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Jun 12, 2009 03:45 PM | 13
After winning sizable majorities in both House and Senate this week, a new bill would allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate tobacco. President Barack Obama, who has called it a way to "protect our kids and improve our public health," is expected to sign the bill into law soon.
The Office of the Surgeon General issued a report [pdf] back in 1964, asserting that tobacco's "potential hazard is great… cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate." But in the intervening years, the $89 billion tobacco industry has eluded strict regulation. Annually, smoking ups U.S. health care costs $100 billion and continues to kill about 400,000.
The bill is on its way to Obama, who has promised to sign it promptly, reports The Washington Post. "We've known for years, even decades about the harmful, addictive and often deadly effects of tobacco products," Obama said earlier today—despite being an erstwhile smoker himself.
Although the new law wouldn't allow the FDA to outlaw nicotine or smoking altogether—which many worry would drive users to an unregulated black market—legislators anticipate stronger controls of both the advertising and manufacturing of cigarettes. It will, for instance, mandate ingredient listings and may nix many of the roughly 6,000 detrimental chemicals found in tobacco products. The new charge would be added to the FDA's list of responsibilities, which currently include food, drugs, medical devices, cosmetics and veterinary products, among others.
Earlier this year, Obama named former director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids William Corr as Department of Health and Human Services deputy secretary.
Image of warning labels on Canadian cigarettes courtesy of stovak via Flickr. The new legislation would mandate similarly graphic labels for U.S. cigarette packs.
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13 Comments
Add CommentThe law that just passed will give the beleaguered Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco. On its face, this is a good thing. After all, cigarettes are the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the devil is in the details. First of all, the language of this bill was written by Altria (which was formerly Philip Morris) and an activist group, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CFTFK).
The bill has numerous provisions that, from a public health perspective, actually make matters worse, rather than better.
For instance, the law will make it virtually impossible for companies to promote less harmful forms of tobacco. Now, we won't replicate the good news coming out of Sweden, where tobacco-related deaths plummeted when smokers switched from cigarettes to the less harmful snus, or smokeless tobacco.
Snus is a pouch of tobacco that gives smokers the nicotine they crave without the myriad harmful chemicals that come from burning and inhaling tobacco. The risk of oral cancer from smokeless tobacco is low--far lower than the oral cancer risk from smoking cigarettes.
And switching from cigarettes to snus eliminates the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and the other systemic diseases related to smoking. And of course, there's no secondhand smoke from snus.
The key fact in the harm reduction equation is that nicotine is not the harmful component of cigarettes, something that CFTFK and Altria ought to know by now.
Beyond that, the public health community, with a few exceptions, is far too complacent about today's dismally low quit rates.
Even with the gum, the patch, pharmaceuticals, counseling, public pressure, smoking bans and everything else, quit rates fail to exceed 15%. It is time we took a more compassionate approach and gave smokers more tools to help them reduce their risk and quit cigarettes.
Further, the bill would give the FDA authority to require cigarette makers to lower the level of nicotine in cigarettes. If the FDA exercised that authority, smokers would have to smoke more--and get more of the bad stuff--in order to get the relatively harmless but addictive nicotine they crave. Pretty sly of Altria.
Finally, by letting the FDA allow some tobacco products and claims and forbid others, this bill gives Altria exactly what it wants: the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration, which is known for establishing the safety of items under its purview.
Jeff Stier - Associate Director of the American Council on Science and Health.
In my country, everyone can buy cigarette, no matter how old you are. No body, including our government, cares those kids who have been addicted to nicotine. Ironicly, many local governments are willing to see the prosperity of cigarette market and do not care who consumes it, adults or children. Maybe, the only thing that they pay attention to is the considerable tax from cigarette market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmericans need reminded freedom and free-from cannot co-exist... either YOU make your choices or they are made for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday you tell me no more smoking, next time it'll be no more McDonald's... after that, you'll be taking the harley and banning baseball and apple pie.
There is no such thing as preventable death. You live, you die... no exceptions. It's a balance sheet... If you subtract tobacco as a cause, then you have to tick another up to cancer, heart-disease, or something. (And yes, those will still exist, even without tobacco and french fries).
Even the premature death thing don't hold water as smokers are risk-takers... statistically, we HAVE to die prematurely of SOMETHING.
Does anyone know the number of people still alive because a worker took a quick smoke and calmed down before going postal?? (Do we call it that because postal workers were the first to not be able to smoke on the premises???)
Considering how many THOUSANDS of times a day a smoker inhales tobacco smoke, you'd be hard pressed to find ANY substance as safe to inhale... Even pollen and dust are more dangerous as when you account for winter and air filtration systems giving our lungs a break ... Smokers do it 18 hours a day, 365 a year... for 20-30-40-50 years before problems appear...
Tobacco smoke is safer than breathing the air in the Indian & Asian cities that make our electronic gadgets and toys (which kills >600,000 annually).
Oddly more non -smokers than smokers have died of cancer in my family. Why? Because we KNEW we were at risk and that's where we looked first... versus the doctors of the nonsmokers who looked for cancer last and found it after it'd spread and couldn't be treated.
Ironic I can no longer smoke as I walk in hospital parking lots filled with SUVs & small trucks... each spewing billions of times more carcinogens as catalytic converters require 7-10 miles of driving to reach operating temperature. (meaning all pollute leaving and most while arriving).
The push against tobacco is getting ridiculous when people feel safer admitting they smoke marijuana than cigarettes to their doctor and coworkers.
If the medical community REALLY want to help... Part of the dismal cessation rates are due to deliberate linking of the tobacco to male ego, sex & sex appeal.... (which account for about 80% of why Americans go to prison).
We as a society need to STOP... Take a deep breath... and THINK
That double cheeseburger value meal & 10 hour workday are going to kill you a LOT faster than a little 2nd hand smoke...!
Response to Pokester;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay if you want to smoke, race your harley without a helmut, consume daily doses of Big Macs that is your right. But since you admitted to being a risk taker and that you plan to die early, please don't clog up the emergency room when your vices begin to their toll. As an ER nurse I am so tired of rushing around to prop up your life for another few months so you can go out and repeat the same behaviors that brought you to us in the first place. You can just as well sit at home gasping for your last breath or lapsing into a coma from your out of control blood glucose. You might want to support legalizing marajuana as that might make your passing a little less terrifying.
Response to Pokester;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay if you want to smoke, race your harley without a helmut, consume daily doses of Big Macs that is your right. But since you admitted to being a risk taker and that you plan to die early, please don't clog up the emergency room when your vices begin to their toll. As an ER nurse I am so tired of rushing around to prop up your life for another few months so you can go out and repeat the same behaviors that brought you to us in the first place. You can just as well sit at home gasping for your last breath or lapsing into a coma from your out of control blood glucose. You might want to support legalizing marajuana as that might make your passing a little less terrifying.
What I find amazing is that there haven't been regulations. Seriously. All of our food, cosmetics, and other such things are already regulated by the FDA. I don't recall anyone ever saying "Gee, I wish the FDA would quit monitoring what McDonald's puts into their food" or "Man it would be nice if the government would ignore what they put into my beer". I used to be a smoker and one this that always concerned me then and led me to quit was the fact that there was no mandatory oversight.. They can and do put whatever they want into cigarettes and have to answer to no one. From that perspective I have no idea why any smoker would be against this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, you can have "freedom" and "free-from" at the same time. Total freedom without law and regulation is ANARCHY and this has never worked. Communism failed as well. The only thing that does work is a mixture of the two. You may not car what is in your food and drugs. No doubt the snake-oil salesmen of the late 1800s would be against the FDA, but personally I would prefer not to go back to guessing what is in my consumables and how they are made.
To Pokester:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut here comes the problem. You may want your freedoms, but what if they take away mine to give you yours? Just because YOU think a little 2nd hand smoke doesn't hurt, that doesn't mean I agree. So allowing you to smoke cigarettes which not even YOU know what's in them around me is taking away my freedom to fresh air. Or take my grandmother's example. She has emphysema. Someone lit a cigar near her in a restaurant (In my city, it is illegal to smoke in a place which serves food). This flared up her lung problems and necessitated a trip to the ER. She sued the man for 20,000 dollars. And won. Think about it next time you light up just because you think it's your "right."
If they they really cared about the smokers health they would advise them to take a couple grams of vitamin c everyday, as it prevents the cellular damage caused by smoke.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeyond that, tobacco itself does not cause any injury to ones health.
There are primitive people living in the amazon who use tobacco and have never heard of cancer. While there are a few tribes that only learned what cancer was after Texaco went there, drilled for oil, then spilled a lot of waste into the native habitat.
Watch the documentary "The Blood of Kouan Kouan" for more on this: http://www.smallplanet.gr/en/home/feature-documentary-the-blood-of-kouan-kouan.htm
Tobacco is being scapegoated for the effects of pesticide use.
Smoke Organic, Take 2 Grams of Vitamin C Daily, and see for Yourself.
How about if we just send people like you to your own little state or island?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday is Bastille Day in France. That´s the day the people finally got sick of the government, and did something about it. Now oujun, 40 years ago the United States was still a free country. Even an ex-convict could own a gun, since he wan in prison anymore. The drug laws were, in fact, worse. They simply weren´t enforced. A person had to be blatantly offensive back then, and the Constitution was still in force.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never asked anyone to save me from my awful vices, and in fact it would seem that all of this bull boils down to the cost of health care. Number one, there is no health care except for those who can afford it, and foreigners. Number two, the money has been absolutely counterfeit since 1968. The Viet Nam War bankrupted this nation, and there´s no going back. Do you realize that there are grown men and women in this country who don´t remember real intrinsic coin. They aren´t even old enough to remember when the drug war did not exist.
I´ll let someone know when I want to be saved from smoking cigarettes, it´s the least of my problems right now. Not only that, I´m sick and tired of hearing about the ¨Children¨. That´s up to the parents, not the government. Take them out back and discipline them.
Great Day,
Michael
It is amazing to me that our president still smokes. How can he be a partial thinker on this matter? See a few other FDA and tobacco articles on www.thebuzzonlife.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissaihenjin -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your grandmother's health was so frail that a single cigarette set it off, she had no business being in a restaurant where particulates from grease and cooking could have also set it off... (see again, people's ignorance of their own environment contributes to this induced paranoia).
Plus, NO ONE has the right to smoke in areas designated "no smoking"... so I don't get what you're getting at. Not all smokers are rude or militant.
My point is this... FREEDOM means FREE to make your own choices. We start taking them away and we're no longer free.
Bikada - if we're not here to enjoy life, then what are we here for?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds to me that YOU need a change of career... cuz every action from brushing one's teeth to crossing the street carries some risk. The ER is full of people for whom the odds caught up.
NOTHING is `100% safe and NO ONE is going to live forever.
And why would you want to live forever without fun? Most "fun" & laughter is actually the disconnect caused by doing the unexpected or beating the odds...
And if there's anything that TRULY needs regulated, it's ER's... (come-on... $800 for 3 minutes with a doctor who's really just a student... and 50 tests when one or two would suffice?)