Very interesting Free Press article on RJ Reynold's [the tobacco giant behind America's most popular brand of menthol cigarettes, Newport] efforts to oppose the proposed ban on menthol cigarettes.

Their efforts include offering huge sums to Afro-Am organizations and personalities such as Horace Sheffield, who is the pastor of the New Destiny Christian Fellowship and the head of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations. [He declined.]

https://freep-mi.newsmemory.com?publ...5548a1_13485bd

Interesting snips...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes, the flavor of choice, the FDA said, for 85% of Black smokers.

Chronic underfunding of Black-led organizations meant some could be convinced to take the money, Sheffield warned.

Every year, 40,000 Black people die from smoking-related diseases in the U.S. Almost all African Americans who smoke, some 93%, started with menthols.

“The last conversation we had, it was between $200,000 and $250,000 one time, plus additional money going forward if I would actually say, 'I thought about it, I'm on the wrong side,' ” he said. “I was told that some local people had gotten that much money and I could probably get more.”

RJ Reynolds, have exploited concerns about police brutality against Black citizens and at times failed to declare their links to the industry. Reynolds American is owned by British American Tobacco, based in London.

[Sheffield says,] “My concern with tobacco goes back to 1971, when I stood over my mother at Metropolitan Hospital and she took her last breath at 43 years of age. She could never stop smoking,” he said. “Black lives matter, but Black lungs do, too.”