Because the Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Control Act is one year old, it now has expanded powers. The Act was approved by Congress to keep kids from smoking and to help adults kick the habit. The FDA cannot regulate nicotine or outright ban smoking – a public health problem that kills 400,000 Americans every year – but it can chip away at Big Tobacco and its marketing intended to encourage young people to start smoking.
Big Tobacco knows if it can hook young people before the age of 19 that they are likely to become lifelong smokers.
It’s now against the law to sell cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18. Sales cannot be for anything less than a full pack of cigarettes. There can be no tobacco-sponsored events whether sporting or music.
One major tobacco consumer information point of concern is that the Tobacco Control Act now bans the industry from putting a positive spin on tobacco products and prohibited advertising or labeling tobacco products as “light”, “mild”, or “low”, and their promises of a lessened risk.
More and larger health warnings are going on smokeless tobacco packages.
Cigarette manufacturers will not be allowed to make or distribute flavored cigarettes such as fruit, spice, and candy-flavored, obviously aimed at hooking new smokers and they will not be allowed to market them to adolescent and teen smokers.
Part of the FDA’s expanded regulatory powers force cigarette makers to become more transparent, listing all ingredients, including toxins, added to tobacco.
Ironically, it is a user fee on tobacco manufacturers that is now funding the FDA crackdown on the industry.
