Tobacco. “In the United States, compared to non-Hispanic White smokers, significantly fewer Black smokers support long-term quitting and Black smokers are more likely to die of tobacco-related disease than White smokers.”

Mentholated brands of tobacco products have been heavily marketed to racial minorities resulting in disproportionate use. More than 85% of mentholated brand users are Black, nearly 47% are Hispanic, 38% are Asian, nearly 29% are White, according to the CDC.

 

Why or how menthols found a market among Blacks, I’m not sure. Here is a pretty good article examining the history of menthol cigarettes and Black smokers.

The ban does not include menthol ecigs for now, but I see that as another issue to be debated another day anyway. Menthol isn’t marketed to KIDS the way bubble-gum and cherry flavoured ecigs have been.

Back from a hiatus

Back from a long hiatus

And hey, this is Marceline the Vampire Queen from Adventure Time wearing an anti-smoking T-shirt. I thought that was cute.

I haven’t updated the blog for a while. It seemed like COVID (As well as Donald Trump, police brutality, etc.)  kind of took over the collective consciousness there for a long time and I’ve been very, very busy with work. On my off time, I don’t always feel like writing.

Also, my mother passed away recently after a very long and painful battle against COPD. I will write more about that later when I’m ready to post about it. I’m not there yet. She is largely responsible for me starting this blog to begin with nearly 15 years ago.

Anyway, I’m feeling to urge to end my hiatus and begin posting again. A couple of major tobacco-related stories have happened recently, one just a few days ago that is a BIG deal, so on to that.