Biden delays men­thol ban amid 2024 con­cerns over black sup­port

A two-year-old pro­pos­al to ban men­thol cig­a­rettes may be delayed until after the 2024 elec­tion as Pres­i­dent Joe Biden weighs a move that could risk erod­ing his sup­port with­in the black com­mu­ni­ty.
The Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion first pro­posed ban­ning men­thols and fla­vored cig­ars in April 2022, but has since missed two dead­lines for final­iz­ing the rule, the sec­ond of which expired at the end of March.
“The FDA remains com­mit­ted to issu­ing the tobac­co prod­uct stan­dards for men­thol in cig­a­rettes and char­ac­ter­iz­ing fla­vors in cig­ars as expe­di­tious­ly as pos­si­ble,” the agency said in a state­ment, not­ing that the process is in its final stage. “As we’ve made clear, these prod­uct stan­dards remain at the top of our pri­or­i­ties.”
But some observers say oth­er pri­or­i­ties are behi …