Nearly 100 advocacy groups are asking the United Nations (UN) to pressure the US government to ban menthol tobacco products, citing evidence that manufacturers are marketing directly to African Americans, reports Bloomberg.

According to the reports, the request is addressed to a UN committee that seeks to end racial discrimination. The groups want the committee to call on the US to ban menthol cigarettes. “The decades of well-documented racialised and predatory tobacco industry targeting of African Americans, specifically with menthol flavouring, is a human rights issue,” the groups say in the letter.
Controversy over the agency's failure to impose restrictions on tobacco – despite talking about it for many years – has grown amid heightened concerns about smoking during the Covid-19 respiratory pandemic, particularly for African Americans. There has been controversy for decades over the way menthols have been marketed to African Americans.
The FDA is expected to issue a statement on menthol cigarettes by 29 April due to a lawsuit filed by the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC). The group has sued the FDA for failing to regulate menthol despite congressional urging to do so in 2009, the report said.