Louisville Courier Journal "Blows Smoke" With Latest Editorial. Read More, Particularly my comments.
Blowing smoke
Congress is blowing a lot of smoke as it prepares to allow Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco. The bill that's likely to pass will not let FDA interfere with tobacco farmers, will not permit a ban on tobacco products (a rarity for FDA-managed products), will not sanction the elimination of nicotine and will not prevent tobacco firms from lacing their products with menthol.
Even supporters of a crackdown on tobacco seem to have accepted the menthol exception, despite the views of seven former federal health secretaries and African-American anti-smoking advocates, who point out that any danger the substance poses will disproportionately impact the black community. Those who are for this bill believe menthol brands are so popular among smokers, and so important to cigarette manufacturers, that threatening to remove them from the shelves would ruin any chance for passage.
Sen. Mitch McConnell seems more worried, as usual, about the impact of regulation on tobacco farmers than about $96 billion in annual medical costs associated with smoking, or 438,000 premature deaths each year. It's not surprising that he was the top recipient of tobacco campaign gifts in the 2007-08 election cycle, taking a whopping $132,400. Predictably, approval of FDA regulation did not end up in the $12 billion tobacco grower buyout that he touts as one of his great legislative achievements.
We long have preferred discouraging smoking through restrictions and higher taxes to FDA control of a product with no remedial benefits. However, the industry has so many powerful friends that we eventually, and reluctantly, concluded regulation is the most feasible next step. It's a beginning — a first step toward decisive action against this the deadly "tobacco culture" to which Mr. McConnell and so many other Kentuckians are deeply devoted.
Editor's comment:
You wrote: "We long have preferred discouraging smoking through restrictions and higher taxes to FDA control of a product with no remedial benefits."
Assuming that your piece is not another chance to attack Mitch McConnell, I do not believe FDA regulation is intended to "discourage smoking" as you conclude; I do think it is an acknowledgement on the part of the federal government that cigarettes are "Drugs" -- hence the "D" in "FDA" -- as opposed to cigarettes being "Food" (the "F" in "FDA") or "Alcohol" (the "A" in "FDA")!
As for "a product with no remedial benefits", I have many in mind, one is alcohol, used for binge drinking on college campuses, and some will say Burger King's Triple Whopper -- talk about lacking in remedial benefits --, that I will love for you to also write to "discourage".
Whether you do so by "restrictions" or "higher taxes" will have to be the subject of a future debate, I guess.
Congress is blowing a lot of smoke as it prepares to allow Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco. The bill that's likely to pass will not let FDA interfere with tobacco farmers, will not permit a ban on tobacco products (a rarity for FDA-managed products), will not sanction the elimination of nicotine and will not prevent tobacco firms from lacing their products with menthol.
Even supporters of a crackdown on tobacco seem to have accepted the menthol exception, despite the views of seven former federal health secretaries and African-American anti-smoking advocates, who point out that any danger the substance poses will disproportionately impact the black community. Those who are for this bill believe menthol brands are so popular among smokers, and so important to cigarette manufacturers, that threatening to remove them from the shelves would ruin any chance for passage.
Sen. Mitch McConnell seems more worried, as usual, about the impact of regulation on tobacco farmers than about $96 billion in annual medical costs associated with smoking, or 438,000 premature deaths each year. It's not surprising that he was the top recipient of tobacco campaign gifts in the 2007-08 election cycle, taking a whopping $132,400. Predictably, approval of FDA regulation did not end up in the $12 billion tobacco grower buyout that he touts as one of his great legislative achievements.
We long have preferred discouraging smoking through restrictions and higher taxes to FDA control of a product with no remedial benefits. However, the industry has so many powerful friends that we eventually, and reluctantly, concluded regulation is the most feasible next step. It's a beginning — a first step toward decisive action against this the deadly "tobacco culture" to which Mr. McConnell and so many other Kentuckians are deeply devoted.
Editor's comment:
You wrote: "We long have preferred discouraging smoking through restrictions and higher taxes to FDA control of a product with no remedial benefits."
Assuming that your piece is not another chance to attack Mitch McConnell, I do not believe FDA regulation is intended to "discourage smoking" as you conclude; I do think it is an acknowledgement on the part of the federal government that cigarettes are "Drugs" -- hence the "D" in "FDA" -- as opposed to cigarettes being "Food" (the "F" in "FDA") or "Alcohol" (the "A" in "FDA")!
As for "a product with no remedial benefits", I have many in mind, one is alcohol, used for binge drinking on college campuses, and some will say Burger King's Triple Whopper -- talk about lacking in remedial benefits --, that I will love for you to also write to "discourage".
Whether you do so by "restrictions" or "higher taxes" will have to be the subject of a future debate, I guess.
Labels: News reporting, Public health
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 2:10 PM
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