Cigarettes: Now under federal regulation

Finally! said Patty Fisher in the San Jose Mercury News. Half a century after doctors declared that cigarettes are highly addictive nicotine-delivery systems that cause cancer, the federal government is doing more than just issuing warnings. Congress last week authorized the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products for the first time, giving the agency the power to adjust nicotine levels downward, and demand that tobacco makers get rid of the “toxic stuff like ammonia, acetone, cadmium, butane, and hydrogen cyanide.” The FDA already regulates everything from cosmetics to dog food, said The Miami Herald in an editorial. Why should cigarettes be the only product exempt? Under the law passed by Congress, the FDA is also authorized to ban advertising that might attract minors, and candy-like flavors such as chocolate and cherry that ease kids into smoking. That’s crucial because as most adults have wised up and cut back on smoking, Big Tobacco has compensated by targeting naïve teenagers.

Just because smoking is a bad habit, said Michael Siegel in the Los Angeles Times, doesn’t make government intervention a good idea. Federal micromanaging of cigarettes will only backfire. The new law forbids the FDA from banning nicotine outright, but when it inevitably reduces nicotine levels, addicts will just smoke more cigarettes to get their fix, increasing their intake of deadly toxins. Studies also show that when any of the harmful components of tobacco are removed, the levels of others may increase. Tinkering with the chemicals delivered by cigarettes “is an absurd approach to the tobacco problem,” and it will only create an “FDA seal of approval” that will raise the smoking and cancer rates—not lower them.

Another unintended consequence of this law, said The Wall Street Journal, will be a windfall for Philip Morris. It’s easy to see why that tobacco giant broke ranks with other tobacco companies to endorse it. The law severely limits advertising, and allows the FDA to block the introduction of new tobacco products—which are the only tools the smaller companies have for winning market share away from their giant rival. The government could have banned the most common flavoring agent, menthol, or even banned all cigarettes, but it couldn’t because it’s developed its own addiction to the tax revenue from Big Tobacco. FDA regulation of cigarettes may sound virtuous, but as in most of what happens in Washington, it’s “an exercise in political and financial self-interest.”

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