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No to Regulation
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Published: August 3, 2008
A bill allowing FDA regulation of the tobacco industry faces little chance of passing in the Senate, and opponents of that regulation should ensure that by keeping up a hard fight against this wrongheaded government intervention.
The House on Wednesday passed such a bill. The bill would give the FDA the power to further curtail marketing, control nicotine levels and enlarge government warnings on labels on all tobacco products. The Senate's Democratic leadership has made no decision on whether a similar bill will get a vote in its body before this congressional session ends.
But the full House approval "marks the most significant legislative action this bill has ever had," Neil H. Simon of the Media General News Service reported.
Opponents of FDA regulation can't afford to let their guard down.
Both candidates for president, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, are co-sponsors of the Senate bill on regulation. Supporters have a point when they say this regulation would encourage efforts to make tobacco products less harmful. But that's outweighed by arguments made by opponents of the regulation.
And by limiting marketing, the regulation could cement Philip Morris USA as the nation's leading cigarette manufacturer -- to the detriment of Winston-Salem's Reynolds American and other companies.
It's unacceptable to market cigarettes to potential smokers who are underage. Restricting cigarette sales to adults, however, has no place in a free society.
As the House minority leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, rightly said, "There is not a smoker in America who doesn't know smoking isn't good for them. Do we need the government to tell us?"
Heck no. Boehner's a smoker himself, but many nonsmokers are just as resentful of government efforts to play Big Brother.
The health hazards of tobacco are clear; just ask any of the millions of hacking smokers who can't quit. But the success or failure of the cigarette industry has to be based on supply and demand. Artificially limiting supply doesn't work, as Prohibition made clear.
More education efforts to prevent children from ever smoking and more programs to help youth and adults quit should be used to limit the demand. Public restrictions on smoking are already doing that. More government intervention, this time in the form of FDA regulation, would undermine the cherished principle that Americans are responsible for their own actions.
Even if we were in favor of regulating tobacco, we'd have to concur with the Bush administration and congressional Republicans on one point: The underfinanced FDA is the wrong agency for the job. There have already been enough questions raised about this agency's work. It doesn't need another huge job.
Opponents of regulation should make sure that it doesn't get it.
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