Stanford: Menthol cigarette marketing is ‘predatory,’ aimed at black kids

Steven E.F. Brown, San Francisco Business Times | June 24, 2011

A Stanford School of Medicine study published on Wikipedia says tobacco companies cut prices of menthol cigarettes and boosted advertisements for them near California high schools with lots of black students.

The report calls the marketing “predatory.” It is “geared to luring young African Americans into becoming smokers.”

“The tobacco companies went out of their way to argue to the Food & Drug Administration that they don’t use racial targeting. The evidence is not consistent with those claims,” said Lisa Henriksen, the lead author of the study.

Researchers randomly chose convenience stores and other small shops within walking distance of 91 schools. They used data from 2006 and studied how cigarettes were marketed in those stores.  (Read more)