14 DAY TRIAL // The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may soon receive control powers over the multi-million-dollar tobacco industry, after proposed legislation that would allow the agency to do just that has passed a US Senate panel on Wednesday. The proposal was already passed by the House of Representatives in April, more along party lines, with a 15-to-8 vote. Basically, its new and increased powers will give the FDA the right to restrict or ban ads that may affect children, allow it to control the amount of nicotine in each pack, and also to dictate the warning texts that cigarette manufacturers have to place on their products.
All that remains to be done before the new bills are passed is for the Senate and the House to settle any differences they may have on the texts. As soon as this procedural step is completed, the proposals will be sent to President Barack Obama, who has already expressed his approval of the initiative.
“All of us believe the time has come to act to protect our nation's children. Every day we delay another 3,000, 4,000 children begin to smoke,” Connecticut Democrat, Senator Christopher Dodd said. He has been the leader of the Senate health committee's version of the new bill, Reuters reports.
The proponents of the new measure say that the move is aimed squarely at reducing the number of children and young adults who pick up smoking, by curbing the number of ads that are targeted at these populations, and also by increasing the “scariness factor” of the warnings that are currently placed on each pack of cigarettes. Dodd underlined the fact that in the United States more than 2.7 million children smoked at the moment, a situation that was unacceptable.
Additionally, the documents state, an approximate 400,000 yearly deaths could be avoided with the new measures. That's the number of people who die in the US each year on account of lung cancer, heart and circulatory diseases, or other tobacco-generated conditions, according to official statistics. But, understandably, not everyone was happy with the new decisions. “We need to fight the issue head on, not tinker at the margins with cigarette composition,” the top Republican of the committee, Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi, explained.
Among tobacco companies, a common line of action could not be distinguished. For example, Phillip Morris announced that it backed up the initiative, whereas some smaller producers, such as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard Tobacco Co., said that the measure was not justified.