>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <06df01bf3de9$1e82dbf0$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: LA Times tobacco editorial >Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 15:50:03 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Here's an editorial from the LA Times. As you can see, nobody knows what to >do about the FDA's insistence on regulating tobacco. This is, I think, the >legal crack in the Drug War--how can tobacco be legal if marijuana is not? > >Enjoy, > >Peter > > >Friday, December 3, 1999 | Print this story > > >A Judicial Tilt for Tobacco > > > > The U.S. Supreme Court appears skeptical that the federal Food and Drug >Administration has the right to regulate tobacco as the Clinton >administration insists. In hostile questioning Wednesday, several justices >took sharp issue with the claim that the 1938 law creating the agency gives >it the jurisdiction that the FDA asserted in 1996 to regulate cigarettes as >"nicotine delivery devices." > Looking at the text of the law and Congress' intent in 1938, it appears >that the high court's skepticism has merit, at least in the arid world of >constitutional jurisprudence. But what should happen in the real world, >where smoking continues to kill more than 430,000 Americans annually? > The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which established the FDA, >empowered it to approve drugs and medical devices prior to marketing. To win >the agency's approval, a product must be proven safe and effective, with >health benefits outweighing risks. > Until the mid-1990s, the agency said that it had no authority to >regulate tobacco, partly because smoking was not recognized until recent >decades for the health menace it is. > Now considered the most preventable cause of death in the United >States, smoking has public health officials worried that teenagers, highly >susceptible to industry advertising, are at particular risk of taking up >smoking and getting hooked. In 1996, under then-Commissioner David Kessler, >the FDA issued regulations aimed at curbing teen smoking by requiring >merchants to check the age on a buyer's identification and limiting >cigarette advertising. It is those regulations that the tobacco industry is >challenging in court. > The FDA insists that since nicotine is a drug, the agency could act >under authority of the 1938 act. Yet, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted, >cigarettes aren't like medicines. Indeed, the agency surely will never >pronounce them either safe or effective. But the FDA also would be >hard-pressed politically to ban the sale of cigarettes outright--and make >that ban stick. > Most likely, the high court will throw the issue back to Congress, >where, for decades, politicians have given the tobacco industry a shamefully >free ride in the area of health and safety. What the lawmakers should do is >explicitly empower the FDA or some other agency to regulate cigarettes. > Greater government control over the manufacturing, sale and advertising >of cigarettes is long overdue. But controls alone won't solve the problem. >Ultimately, only the millions who light up every morning can do that. > > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: