The United States House of Representatives voted 326 to 102 on Wednesday to take the power of regulation out of the hands of the tobacco industry and place all tobacco products under the regulatory powers of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instead. The bill will likely face Senate vote in the fall. The bill currently has strong support in the Senate but there are indications the current administration will veto the bill if it reaches the White House.
A similar bill met with Senate approval in 2004 but did not pass in the House of Representatives. The bill approved in the House on Wednesday was introduced to both branches of Congress in 2007.
Since the 1980s, there have been attempts made to place tobacco products under FDA jurisdiction. The current bill is based on a bill dating back to 1995, when then-FDA commissioner Dr. David A. Kessler declared nicotine to be a drug that leads to addiction and said tobacco companies manipulate nicotine content in their products deliberately. The regulations Kessler advocated were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2000.
Opposition to the current bill came mostly from Republican representatives, many of whom cited recent problems the FDA has had with regulating the food and pharmaceutical industries. Phillip Morris USA, the largest cigarette company in the nation, has endorsed the bill and helped draft it although the tobacco company’s participation has left it out of favor with its competitors.
If the bill does become legislation, some of its provisions include:
- The FDA would not be allowed to force tobacco companies to eliminate nicotine altogether nor would it be allowed to issue a ban of all tobacco products
- The FDA could force tobacco companies to reduce nicotine content to levels that don’t cause addiction if it is determined that doing so benefits public health
- The FDA can require the reduction or elimination of harmful ingredients other than nicotine
- Flavored cigarettes that target young people will be banned. Menthol cigarettes would be exempted from the ban on flavored cigarettes until a scientific advisory committee can determine if menthol cigarettes are more addictive or hazardous in any way. Black smokers of all ages generally prefer menthol cigarettes, leading the bill’s writers to include the exemption for menthol cigarettes at the last minute. Scientific review is expected to be complete within a year of the bill’s passage into legislation
- Warning labels on tobacco products will be revamped entirely. The current small printed messages will be replaced by graphic images that vividly depict the physical ravages of tobacco addiction, including mouth growths and cancerous lung tumors
- Cigarette manufactures will be required to list the type and quantities of all ingredients considered addictive. Ingredients such as acetaldehyde and ammonia are included in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to make them more addictive. Companies using these ingredients will also be required to make their internal studies available when they pertain to the ingredients’ biological effects
- The terms “light” and “ultralight” will be banned, as they falsely convey the idea of being less harmful. In anticipation of the bill’s approval, some cigarette manufacturers have already begun to color code their packaging according to blend
- Cigarette advertisements will change, too. Outdoor advertisements such as billboards, banners, and posters, as well as ads in publications that are likely to be seen by children, will be black and white only, in order to minimize their visual impact.
The cost of regulation will come from new fees the tobacco companies will pay. In addition to the nation’s strong public antismoking sentiment, major players in the public health arena, such as the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, firmly support the bill.
Source: NYT