Regulating tobacco

WE SAY Even Madison Avenue couldn’t spin this.

Federal officials have finally been given the ability to regulate the largely unregulated business of tobacco, including cigarettes. Last week the Senate approved The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which will give the Food and Drug Administration the right to impose strict new controls on the making and marketing of tobacco products.  

This is coming just weeks after Congress also passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, another measure meant to protect the consumer.

There’s certainly going to be disagreement over whether this law crusades against tobacco users’ right to consume it. But it will finally treat tobacco like any other consumer good under the FDA. Tobacco has always been exempt from other basic consumer protections like ingredient disclosure and product testing. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that tobacco products be regulated under the “safe and effective” standard that exists for other products.

Also, empowering the FDA to protect impressionable youth from predatory marketing campaigns is acceptable; the law consistently belives that the youth are not old enough to be aware of the consequences of their actions. There are limits to what good parenting can do, and in this case they need help.

The law will have a huge impact on reducing teen smoking, while having only a negligible impact on adult smokers. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 2 percent of adult smokers will leave smoking over the next decade as a result of this legislation.  

Although some of the restrictions to advertising that are in this bill, like prohibiting ads near schools and playgrounds, seem geared more toward selling the bill, others will have an enormous impact. For instance, gravely misleading words like “low tar” and “light” are to be banned from use.

Although, just as light and low tar replaced “It’s toasted,” other misleading phrases will arise. It’d be better policy to quit banning certain phrases, which will always be reactionary, and instead create rules that identify “unfair” advertising.

Also to be changed is what’s put in tobacco.

Like drinking alcohol, there’s an acclamation period to smoking cigarettes. It takes a while to get used to the flavor or to put up with it until addicted. For years, producers have added flavors to their cigarettes to appease first-time smokers until they become addicted to the nicotine or acclimated. The new law bans most tobacco flavorings.  

Congress has done well over the past several weeks creating new laws that aid consumers without being unfair to business. In this case, tobacco will lose its privileged position as an atypical consumer good, free from common-sense regulation.