FDA's First Tobacco Law-Candy & Fruit Flavored Cigarettes Illegal
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today a ban on cigarettes with flavors characterizing fruit, candy, or clove. The ban, authorized by the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is part of a national effort by the FDA to reduce smoking in America. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in America.
The FDA's ban on candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes, effective today, highlights the importance of reducing the number of children who start to smoke, and who become addicted to dangerous tobacco products. The FDA is also examining options for regulating both menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes.
"Almost 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers. These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers," said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. "The FDA will utilize regulatory authority to reduce the burden of illness and death caused by tobacco products to enhance our Nation's public health."
Flavors make cigarettes and other tobacco products more appealing to youth. Studies have shown that 17 year old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers over the age of 25.1
"Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction," said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, M.D., M.P.H. "FDA's ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily."
The FDA is taking several steps to enforce the ban. A letter recently sent to the tobacco industry provided information about the law, and explained that any company who continues to make, ship or sell such products may be subject to FDA enforcement actions.
The FDA has also made available today an advisory to parents on the risks associated with flavored tobacco products.
"Youth are twice as likely to report seeing advertising for these flavored products as adults are," said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and the FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner. "Marketing campaigns for products with sweet candy and fruit flavors can mislead young people into thinking that these products are less addictive and less harmful."
The FDA encourages consumers to report continuing sales of flavored cigarettes through a special tobacco hotline (1-877-CTP-1373) and Web site (www.fda.gov/flavoredtobacco).
Parents and consumers can learn more about the risks of flavored tobacco products at www.fda.gov/ .
Footnote:
1 Klein SM, Giovino GA, Barker DC, Tworek C, Cummings KM, O'Connor RJ. Use of flavored cigarettes among older adolescent and adult smokers: United States, 2004-2005. Nicotine Tob Res. 2008;10(7):1209-14.
Read more on OpposingViews.com: Obama Signs "Deceptive" FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill
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It makes me sick to think of children being marketed by the cigarette companies. They did it when we were kids with "candy cigarettes " and they continue with their cartoon characters and flavored tobacco products. I'm so glad someone is finally clamping down on these greedy sociopaths who spend their days trying to find ways to kill our children with their filthy products.
I used to love candy cigarettes though I am still and always have been a solid non-smoker. It's easy to think that the tobacco companies fiendishly plot to get kids addicted to tobacco products but the truth is they don't have to. People who start smoking tend to do so in a reaction to their immediate environment much more than some exotic flavor or cartoon character. A lot of times kids even start as a sophomoric rebellion to the anti-smoking authority that's telling them they can't.
Somewhat true, at least the part about kids smoking because they see someone else doing it, but the fact is that there is solid, scientific research which demonstrates that marketing cigarettes to kids (by means of cartoon characters for brand awareness, sweet flavorings, etc.) is highly effective. And the tobacco companies do so quite intentionally as a means of hooking the next generation of smokers to buy their product.
If you'd like to do some scientific studies to try to refute the already solid body of evidence to that effect, please feel free, but if not, then it might be a good idea to face up to the reality of the evil that these companies are doing to our kids.
The studies you are talking about are mainly provided for and funded by anti smoking advocates where those suggesting there are no effects are funded by tobacco companies. Big surprise, both seem to have findings that support their point of view. Niether are particularly productive because they both set out to prove their side is right. Rather than censoring or altering the message of advertisers we would be better to instill in our children the good judgement needed to understand the relationship between advertisers and consumers and allow them make their own choices when they come of age. This is much better than using "the children" as a political football.
Whom would you expect to fund studies which demonstrate the negative effects of smoking ? If the studies utilize sound scientific methodology and are peer-reviewed, then I am quite willing to accept that they are valid.
The problem with studies funded by interest groups is when those interest groups expect to profit from a particular result of the study. Anti-smoking groups are, most generally, not profit agencies devoted to the health and well-being of the public. I'd trust their studies a great deal more than I'd trust studies funded by the tobacco companies, whose profit-motivation is beyond question.
But you go ahead and suit yourself.
We simply disagree. I see no reason for your closing comment. However, I must disagree with the notion that non-profit organizations have no financial motivation beyond the purest sense of the idea. I think many would be appalled at the amount of profit a non-prof can make. They regularly compete for government funding not to mention what can be made from lawsuits. But I can't bring myself to actually accept that such organizations have our best interest at heart when there is so much money to be made and political leanings to be exploited? Seemingly high minded interest groups are just asgreedy and problematic as those seeking taking more conventional avenues. Everyone is selling something.
But I stress we simpy disagree. This issue overall should be left to individuals to draw their own conclusions not governments.
Sorry to offend you. I just find it staggering that someone would take the word of tobacco companies over scientific studies, simply because those studies were funded by public health organizations.
My problem here is that I find the logic (and paranoia) of this position incomprehensible, so I don't know that there is much more to be accomplished in this discussion. My point is that I must leave you to your opinions because I certainly cannot understand them, nor am I likely to by hearing you repeat them. I've watched too many people die of cigarette-related lung cancer and seen too many children begin the process of dying from this vile addiction. I'm for any measure which shows even the smallest promise of helping to reduce the number of people affected by this problem.
This is not a contnuation of the debate so much as my attempt to clarify my point. First, I never said or even implied that I favored the results of tobacco companies over those found by public health organizations. I simply put them on level ground and illustrated how each was moved toward their own goals.
Secondly, you refuse to accept that my point may very well be valid. Paranoia like faith is an irrational state of mind. I do not intend to suggest that either of these groups are evil so much as human and therefore caught up in their own agenda and therefore self interest. Your second paragraph implies that you are solid in upholding your oppinion, yet I am somehow loopy for defending mine. Is it so "incomprehensible"? Particularly considering that I am not asking you to agree with me.
You use health problems for support. I have two parents who have been smoking for 40+ years. They have that dry smokers hack and it drives me nuts, but they're not stupid. They have made the choice to smoke and if you ever ask them they will defend their choice. My grandfather died of stomach cancer and suffered from extreme emphysema and yet continued to smoke even while on oxygen which made for a few troubling nights. He too knew the health risks and made his own decisions.
I understand your view and respect it though I do not agree. But mine as clearly as I can state it is this: we are a free people; we don't have to agree, but it's no one's place to impose their values on another by way of legislation or any other means. Furthermore, there is no reason why we cannot acknowledge and respect our opposing views.
I'm not suggesting that cigarettes be banned (nor is the OP). People have the right to make informed decisions. The problem is that children are notoriously poor at making informed decisions based upon risks that are most likely many decades in their future. They do not comprehend their own mortality. Therefore, protecting them from marketing ploys which are (quite clearly, IMO) directed at them seems incumbent upon us as a society .
We as parents cannot protect our children from every possible influence in their lives which may induce them to try cigarettes. Eliminating a few of those possible influences, particularly the ones custom designed by the tobacco companies to make their products more appealing to youth, seems a sensible choice.
Are these flavored cigarettes clearly aimed at children . Or are they more like flavored alcoholic beverages which are still aimed at adults, just a little easier to consume?