The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed into law yesterday in a historic move by President Obama, gives the Food and Drug Administration more power then ever before to regulate the tobacco industry.
The bill will allow the FDA to consider reducing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, bans many flavored cigarettes and requires tobacco companies to provide the federal agency with a complete list of additives in their products.
The new law also enforces strict rules on tobacco advertising: it will eliminate all advertisements within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, and bans phrases such as “light” and “mild” from being used to describe cigarettes in advertising, in an effort to curb tobacco use by future generations.
The bill is being hailed as a landmark event for public health, and why shouldn’t it be? Of course everyone is aware of the dangers associated with smoking, including lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema.
There is another provision of the bill, one that seems to ignore that it’s already public knowledge how harmful smoking can be: cigarette packages will be required to carry warning labels that will cover 50 percent of the front and back panels, feature the word WARNING in large capital letters and carry blunt, to the point statements such as “cigarettes cause cancer” and “smoking can kill you.”
The warning labels evoke memories of the 2006 film “Thank You For Smoking,” in which the main character, a tobacco lobbyist, fights a law that would place a picture of a skull and crossbones on the front panel of cigarette packs. In a memorable scene, the lobbyist attacks the Vermont senator who introduced the bill, questioning why cheese from his state does not come with a warning label for the high fat and calorie content.
For years, many other nations have required large, blatant and sometimes obscene warning labels on cigarettes. In Brazil, for example, packs include images on the front panel showing an unhealthy fetus or a cadaver with a hole in the throat.
While the warning labels in the U.S. will not go this far, they are still an unnecessary addition to the bill. The other provisions are focused on making cigarettes less addictive and slightly safer. The warning label serves little purpose; the general public is well aware already of the health risks, and anyone with a pack already in their possession will not be turned away from smoking the expensive cigarettes they have already purchased because of reading yet another warning.
The FDA is correct in pursuing to lower the nicotine content. Nicotine is the addictive chemical in cigarettes, and the only way for people to quit is to cure their addiction of nicotine.
Bombarding the public with government warnings everywhere they look does little more than desensitize people to the importance of a government warning.
source: uwire.com
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