The Speaker

Deputy Chief Wayne P. Harris (Ret.) served over thirty years with the Rochester New York Police Department.
He is the current board chair of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), a former National Executive Board member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), vice president of the Board of Directors for the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, and a nationally recognized expert on policing in America.
Deputy Chief Harris holds instructor certifications in general topics, firearms, Implicit Bias and Procedural Justice. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Organizational Management, a certificate in Criminal Justice education, and he is a graduate of the 244th session of the FBI National Academy.

The Workshop

Unintended Consequences of Menthol Bans and Prohibitions: Fake News vs The Facts : Wednesday, September 29, 2021 01:30P

Several states and municipalities are proposing to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes. Smoking is bad and tobacco kills in addition to the debilitating effects of nicotine addiction and need to prevent youth from smoking. Prohibitions and flavor bans have been spotlights in the national media. This proposal seems race-neutral. But over 85% of African Americans who choose to smoke prefer menthol cigarettes while most White tobacco consumers prefer unflavored tobacco. To draw up a ban only against products favored by people of color seems not only unjust but also remarkably insensitive. Giving officers even more reason to detain and engage on the basis of a flavored tobacco ban, including menthol, would assuredly lead to encounters that are likely to escalate to the unnecessary use of force, arrests, and possibly deadly force.

This workshop will explore the laudable intent of the public health community to decrease the use of tobacco products by communities of color, address the serious concerns of youth using tobacco products, and how to stem the tide of youth use of e-cigarettes.