THURSDAY, May 24, 2007 (HealthDay News) -- A major report from an expert federal panel is recommending that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco.
"Congress should confer broad authority on FDA to regulate the manufacture, distribution, marketing and use of tobacco products," advises the report, released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine.
The report, Ending the Tobacco Problem: A Blueprint for the Nation, also recommends boosting the federal tax on cigarettes; gradually reducing the level of nicotine in cigarettes; putting pictures of the ill health effects of smoking on tobacco product packaging; and slapping an R rating on films that depict smoking.
"The debate about tobacco is over," said Richard J. Bonnie, the chair of the IOM committee that drafted the report.
"We know about the harmful effects of tobacco," said Bonnie, a law professor who also directs the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. "This is the only lawful consumer product where the declared objective of the nation is to suppress its use altogether," he said. "We really have to have a properly designed regulatory strategy to do that."
One longtime antismoking crusader agreed.
"If the recommendations in this report were put into place, you could effectively wipe out tobacco use as a major public health problem in five to 10 years," said Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. He was not involved in the report.
Another expert believes the new recommendations could be a catalyst for FDA regulation over tobacco.
"This report is a wakeup call," said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Unless we step-up our efforts to reduce tobacco use, millions of people will die unnecessarily."
Myers noted that the report calls for states to raise tobacco taxes and increase funding for tobacco prevention programs. "But we will not make the needed progress unless the federal government steps up to the plate, and the Congress gives the FDA full and effective authority over tobacco," he said.
"The report could serve as a catalyst to get Congress to act and for the president to sign such a bill," Myers said. "It would be unconscionable for the president to veto legislation giving the FDA authority over tobacco," he said.
A bill dubbed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which would give the FDA authority over tobacco was introduced in February and is working its way through Congress.
Among those supporting the bill is Phillip Morris, the largest maker of cigarettes in the United States. "Philip Morris USA believes regulation of tobacco products by the FDA would establish a comprehensive national tobacco policy that could potentially create a competitive framework within which manufacturers are focused on reducing the harm tobacco use causes," the company said on its Web site.
At the same time Phillip Morris is supporting FDA regulation, its 2006 sales of cigarettes in the United States increased to $4.8 billion on shipments of 183.4 billion cigarettes, according to information on the company's Web site. Internationally, Phillip Morris had tobacco sales of $8.5 billion and shipped 831.4 billion cigarettes.
Glantz said he's wary of just how effective FDA regulation might turn out to be.
"It's obscene that the FDA doesn't have regulatory authority over tobacco," Glantz said. "But the FDA has a long history of being captured by the industries it regulates. The tobacco companies are really good at that kind of stuff. Phillip Morris would not be supporting a piece of legislation that would hurt Phillip Morris. That Phillip Morris is supporting this particular legislation is prima fascia evidence that it's not good" he said.
Other recommendations in the report include:
- Devoting $15 to $20 per person annually to fund tobacco control programs in the states.
- Licensing all retail outlets that sell tobacco products.
- Boosting funding for smoking-cessation programs.
- Having nationwide smoking bans in all restaurants, bars, malls, prisons, and health care facilities.
- Requiring all insurance plans to coverage of smoking cessation programs.
- Making efforts to curb youth smoking and access to tobacco, including bans on online sales and direct-to-consumer shipments of tobacco products.
- Removing federal restrictions, so states can enact more stringent measures to reduce smoking.
- Limiting tobacco advertising to black-and-white and text-only.
- Stop tobacco companies from using misleading claims like "mild" and "light."
- Requiring tobacco companies to stop putting false or misleading information on their products.
- Limit the type or number of places that can sell tobacco products, and make them display warnings and give space to smoking-cessation aids.
- Stop tobacco companies from targeting youth.
"If we did all of these things, we might be able to cut smoking prevalence in half by 2025," Bonnie concluded.
More information
For more information on smoking, visit the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
