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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We'll keep following the very consequential New York State budget negotiations with a new fiscal year, beginning this Saturday. April 1st could be a working weekend for folks in Albany and with so much in play from how to fund the MTA and services for all the asylum seekers coming these days, to eviction and rent control law proposals, bail, and other criminal justice laws, living wages for home health aides, advocates for children in family court, and for tenants in housing court getting representation and so much more.

One debate in play right now is also whether they should ban the sale of menthol cigarettes. The tobacco companies target those largely to African-Americans, but Black community politicians seem divided on this, caught between the public health concerns and the overcriminalization of Black people's behavior. In general, remember, Eric Garner was brought to his death by police on Staten Island when all they wanted him for was selling loose cigarettes.

One Democratic leader very involved in that issue is Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents Flatbush, East Flatbush, Ditmas Park, and Midwood. She's also the chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Assemblymember, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Would you start by telling us your position on the menthol cigarettes?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Yes. First of all, I'm here to talk about banning flavored tobacco, including menthol in New York State. It's very critical that we stop these big corporate tobaccos from blowing smoke to keep destroying our youths, Blacks, and other communities of color who's been disproportionately affected. I have an assembly bill that's also sponsored in the Senate by Senator Brad Hoylman.

Again, it prohibits the retail sale of the flavored tobacco products and accessories. We're going to talk a little bit about it, but the fine is no more than $500 for each infraction. It's not a criminal fine. As you've mentioned, the banning of the menthol has been an issue for a very long time. You've seen in the courts where Black people have been targeted by propaganda from these big tobaccos. Menthol make up about maybe 60% or 50% of the overall tobacco revenue, and it's been a deadly cycle.

Communities have been killed, have been sick because of menthol, in particular tobacco, and as mentioned, it's disproportionately targeting Black and brown communities. Now with the ban of flavored vaping, it's certainly targeting our youths. Tobacco use leads to heart and lung disease, which is also the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. We're trying to address these healthcare crises. It's skyrocketing in the youth community. It's not at the same level that it was in 20 years ago.

Smoking seems to be a thing of the past with our youth, but the enticing fruit flavors and vapes, electronic cigarettes, kids are now just being hooked, and they're being hooked at a alarming rate. This is an issue. My father was a saxophone player, and he was one of the best-- he was a leading jazz saxophone player in Haiti and used to travel to Cuba, and very well known in the Haitian community. He used to hold a note for like-- it would seem like for hours. My father died to lung cancer because he was hooked on menthol tobacco.

My mother, who just recently passed, there was a point in her life when she also was hooked and she stopped smoking, but it lingered, and she could have had another 10 more years with her, but because of that time in her life that she was hooked on menthol, she passed earlier than she should have. It was menthol cigarette, as mentioned, that hooked my father into this deadly cycle. Like my father who died along with 300,000 Black men that year from the same horrible reasons, I always think about how many kids like myself or children like myself who are losing their father to menthol cigarettes, so it's a big problem.

Brian Lehrer: I also grew up taking flute and sax lessons and my main teacher who was a smoker later developed an inability to play, and he couldn't play the horn anymore. Saxophone was his main instrument and it was such a tragedy. I certainly hear you on that one. What about the concern on the other side that this criminalizes primarily Black behavior yet again?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: First of all, that's propaganda. Eric Garner was not killed because of cigarettes. Eric Garner was killed because of police misconduct. Blurring the two is a false messaging and a way to manipulate on the backs of people who's been targeted for many, many years. Again, as I said, don't let big tobacco create the smoke screen of false opposition.

Brian Lehrer: Even without the chokehold and the compression of his chest, the police killing of Eric Garner, he would've been arrested, right? Just for selling loose cigarettes. The argument is that there'll be more Black market cigarette sales because people want the menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products. You're not going to wipe it out, you're going to drive it to the Black market and you know who's going to wind up in jail. What's your response?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Here my response is, first of all, when we wrote this bill, we wrote it so that there's no criminalization on having menthol cigarettes. We made sure that there will be no police enforcement involvement. The enforcement will be done by the Department of Health, and it will be targeting manufacturers, distributors, and realtors. No individual person will be targeted if they're found with menthol cigarettes.

Again, by statute and by law, NYPD or any police department across the state are not to have any type of role in the enforcement, they're banned. Again, as a Black woman [laughs] who legislates for criminal justice reform in combating racism, I would never enact a ban that is racist and harms the constituents that I represent and have been representing for decades. Again, the real racism is allowing my neighbors in the community, Black and brown community, to keep dying from menthol at alarming rates.

As we talk about, "Oh, the state is going to lose tax dollars and so forth." Tax dollars on the back of the health of New Yorkers, that's not the right thing. In fact, it shows that we are driving up the healthcare cost because we are putting people in positions where they're dying and they're using of the healthcare resources because of things like menthol and tobacco. That's, again, driving the cost of members of the community to go to the hospital and need treatment to survive. [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Did you want to finish the thought?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: No, I was just going to say that once again that those are just false propagandas.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some calls on this, especially from Black listeners on this question of making it illegal to sell menthol and other flavored cigarettes. 212-433-WNYC for Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn who is the assembly member working in Albany, representing Flatbush, East Flatbush, Ditmas Park, and Midwood. Also, chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. If we have time, other questions on aspects of the New York State budget. Before we get onto some other budget questions, just clarify, how broad is your legislation? Would it ban all flavored tobacco and vaping products?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: It would focus on just flavored tobacco. I know people who are concerned on hookah. It does not address hookah. It does not address vaping. This is all for flavored tobacco use. New York City banned flavored vaping. We had a sister bill to also pass the flavored tobacco, but it didn't get passed in the New York City Council.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. David in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi. Thanks, sir. Thanks for having me, Brian. I have a couple of points. One is that, it's increasingly hard to find legal cigarettes in our neighborhoods now. Almost all the cigarettes sold are cheaper and come from down south. It's hard to find a store that actually sells New York cigarettes which cost significantly more. Wouldn't this just expand that? It's all going to be illegal cigarettes and it's untaxed and could have bad consequences.

The other point I have is what I'm seeing from young people right now who smoke marijuana, they all put grabba or tobacco into the marijuana, and they buy that in the stores. I'm wondering whether or not more young people are getting hooked to tobacco based on that, smoking it with marijuana. Those are my questions.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you. Assemblymember.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Yes. First of all, I would say that on any type of banning on any issue or any topic, you're always going to find an illicit market, a black market. You just can't control that. The thing is that we don't want it to be inviting to, especially young people who, like you said, are looking for something to entice flavor, menthol, mint, strawberry, apple, whatever. Those are all enticing to youth because tobacco naturally is not something that's tasteful.

You do see a lot of youth looking for ways to mix things together so that it's a little bit more favorable to them. Again, as I mentioned, yes, you'll see a lot of illegal cigarettes floating around, but having an open market is worse because you'll have a lot more people having access to something that will kill them. Again, it will drive the costs. It shows that it's billions of dollars that are spent on taking care of these people who are sick and dying of health disease, lung cancer, and so forth. This is a way to drive down the cost for our state in our city.

Brian Lehrer: Chuck in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chuck.

Chuck: Hey, how's going on? I have a question regarding cannabis and cigarettes, because isn't the health concerns-- isn't your guest is talking about the health concerns of these products, especially tobacco, doesn't cannabis do the same damage or worse? Now New York State is approving cannabis and decriminalizing, which is great thing, but I don't think the argument should go against our health issue if that's what this policy is because the reason's good. All you're going to do is put more Black people in jail.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Thank you for that. It is incorrect, Tobacco has no medicinal anything. Cannabis is medicinal use of the marijuana. Marijuana--

Brian Lehrer: It is also recreational use. That's what the law says. It's the legalization of adult recreational use now. Right?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Right, but as I'm saying, they've done their studies, the harm that tobacco does to people are not in the same level as what marijuana does. There's cancer. We haven't found any report as far as marijuana causing cancer. What we have found is that marijuana helping the health of many lives, people with cancer actually. Again, there's medicinal use with marijuana. With tobacco, there's no medicinal use. You can look at it from that comparison. Again, record shows and report shows that tobacco is the leading cause of deaths in the United States. It causes lung cancer, heart disease, that's the number one thing. You don't hear that from marijuana.

You don't hear, oh, heart disease, lung cancer, and things of that nature. That's why, like you said, we're very happy that they're decriminalizing the use of marijuana, but it will eventually be an issue because, like you mentioned, or the other listener said, they're mixing things now with marijuana and a lot of kids are getting addicted. There's this thing called k2. Like I say, a young member of my family was caught with that and almost killed himself. He was found, he had to be sent to the psychiatric center. There are issues.

Brian Lehrer: Right. To be clear, that's synthetic and illegal and not sold in the dispensaries.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Right, exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Omar in LA, you're on WNYC. Hi, Omar.

Omar: Hi. I have some thoughts to share. I just think that putting the onus on the end user is incredibly difficult. I don't think people really appreciate what nicotine addiction is like. I'm an ex-smoker. It takes an incredible amount of work to get over smoking. I quit smoking 20 years ago. It's still something I deal with. You've got people that can quit a lot of other drugs and still use nicotine. I think that putting this onus on people that are choosing a particular flavor of a cigarette, it seems very incorrect.

I think it should be a thing of either cigarettes are going to be illegal or treated differently or not. I don't think that choosing a specific flavor is the right path. I definitely see if you're going to be limiting supply on any kind of product, you're going to be increasing the price. Especially when people are really struggling out here, I can definitely foresee a market for these cigarettes emerging somehow some way. If you don't think that there are going to be implications for people dealing with this secondhand market, you're not getting it because it's capitalism.

People are going to figure out a way to get things that they want and they're willing to pay and people are going to be willing to do things. Even though you might say that the police won't get involved, there's not going to be any violence, no one's getting arrested, people are going to want what they want. I think you need to look at the whole nicotine, tobacco marketing, advertising strategy and look at it as an actual drug rather than this is just a Black menthol thing. That's what I have to say.

Brian Lehrer: Omar, thank you very much.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: I think you make a lot of good points and fair points. First of all, you're from LA and so California prohibited. I'm wondering what's the change over there? How are people dealing with it? It has also been banned in Massachusetts.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, they did this already, huh?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Yes, they did this already. It's interesting him calling from LA has an input on that. I would say that, for one, yes, the marketing was a drug. The marketing has been targeting Black communities since the 1950s. There's been cases on this where they show that menthol smokers accounted for just 5% of Black smokers back then, and now it's 85%. That's a deadly social injustice when you're targeting a specific community and you've got them hooked.

It's almost like saying, "Hey, it's not fair that you're taking away cocaine or crack to a community who you know they just want a choice, a choice to smoke cocaine or crack." They've been poisoning like so many other things that they've been doing in our communities. Redlining, social injustice in criminal justice space, education, housing, all of that, that's the same thing. They're targeting Black people, Black smokers. It's the right thing to do by stopping it because I want to see more Black people live.

Even though you may think it's a choice, it's more of an enslavement thing where you have a systematic big corporation who are targeting people who's been distressed, who's been low income, who's been targeted and been exclusive in so many socioeconomic areas of the way we live. You have to look at it from that point. This bill is not banning tobacco, it's banning all flavored. It's not only menthol, it's all flavored. We're not only picking menthol, just menthol happens to be the larger percentage of the flavored tobacco, and it's a large percentage of just the overall tobacco industry revenue.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Thank you for talking through all that and taking some callers on that. Let's just touch briefly, before we run out of time, on some other aspects of the big budget package that are under negotiation in Albany right now with the new fiscal year starting on Saturday. Where are you on how to fund the MTA? We have everything from Uber and Netflix and package delivery taxes to an income tax hike on the wealthiest corporations. Assemblymember Mamdani was on Monday advocating that one, and these things seem to compete for how to close the MTA's budget gap and keep service strong. What are you for?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: I support Assemblymember Mamdani on this one. I've been a long-time public transportation user since the time of high school riding the subways. I remember when I went to Japan for the very first time in the '90s, and I just saw how much thinner and more advanced technology, and it just had a lot more capacity to ride the Japanese community over there. I feel that we should be focusing on fixing the MTA versus, again, driving the costs up for New Yorkers and not doing anything. We have increased the MTA fares for a very long time. We haven't seen much changes.

In my community, we don't have elevators. We have mold. It's a lot of working families, immigrant community, people of color who are trying to get to their very low-income jobs. The subway system has been impactful in terms of them getting to where they need to, but the MTA is increasing the cost at a faster rate than they can keep up with in terms of their salaries, in terms of their incomes. The rate of inflation, they can't keep up with the rate of inflation. Then to put that, few years ago, we passed congestion pricing, and I'll tell you, I was against it initially and not because I don't care about the environment, I definitely care about the environment, but I didn't trust the MTA. I didn't trust.

I feel that it was a mechanism of finding a way to tax New Yorkers to say, "Oh, we got to fix the subway." Guess what? We passed the congestion pricing, right after that, MTA workers did not get their contracts. In fact, they had to lay off some of the workers. That's a problem. We've been needing MTA workers in the stations. As you know, the subway safety issues have been at the forefront, and we need more workers to be there. I have fought for surveillance cameras, which we passed to make sure that it's on all platforms, but again, that's been a fight for some time, and we can see where the money's going.

Brian Lehrer: What do you see at this point as we're in the home stretch as the biggest points of disagreement between the legislative majorities and the governor that still have to be negotiated?

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: I think the charter schools is a big issue. The governor certainly want to lift the cap. That's a big issue. I think there's issues around the 421-a tax abatement. While legislators are not typically in favor of it, the governor is in favor of it. Obviously, there are some incentives as it relates to office to residential conversion. There's a big talk about that. Other issues. The menthol, by the way, the governor is supporting banning the menthol. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, she's on your side on that one.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: She's on my side on this one. We're very happy about that. I think those are some of the thing. I think we're all probably on the same page in terms of closing the Medicaid gap. We're still working that through on the healthcare side, but I would say those are some of the big issues that we may differ on. You know that the governor also have to nominate a new chief judge. We're waiting for that to see how that goes. [laughs] I guess that's outside the budget but that's an interesting topic

Brian Lehrer: And interesting times. We thank Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents Flatbush, East Flatbush, Ditmas Park, and Midwood. She's also the Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. We appreciate you coming on with us. Thanks a lot. Good luck toward this weekend working everything out.

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Thank you so much.

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