For the first time Congress has a good chance of passing legislation to permit the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.
One of the major components of bills moving forward in the House and Senate is a ban on flavored cigarettes, which attract young people to an addictive habit that will damage their health and shorten their lives.
The most widely sold flavored cigarettes are those containing menthol. Its minty taste and soothing effect mask the bitter edge of tobacco for neophyte users. Menthol is the choice of 75 percent of African-American smokers. The lung cancer rate among black males who smoke is 50 percent higher than in their white counterparts. In addition, research indicates that the additive, which is used in a quarter of all cigarettes sold in the United States, might result in deeper penetration of carcinogenic smoke into the lungs, and makes it harder for users to quit.
Given those facts, one would expect menthol cigarettes to be a prime target of the proposed legislation. Instead, they are exempted from the ban, a testimonial to the power of the tobacco lobby and the industry’s hold on legislators from tobacco-producing states. Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-New Jersey, recognized the obvious inconsistency in targeting all flavorings but the one that has a chokehold on the cigarette market and offered an amendment to include menthol. It was defeated. The judgment of the legislation’s authors was that tobacco regulation could not pass unless menthol was exempted.
Although one major company, Phillip Morris USA, supports federal regulation of tobacco, representatives of other large brands such as R.J.Reynolds do not. They’ve been joined by the Bush administration, whose spokesman reasons that regulating tobacco would give a false impression that it is safe.
Arguing that a substance with a proven public health risk is best left unregulated by the government is a puzzling line of reasoning. Just as off-target is the claim by opponents of the legislation that the FDA is already overtaxed. In fact, the agency would be expanded to carry out its new duties through fees paid by tobacco companies.
Even with its defects, the legislation will break significant ground. It will give the FDA more authority in packaging of products and eliminate efforts to portray "lite" cigarettes as less harmful. It would establish a tobacco products scientific advisory committee and standards to protect public health.
Anti-smoking groups enthusiastically support the legislation. American Lung Association spokeswoman Michelle Bernth points out that the law would give the FDA the authority to study and regulate or ban menthol cigarettes in the future.