FDA Regulation Of Tobacco?
By admin on Mar 10, 2009 in General Tobacco News
THIS IS the year for tobacco products to come under the control of the Food and Drug Administration. A bill before a House committee today would give the agency authority to put new restraints on sales and marketing, especially to young people, including much more graphic warning labels. The power of industry marketing to reach children is all-too evident in a study recently released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data show that the most heavily advertised brand, Marlboro, is the choice of 52.3 percent of high-school smokers and 43.3 percent of middle-school smokers.
The FDA would already have authority over tobacco if President Bush had not threatened to veto a similar bill passed by the House last year. In the face of the veto threat, the Senate, which had passed its own bill in 2004, took no action on the measure. Last year, then-Senator Obama co-sponsored an FDA-tobacco bill in the Senate introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy, a longtime proponent of FDA regulation of tobacco. That bill had 60 co-sponsors, indicating it could likely survive a filibuster threat.
The bill before the House stops short of letting the FDA ban cigarettes, but the agency could force the reduction or elimination of cancer-causing chemicals in cigarette smoke. The bill prohibits the candy-flavored cigarettes or cigars that appeal to children, and gives the FDA authority to ban menthol. African-Americans, in particular, favor mentholated cigarettes, and some public health officials want to outlaw the additive. That step might yet come. In the meantime, Congress should pass the bill and give the government new tools to fight this public-health menace.
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