EDITORIAL: Big aTobacco atttempts to evade FDA rules

Sep 27, 2009 (Bristol Herald Courier - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- LO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- After initially acquiescing on new FDA regulations to eliminate candy-, clove- and fruit-flavored tobacco products, Big Tobacco is trying to evade regulations it agreed to earlier this year regarding advertising, marketing and labeling.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Lorillard Inc. and other tobacco manufacturers have filed suit to overturn portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that was signed into law on June 22. Specifically, tobacco companies are challenging language that requires them to increase the size of warning labels on cigarette packs, measures that bar advertising within 1,000 feet of playgrounds or schools and other marketing restrictions. The tobacco companies maintain the law violates the First Amendment by limiting their ability to communicate with adult customers.

For decades, tobacco companies have asserted that their products were not addictive, claimed they were not marketing to minors and refused to tell customers exactly what they were smoking. The law passed earlier this year allows the FDA to regulate the contents of tobacco products, forces companies to make their ingredients public, prohibits flavoring (except for menthol), requires larger warning labels and prohibits marketing campaigns geared toward children.

Big Tobacco is claiming new marketing restrictions will keep them from reaching their adult customers. Tobacco companies can still advertise their corporate name, but there are greater restrictions on pushing specific brands. But we don't think this will keep tobacco companies from reaching their adult customers. Existing tobacco users would admittedly walk through snow, fire or broken glass to get their next pack, can or stogie.

The truth is that tobacco companies don't want to follow the regulations which now require larger warning labels on cigarette packs and to include a photograph of a diseased lung caused by smoking. Gory, yes. And it's not news to the industry since the provision was in the bill passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law.

This is what smoking does -- it causes cancer, emphysema and other types of lung disease. Customers will now see proof of what smoking is doing to their bodies.

If smoking actually caused spontaneous laughter, poolside gatherings, horseback riding over snowy mountains, then the old tobacco industry ads would be accurate. But using tobacco products in the way they are intended causes illness and disease. After decades of denials, this is the accepted truth by everyone -- even, begrudgingly, the tobacco industry.

This newspaper has supported the FDA regulations for this reason. Tobacco use causes illness and disease. For decades children were targeted to replace aging smokers who became ill or died. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in our country, killing more than 400,000 people each year.

FDA regulations are designed to reduce or eliminate dangerous products for our citizens. The tobacco industry sells a product that is inherently dangerous.

Locally, the Kingsport/Bristol region is the second smokiest region in the United States, with approximately 30.5 percent of all adults smoking. That statistic takes a terrible toll on our health, and strains our hospitals where administrators say the majority of admissions are related to smoking. Reducing smoking reduces the associated health costs for these illnesses.

Yes, tobacco is still a legal product. But as of last week, it is an FDA-regulated one because of its proven harm to human health. Curtailing some marketing of a proven cancer-causing product should not become a free-speech call to arms. It is a matter of protecting the public's health.

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