WASHINGTON, D.C. -- March 5, 2008 -- On the eve of the House Health Subcommittee markup of a bill to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad authority to regulate tobacco products, an advertisement in Capitol Hill publications debuting today demonstrates the lengths to which the tobacco companies go to lure kids to smoke in the absence of federal marketing and advertising restrictions on their products.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the sister advocacy organization of the American Cancer Society, is running an ad in Roll Call and Congress Daily pointing out that the tobacco industry has virtually free reign in marketing its deadly, addictive products to children. The ad features a faux box of cigarettes that resembles a box of crayons, demonstrating that without a federal agency to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products, the tobacco industry can go as far as it wants to entice children to use its products. It’s no coincidence that 4,000 kids light their first cigarette every day.
The ad can be found by going to: https://www.fightcancer.org/tobaccoads and clicking on the cigarette box image.
“The tobacco companies continue to prey on innocent children, marketing products like fruit and mint flavored cigarettes in colorful packaging and offering hip promotions and ‘back to school special’ discounts to lure kids into using the harmful products,” said Daniel E. Smith, president of ACS CAN. “Tobacco, which kills more than 440,000 Americans each year and remains the leading cause of preventable death in the country, is the only ingestible consumable product the FDA does not regulate and the industry has gotten a free pass at the detriment of the consumer for far too long.”
According to a recent national public health community poll, 70 percent of voters support Congressional passage of the FDA tobacco legislation, “The Family Smoking Prevention Tobacco Control Act” (S. 625/H.R. 1108). The bill is supported by more than 600 national, state and local public health, public interest and faith-based organizations and by a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House and Senate. In 2007, both the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine and the President’s Cancer Panel published reports recommending Congress authorize the FDA to regulate tobacco products.
“The FDA is the only federal agency with the scientific expertise necessary to effectively regulate tobacco products and the health-related claims made by the tobacco companies,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and ACS CAN. “As a science-based organization committed to decreasing the toll tobacco takes on our country, ACS CAN will continue to fight for American’s right to know the contents of a product that when taken as directed, kills.”
The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee is scheduled to mark up the FDA bill (HR 1108) at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 6, in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
ACS CAN is the nonprofit, nonpartisan sister advocacy organization of the American Cancer Society, dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage lawmakers, candidates and government officials to support laws and policies that will make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Kat Porter
Phone: (202) 585-3202
Email: [email protected]