(PR) The National BlackChamber of Commerce (NBCC) announced today that it has submitted testimony to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee regarding legislation to increase federal regulation of tobacco products. The bill in question is S. 625, introduced earlier this month by Senator Ted Kennedy
(D-MA).
This legislation, giving the Food and Drug Administration broad new powers to regulate tobacco, would affect millions of business owners around the nation. The NBCC, representing a wide variety of African American
business owners, is expressing its concern about this bill’s impact on small businesses nationwide.
In his testimony, NBCC President and CEO Harry C. Alford said, “As written, the bill would represent a threat to every small retailer and distributor of tobacco and related products in the country. As you well know, thousands of such small businesses across the country are Black-owned businesses, and like most small businesses, they are struggling every day to survive in an extremely competitive marketplace. One of the greatest
threats posed to the success of small businesses is government overregulation, and overregulation is exactly what S.625 seems to have in mind.”
Mr. Alford went on to say, “At every turn, S.625 undercuts the honest work being done by small businesses — user fees that depress wages and encourage job loss, lost revenues, unfair enforcement and application of
the rules and regulations. S.625 is a well-meaning bill, but one that will have disastrous effects on thousands of minority-owned retailers around the country, killing jobs and closing businesses in those communities that can
least afford to take the hit.”
The NBCC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of African American communities. 190 affiliated chapters are locally based throughout the nation as well as
international affiliate chapters based in Bahamas, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana and Jamaica and businesses as well as individuals who may have chosen to be direct members with the national office.
SOURCE National Black Chamber of Commerce
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So on one hand the tobacco industry is accused of “targeting” the Black community via advertisements, but on the other hand the survival of “thousands of minority-owned businesses is intertwined with the product.
Never mind! My head is starting to hurt.
Well…I don’t know if I can sympathize too strong with those in the tobacco industry…As long as those leaves are given to companies that adulterate the product, I show no remorse. Menthol is a poison. Why Blacks are marketed and given the experimental product in a higher ratio than others and blacks tolerate it…jeeze. Tobacco isn’t an intelligent product to consume as long as it in the form of nicotine delivery devices aka cigarettes.
And then there’s the history aspect of it:
You know, picking it for the British Empire, then for the American colonists, then for the renegade Confederacy, then for Jim Crow…
Black folk can do better than Big (Ole) Tobacco. No ifs, ands or butts.
Commenter “S. Cain” holds no understanding of tobacco use and does not understand the impact cigarette sales have for black-owned businesses like mine. Cigarettes are a commodity and already it is getting harder for people to buy them due to unfair taxation rates (aka using smokers to fund other things). So, I’m sorry but if my customers want them then it’s my right to sell them.