Biden Admin Has No Plan To Prevent Hezbollah From Cashing In on Menthol Cigarette Ban
14th February 2024
The Biden administration does not have a plan in place to prevent Hezbollah from cashing in on its proposed menthol cigarette ban, which lawmakers and experts say will open up a black market that will enrich the Iran-backed terror group and Mexican drug cartels.
As the FDA considers a ban on mentholated cigarettes, a type smoked by around 40 percent of adults, lawmakers have been pressing federal authorities to develop contingency plans meant to stop Hezbollah and its Mexican cartel partners from smuggling black market cigarettes into the United States.
But Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) do not appear to have developed any plans to combat the emerging black market menthol trade, which is likely to generate millions in profit. Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups have long trafficked in illegal cigarettes, generating revenue that funds terror operations across the globe. The regulated menthol market in the United States is worth an estimated $30 billion.
G. Gordon Liddy, in his autobiography WILL, noted that cartons of Kool cigarettes, the most popular mentholated brand, were the de facto standard currency among black prisoners in the D.C. jail in the early 1970s.