Here's another #stopmenthol tweet. The "harm reduction" trolls are out in force and seem to be opposed to everything I tweet. Maybe it's muscle memory but I still find it odd. (BTW, I will continue blocking trolls.) Here's the part that's odd:

As I understand it, their goal is to get adult smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. This tweet isn't about the merits or demerits of that. If that is your goal, all tactics fall into two buckets, the carrot and the stick. They seem to be largely focused on the carrot and accuse

public health folks of not promoting e-cigarettes hard enough. They also seem to be opposed to any and all regulation of e-cigarettes even when it would benefit users but that's a discussion for another day. If the goal is to get people to stop smoking, why oppose a policy that

will do exactly that? It is an undisputed (except by industry) scientific truth that the removal of menthol from cigarettes would decrease initiation and increase cessation, the very thing that "harm reductionists" purport to want. Now, I have yet to see any of them actually

articulate a logical argument in opposition. At least on Twitter, they seem to be whatabouting on every issue. So, I'm left to guess at what's going on. For some, they seem to just be contrarians and I don't have time for that. Be for something, not just against everything.

The current policy landscape results in half a million deaths from tobacco annually and e-cigarettes have been around long enough to have changed that trajectory if they were going to. It turns out, the unregulated market doesn't work to decrease harm. So, if your goal

is protecting adult smokers, you might want to figure out a policy position that supports something other than the status quo. There's also a degree of parroting industry talking points (illicit trade, criminalization, etc.) which is hypocritical if you're anti-Big Tobacco.

You can draw your own conclusions there. The final argument that I've seen is that this is the first step to a slippery slope that results in action on flavors in e-cigarettes. That should raise some serious alarm bells for public health folks. If you make that argument and you

care about public health and you see a role for e-cigarettes in harm reduction, I have a question for you: why are you ok with sacrificing black and brown lives? Removing menthol saves lives, those same lives you purport to care about when you tweet about criminalization.

If your opposition to action on menthol is that you're scared of the government taking away your tutti frutti e-liquid, you're saying that black and brown lives don't matter as much as your flavor preference. It is that simple.

If you care about smokers, if you care about black lives, you're in favor of action on menthol. If you're opposing it, you're doing Big Tobacco's bidding.