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Apr 2, 2009 04:35 PM | 7
The House today approved a bill that would for the first time give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco products.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D–Calif.), passed by a 298-112 vote, culminating a nearly decade-long battle by anti-smoking advocates to grant the FDA regulatory power over the industry. The bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, would empower the agency to approve or nix new products and bars companies from adding fruit and other flavors to cigarettes that critics say are aimed at attracting—and hooking—young smokers.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D–Mass.) said he’ll introduce a companion measure in the Senate when Congress returns from a two-week recess on April 18. Kennedy and Waxman have been pushing Congress to grant FDA authority over tobacco since the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the agency lacked such power without congressional action. Their effort began after former FDA Commissioner David Kessler (who led the agency from 1990-1997) forced Big Tobacco to admit its products were addictive and then tried unsuccessfully through proposed regulations to grant the agency the very power that the Waxman measure would now give it. (Kessler has not responded to requests for comment on today’s vote, but we'll update you if we hear back.)
The Senate passed a similar bill five years ago, but at least one senator from a tobacco-producing state, Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina, is threatening to filibuster this legislation, the Wall Street Journal reports. (The House passed a package to give the FDA power over tobacco last year, but the Senate didn’t take it up for a vote.) President Obama has said he supports the measure.
Image by SuperFantastic via Flickr
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7 Comments
Add Commentwith all those anti depressants in the fish and hormone triggers as food additives -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissurely a little fruit in the killer weed is no harm?
personally medicinal tobacco is good on the garden plants to stop pests
but not the recommended smoke for humans and certainly not on its own
very large cancer risk .....Big - esp if stressed
i think you will find that children gravitate to what the adults do - if it is interesting - and other things if it is a prison
Tobacco is addictive and highly damaging to the human body.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTobacco is 1000X more addictive then, say, Marijuana yet because of the taxes it brings in, it remains legal despite the fact that it meets ALL THE REQUIREMENTS to be put on the list of Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)
(1) Schedule I:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."
No prescriptions may be written for Schedule I substances, and such substances are subject to production quotas by the DEA.
Keeping tobacco legal for human consumption is insane...
respec'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ you above
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis legislation allows the FDA to, among other things, require reduced levels of nicotine. That is the same trick cigarette makers have been allowed to get away with for decades with their "lite" cigarettes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLowered nicotine levels prompt smokers to smoke more, and more deeply, to get that "satisfaction". This has been a boon to both cigarette industry profits and to officials who crave regressive "sin tax" revenues to replace proper progressive income taxes.
An added problem here is that manufacturers added even more untested and often toxic or carcinogenic substances to the "lite" varieties to give them acceptable flavor. So, instead of smokers getting what they thought were safer cigarettes, they got hit with even more harms and threats to health.
This FDA "tobacco regulation", as reported, omits so many things that it opens itself to not just ridicule (for the above points at least) but to charges of fraudulent legislation designed to help the cigarette cartel evade liabilities.
We hear nothing about "tobacco" products made without tobacco, made in patented ways with all sorts of industrial waste cellulose camouflaged as tobacco.
We haven't heard about the high levels of dioxin in smoke from typical products contaminated with chlorine pesticide residues and chlorine-bleached paper. This is especially crucial because many, if not most, so-called "smoking related" diseases are identical to symptoms of dioxin exposures, and are impossible to be caused by smoke from any plant.
What about the carcinogenic PO-210 radiation from the still-legal use of certain phosphate fertilizers?
The FDA seems to have no plans to study combination effects on smokers of residues of the 450 or so US Registered tobacco pesticides.
What about the criminal mixing of ammonia and chlorine together in typical products? Has the FDA not read kitchen cleanser warnings?
Nothing is written about prohibiting Burn Accelerants and other burn-accelerating tricks.
The FDA seems uninterested in banning addiction-enhancing additives such as coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, ammonia, and sugars galore.
And....the FDA seems to have no plans to research real or likely heath effects of smoke from plain, unadulterated tobacco to compare to the well-established effects of products better called "Dioxin Dowels", "Pesticide Pegs", or "Radiation Rods".
The FDA is more about regulating behavior of long-poisoned, unwitting, and defrauded smokers than about regulating behavior of those responsible for the above assaults on public health.
Regarding the "added fruit" and flavorings being discussed...That is generally about the "flavored cigarettes", the ones sold openly as "vanilla flavored" or "chocolate flavored", etc. It does not appear to be about the many other sweet and flavorful additives found in lists (about 1400 items long) of additives from which manufacturers concoct their secret recipes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmong these are: apple juice, kola nut, pineapple juice, honey, cinnamon, spearmint, artificial sweeteners (Sorbitol, eg), raisin juice, almond, orange oil, sucrose, fig juice, menthol, lime oil, prune juice, coconut, nutmeg, apricot, ginger, cocoa, licorice, wild cherry, molasses, peppermint, lemon oil, grape juice, caramel, plum juice, butter, and maple syrup. Licorice, a common additive, becomes co-carcinogenic when burned. No matter. Still legal.
None of those things, or any of the other 1400, has been tested for safety in this use. The FDA plans no such tests.
The chances of any of that being organic...pesticide-free...are about zero.
The FDA, well-staffed by members of the pesticide and chlorine cartels, plans no testing of any of that for pesticides.
Many of those crop items are likely from California and Florida...two states with "toughest", earliest "crackdowns" on "smoking" (victims' behavior).
A Wall Street Journal item years ago noted that a Marlboro contains a whopping 12.3 percent sugar. No wonder kids like them. But that detail was overlooked in Florida "tobacco" hearings...Florida being the top cane sugar producing state.
Florida is also home to much of the nation's phosphate mining...source of radioactive fertilizers used on tobacco. That didn't come up in Florida "smoking" hearings either...or in FDA discussions.
Florida...also home to citrus, but the state is modest about supplying the cigarette industry with lemon, lime and orange flavorings, or the citrates used as burn accelerants.
If the FDA was truly concerned about kids, it would prioritize actions on the chlorine contents of typical cigarettes because the resultant dioxin is particularly harmful to growing children...and to fetuses and pregnant mothers. That this worst-of-the-worst industrial carcinogen is still permitted in cigarette smoke, due to the pesticides and chlorine-bleached paper, is an astonishing crime...perhaps The Crime that the "anti smoking" crusade is designed to distract from and cover-up.
After all...look who's behind the crusade---top chlorine interests...including their insurers and investors...not to mention their funding recipients in government.
I like the classic camel menthols and I bought a pack of camel crush. I didn’t like camel crush taste it was really strong as compare to classic camel menthols. But of course I finished the pack, no need to waste cigarettes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.buycigarettes.com/