The strong association between Black smokers and Newport cigarettes is not a coincidence or a simple cultural preference. It’s the result of decades of deliberate marketing by tobacco companies, combined with targeted retail strategies and a product designed to make smoking easier to start and harder to quit. About 72% of Black adults who smoke use menthol cigarettes, compared to roughly 29% of white smokers. Newport, made by Lorillard Tobacco, is by far the dominant brand in that category.
Tobacco Companies Built This Market on Purpose
Starting in the 1950s, the tobacco industry began marketing menthol brands specifically to Black consumers through advertisements in Black publications. Kool and R.J. Reynolds’ Salem were among the first. But from the 1960s onward, Lorillard’s Newport aggressively expanded its presence and eventually became the number one menthol cigarette and the leading brand among Black smokers by a wide margin.
Newport’s campaigns ran for decades in Black media. Ads appeared in magazines like Jet well into the 2010s, featuring young Black couples dancing, snowboarding, and socializing. The branding was consistent: Newport was cool, social, and fun. Billboards went up in Black neighborhoods with slogans like “Check It Out” and “Bold Cold.” The imagery was carefully designed to feel culturally specific, not like a generic cigarette ad repurposed for a different audience.
The marketing extended beyond advertising. Tobacco companies donated to historically Black colleges and universities, sponsored scholarships for Black students, and gave money to influential Black leaders and organizations. They promoted products at community events in majority-Black neighborhoods. One campaign targeting Black young adults featured pop-up concerts with hip-hop artists inside convenience stores. These efforts created goodwill and normalized cigarette brands within Black community life in ways that went far beyond a magazine ad.
More Tobacco Stores, More Exposure
Marketing wasn’t limited to ads and sponsorships. The tobacco industry also shaped where its products were sold. A systematic review of studies on tobacco retail availability found that neighborhoods with more Black residents had greater access to tobacco retailers in nearly 83% of the comparisons studied. Separate research documented greater point-of-sale tobacco marketing (signs, displays, price promotions) in neighborhoods with lower incomes and higher percentages of Black residents.
This means that in many Black neighborhoods, tobacco products are more visible, more available, and more heavily promoted at the point of purchase than in whiter or wealthier areas. When you pass more tobacco advertising on your daily route and have more stores selling cigarettes within walking distance, the cumulative exposure matters. It shapes what feels normal and what brands feel familiar.
Why Menthol Specifically
Menthol isn’t just a flavor. It’s a pharmacologically active compound that changes how smoking feels in your body. When you inhale menthol cigarette smoke, it activates cold-sensing receptors in your nose and throat, creating a cooling sensation. More importantly, it acts as a counterirritant: it reduces your perception of the harshness and burning that tobacco smoke normally causes. Research in mice has confirmed that menthol suppresses cough reflexes triggered in the lower airways by activating specific nerve pathways in the nose.
This matters because the first experience of smoking is usually unpleasant. Coughing, throat burn, and irritation are the body’s natural defenses against inhaling smoke. Menthol suppresses those signals, making it easier for new smokers to tolerate cigarettes and continue using them. For the tobacco industry, that’s a feature, not a side effect. A smoother first cigarette means a higher chance of a second one.
Harder to Quit Once You Start
The same properties that make menthol cigarettes easier to start also make them harder to stop. According to the CDC, people who smoke menthol cigarettes actually attempt to quit more often than non-menthol smokers. But they succeed less often. The quit rate for menthol smokers is lower than for non-menthol smokers, likely because menthol enhances the effects of nicotine in the brain, deepening physical dependence.
Black menthol smokers face an even steeper challenge. The CDC notes that Black Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes may be less successful at quitting than other groups. Part of this is biological, related to how menthol interacts with nicotine. But part of it is structural: Black communities face barriers to accessing proven quit-smoking treatments, and the environments where many Black Americans live, work, and socialize can make quitting harder when tobacco is so heavily marketed and widely available nearby.
The Racial Gap in Numbers
CDC data covering 1999 through 2018 shows just how stark the disparity is. During the most recent period analyzed (2015 to 2018), 71.8% of Black adults who smoked used menthol cigarettes. Among white smokers, the figure was 29.3%. Mexican American smokers came in at 31.0%, and other Hispanic smokers at 43.0%. No other racial or ethnic group came close to the rate among Black smokers.
These numbers held remarkably steady over the entire two-decade study period, with Black adults averaging 73.0% menthol use across all years. That consistency reflects how deeply entrenched the preference became after decades of targeted marketing. It’s not a trend. It’s a manufactured norm that has persisted across generations.
The Regulatory Fight Over Menthol
The FDA proposed rules to ban menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes, citing the role menthol plays in making cigarettes more addictive and the disproportionate impact on Black communities. The public comment period closed in August 2022, but the agency has not finalized the ban. The FDA has stated that if the rules are ever implemented, enforcement would target manufacturers, distributors, and retailers only. Individual consumers would not face penalties for possessing or using menthol cigarettes.
The delay has frustrated public health advocates who point out that menthol cigarettes contribute to significant health disparities. Black Americans experience higher rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, and the concentration of menthol use in Black communities is a direct contributor. Every year without a ban means another cohort of young people in heavily marketed neighborhoods starting on a product engineered to be easy to try and difficult to leave behind.