Kretek are ousted from the US while American tobacco interests merrily peddle their wares overseas
Indonesians should turn their attention away from Malaysian theft of their culture to American maltreatment of a rather different national icon – the kretek cigarette.

As of October 1 it will become a criminal offense in the supposedly free United States to sell kretek, the clove-enhanced cigarette dear to most Indonesian smokers and increasingly to foreigners. Indonesia should take this behavior to the World Trade Organisation. The country which in the name of free trade has for decades ensured that its tobacco companies are foisted on the world has the temerity to ban somebody else’s exports to the US.

It should be acknowledged that kretek are no picnic, and that the US ban goes well beyond kretek to other tobacco products as well. According to studies, kretek are made up of 60 to 80 percent tobacco, 20 t0 40 percent ground cloves, clove oil and other additives, although the studies point out that they do not contain the thousands of toxic chemicals that conventional cigarettes are packed with.

This ban is not being done to protect domestic commercial interests. Kretek sales in the US are scarcely big enough to worry the big companies. They account for less than 1 percent of US cigarette sales. The ban on kretek is a product of an out-of-control US Food and Drug Administration which has been given authoritarian powers to declare tobacco products illegal, though illogically it cannot ban pure tobacco products, which take in US$1.5 billion in US exports annually according to the latest data.

In this case it is resorting to banning “flavored” cigarettes on the theory that flavoring adds to their appeal to the young. But this being the US, where big companies can buy their way around rules imposed by self-assuming health bureaucrats, menthol is exempted from the US flavoring ban. American tobacco purveyors sell plenty of menthol cigarettes, and they sell more of them to the young. According to US statistics, in 2006 almost 44 percent of smokers aged 12 to 17 years smoked menthol cigarettes, 36 percent aged 18 to 24 reported smoking menthol cigarettes and more than 30 percent of those over 35 reported smoking them.

Perhaps significantly, the small market for kretek in the US is dominated by Djarum, which is still Indonesian-owned and not a US concern. The multinational giants meanwhile have already moved on Indonesia, with Philip Morris acquiring Sampoerna, and British American Tobacco Indonesia, long a local manufacturer of white cigarettes, acquiring Bentoel. Ironically, back in 2004 Philip Morris had not opposed a proposed ban on kretek in the US for the cynical reason that it did not make any.

The hypocrisy of the US is stunning. According to a study by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai for the National Bureau of Economic Research, the US in the 1980s and 1990s used Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act to force open the cigarette markets of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand. “Estimates from fixed-effects models indicate that the market share of US cigarettes in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand increased dramatically after the agreements as consumers switched from the brands produced by domestic monopolies to the brands of US cigarette producers,” Chaloupka and Laixuthai wrote. “In addition, simulations based on the regression results indicate that per capita cigarette consumption in 1991 in the four affected countries was nearly 10 percent higher than it would have been had the markets remained closed to U.S. cigarettes.”

Sure enough, Japan remains the biggest importer of US manufactured tobacco products, spending US$954 million on US cigarettes annually, followed by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon and, improbably, Iran at No. 5 despite the restraints on trade between the two countries.

The ban is also a blow, albeit a minor one, to the hand-rolled kretek industry which provides for thousands of poor Indonesians. It suggests a do-gooding zealotry on the part of the anti-smoking lobby worthy if not of the Taliban at least of Malaysia’s beer-banning fanatics – and without even a religious text to rely on.

In fact smoking disease patterns suggest that American-style flue-cured, Virginia tobacco with chemical additives which are the most dangerous cigarettes – certainly compared with the air-cured black tobacco ones such as France’s traditional Gauloises cigarettes and Gitanes.

The ban on kretek is discriminatory. One can be sure that if cloves were grown in the US there would be no such ban. As it is, Indonesians might think a reasonable riposte would be to ban all US-brand name colas until the kretek ban is lifted. After all, who knows what noxious substances are in Coca-Cola? The formula is a secret.

Asiasentinel

CHICAGO/NEW YORK, – A group including some top U.S. tobacco companies filed a federal lawsuit on Monday to block provisions of a new tobacco law, arguing it violated their free speech rights under the U.S. constitution.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co, a unit of Reynolds American Inc (RAI.N) that makes Camel and Winston cigarettes, and Lorillard Inc (LO.N), which sells the Newport menthol brand, were among those seeking to void parts of the law.

Altria Group Inc (MO.N), which makes Marlboro cigarettes and is the largest U.S. tobacco company, is not involved in the case after breaking with rivals to support the law.

The legislation signed on June 22 gives the Food and Drug Administration broad powers for the first time over cigarettes and other tobacco products [ID:nN22512674].

It calls for larger warnings on cigarette packages, restricts vending machine sales, bans most flavored products and curbs print advertisements targeting children. The FDA also has final say over new products and marketing claims such as “light” and “low tar.”

While not challenging the FDA’s authority to regulate tobacco products, tobacco companies say the law goes too far in limiting their commercial speech rights in light of existing bans on television and radio advertisements.

“Even prior to the act, plaintiffs had few avenues of communication for speaking to their adult consumers,” the companies said in the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Kentucky. “The act imposes sweeping and unprecedented restrictions that effectively foreclose those avenues of communication that remain.”

The companies are asking the court to overturn bans on the warning labels, using color and graphics in labels and advertising, some outdoor advertising and sponsorships of sporting and other events.

While commercial speech has less constitutional protection than other speech, the government still faces a high hurdle in trying to restrict it, legal experts said.

“The Supreme Court has rejected the rationale that it is okay to ban tobacco advertising to protect children,” Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles.

“It has generally held that for advertising of products not legal for children, such as alcohol and tobacco, we cannot just say, ‘children may see an ad and therefore try to get the product illegally.’”

GOOD CASE?

Proponents said the FDA legislation would help curb youth smoking, but legal experts have questioned whether that would make the restrictions legal.
Even one opponent of the tobacco industry said the companies could have a good case.

“The tobacco companies have a very legitimate claim based on the Supreme Court’s own rulings,” Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

“I question why the crafters of the legislation did not deal with the First Amendment issue appropriately,” he added. “A ruling for the companies would negate a good portion of this legislation.”

Edward Sweda, chief attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, said the tobacco companies already agreed to some advertising restrictions as part of a landmark legal settlement with U.S. states in 1998.

“I am highly doubtful that the Reynolds, Lorillard lawsuit will be ultimately successful,” he said.

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include cigarette maker Commonwealth Brands Inc; tobacco retailer Discount Tobacco city & Lottery Inc and National Tobacco Co.

A representative for the FDA said the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.

The case is Commonwealth Brands Inc vs. United States, U.S. District Court, Western District of Kentucky (Bowling Green), No. 09-117. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington, D.C.; editing by John Wallace and Andre Grenon)


© Reuters

Last week, after I applauded Oregon Attorney General John Kroger for taking a hard line on sales of pernicious “electronic cigarettes” in the state, one faithful reader of The Stump, the estimable Jack Roberts, wasn’t particularly impressed. Here’s what he wrote:

My sympathies are on your side, Doug, but I’m a little unclear exactly what legal authority Kroger had to go after these guys and enter into a “settlement” of what sounds like a nuisance lawsuit by DOJ.

The DOJ’s press release was also silent on exactly what law he was accusing these companies of violating or the legal basis for his action.

Do you know? Or doesn’t that matter anymore?

I replied that I didn’t know and didn’t personally care (I’m a bit rabid on the subject of legalized drug pushers) but that I’d ask Kroger’s office. It took a few days, but here’s the reply I received Monday from Kroger’s spokesman, Tony Green:

Doug — The answer is the Unlawful Trade Practices Act.

DOJ has taken action against e-cig vendors who misrepresent the safety of these products. The UTPA prohibits deceptive promotion of any product, including electronic cigarettes. Two of the products that DOJ investigated are e-cigarettes sold by Smoking Everywhere and NJOY. The national distributors for both products were served with official Notice that the Attorney General believes their promotion of e-cigs violates the UTPA and they were offered an opportunity to avoid litigation by agreeing not sell e-cigs in Oregon until it is determined whether these products must be approved by FDA. If electronic cigarettes do not need
to be approved by FDA, the companies would be able to resuming selling e-cigs in Oregon so long as they possess evidence to support their promotional claims. Two vendors of electronic cigarettes – TA Travel Centers and Pilot Travel Centers – already signed such agreements. Both
NJOY and SMOKING EVERYWHERE have voluntarily agreed to stop doing business in Oregon while we try to negotiate a settlement. Although DOJ is looking at a number of e-cig products, thus far, we are only taking action against NJOY and Smoking Everywhere.

As a footnote, I should add that last week’s posting produced quite a number of e-mails from around the country from those contending I’m a complete idiot because e-cigs are safe and actually help smokers give up tobacco. Yes, and Barack Obama was born in Kenya and his health plan is designed to kill old people.

I’m braced now for the next barrage. Bring it on . . .


© Oregonlive

It’s easy enough to buy a smoke at Isa Yakubu’s grocery store on a busy street in Lagos, Nigeria. Never mind if you don’t have much money. Most local merchants are happy to break open a pack and sell cigarettes one at a time — single sticks, as they’re known — for about 10 Nigerian naira, or 7 cents. “St. Moritz is the most popular brand,” says Yakubu. “But [people] also like Rothmans and Benson & Hedges.”

Single sticks go fast at 7 cents each — an especially good price point for kids. And while Yakubu says he doesn’t sell to children, other shopkeepers do. About 25% of teens — some as young as 13 — use tobacco in some parts of Nigeria, double the smoking rate of Nigerian men, and many pick up the habit by age 11. That’s a demographic powder keg, one that means big trouble if you’re a health expert and big promise if you’re a tobacco executive. Both sides agree on one thing, though: across all of Africa, cigarettes are set for boom times. (See pictures of vintage pro-smoking propaganda.)

In recent years, the world has increasingly been cleaving into two zones: smoking and nonsmoking. In the U.S. and other developed countries, Big Tobacco is in retreat, chased to the curbs by a combination of lawsuits, smoking bans, rising taxes and advertising restrictions. Fewer than 20% of adult Americans now smoke — the lowest rate since reliable records have been kept — and a tobacco crackdown is under way in Europe, Canada and elsewhere. In April, Congress boosted federal cigarette taxes threefold, from 32 cents a pack to $1. In June, President Barack Obama signed a law giving the FDA the power to regulate cigarettes like any other food or drug.

But the West is not the world, and elsewhere smoking is exploding. In China, 350 million adults are hooked on tobacco, which means the country has more smokers than the U.S. has people. Smoking rates in Indonesia have quintupled since 1970. In Russia, boys as young as 10 start lighting up. This year, tobacco companies will produce more than 5 trillion cigarettes — or 830 for every person on the planet.

It’s in Africa, however, that the battle for the hearts, minds and lungs of new smokers is being waged most aggressively — and Nigeria offers a telling look at how the fight is unfolding. For all the woes that beset the continent, Africa still enjoys the lowest smoking rates in the world, largely because most people just can’t afford it. In Ghana, the male smoking rate (which in most places in the world is higher than the female rate) is only 8%; in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it’s 14%; in Nigeria, it’s 12%. Compare that with 31% in India, 56% in Malaysia and a whopping 61% in China. But the tobacco industry abhors a vacuum, and in recent years, industry players — principally London-based British American Tobacco, Switzerland-based Philip Morris International and the U.K.’s Imperial Tobacco — have been working hard to fill it. “We’ve done this before,” says Allan Brandt, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University and the author of The Cigarette Century. “When something gets regulated here, we move the risk offshore.” Says Michael Eriksen, a former policy adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Africa is in play.” (See how many people smoke around the world.)

Spreading the Scourge
Big Tobacco’s footprint in Africa has been hard to miss for a while. British American markets its wares — which include Dunhill and Pall Mall — in a vast crescent sweeping from South Africa to Congo and west to Ghana, as well as throughout North Africa. In 2003 the company planted its stakes deeper, building a $150 million factory in Nigeria. Philip Morris, whose brands include Marlboro and Chesterfield, has a smaller presence on the continent. “We are a minor, minor player,” says spokesman Greg Prager. But that could change. The company does no business in Nigeria, but it controls about 15% of the market across North Africa and has a scattered 10% share elsewhere. It has also built a new factory in Senegal.

That expansion increasingly happens through the single-stick model, and that’s the traffic that causes the most worry. People who buy cigarettes by the stick are typically the poor, the uneducated or the young — all groups less likely to have learned of the perils of smoking. “[A single stick is] much more affordable, and for young people, it’s easier to conceal,” says Babatunde Irukera, an antismoking lawyer working with the Nigerian government.

Sweden is the world’s largest snuff market measured by per capita consumption. A substantially larger proportion of the male population uses the Swedish type of moist snuff called snus1 compared to cigarettes. The Norwegian market is smaller than the Swedish market but has in recent years experienced strong volume growth. The US is the world’s largest snuff market measured in number of cans and is approximately six times larger than the Swedish market. In Sweden and Norway, Swedish Match has a leading position. In the US, the Group is well positioned as the third largest player. Some of the best known brands include General, Ettan and Grov in Sweden, and Red Man, Timber Wolf and Longhorn in the US.

During the second quarter, sales increased by 17 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year, to 1,087 MSEK (926), and operating profit increased by 15 percent to 463 MSEK (403). Sales and operating profit improved in Scandinavia as well as in the US. The operating margin for the total product group was 42.6 percent (43.6).

In Scandinavia, sales volumes measured in number of cans, increased by 6 percent during the second quarter compared to the second quarter of the previous year, as volumes increased in all markets (Sweden, Norway and Travel Retail). Sales revenues in Scandinavia grew by 8 percent in the second quarter, while operating profit grew by 5 percent as the production costs increased somewhat more than the net sales price per can. Since February, General White Portion snus has been available throughout Sweden in an upgraded “star formation” packaging, following the successful introduction of this redesign initiative in Norway in 2008. This new packaging has been well received in Sweden, and the product has gained volume during the quarter.

In the US, sales volumes during the second quarter were unusually strong and up by 21 percent compared to the same period in the previous year. Sales volumes toward the end of the first quarter of 2009 declined sharply due to trade destocking related to the US federal excise tax increase. This was reversed in the second quarter. Swedish Match consumer volumes as measured by ACNielsen for the year to date period through June 13 increased by 9.2 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. Market growth in the same period was 2.3 percent according to ACNielsen. The strong shipment volumes were a contributor to the sales and operating profit growth in the US snuff business.

From April 1, excise taxes in the US increased by 91.5 cents per pound (about 7 cents per can for most products). Swedish Match maintained pricing for most of the quarter, thus absorbing the tax increase. On June 23, Swedish Match snuff prices were increased by 7-10 cents per can, thereby compensating for the tax increase going forward and reverting to net prices closer to the levels before the increase.

For the first six months of the year, sales increased to 2,055 MSEK (1,727) and operating profit increased to 860 MSEK (716). Operating margin was 41.8 percent (41.5).

Swedish snus is moist snuff which is produced using a special heat treated process, much like pasteurization, as opposed to other snuff products for which a fermentation process is used.

When it comes to smoking, Indonesia remains the last paradise for a puff in Southeast Asia. Those addicted to cigarettes can openly light up in public places without worrying about tough anti-tobacco penalties found in the rest of the region.

This reality has been shaped by the power of local and multinational tobacco companies on the archipelago of some 224 million people.

At the finals for the recent “Mild Live Wanted 2009” countrywide talent contest, in the former colonial city of Bandung, competing musicians belted out their songs from around 3 p.m till midnight.

For Indonesia’s small, yet vocal, anti-tobacco activists, these concerts—billed to promote local talent—offered more than music to fill their ears. They were the latest in a string of publicity drives of the powerful multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) in the country.

“A Mild is a product of PMI,’ said Dina Kania, policy advocacy coordinator of the National Commission for Child Protection, a non-governmental organization that is part of the country’s anti-tobacco movement. “This has always been a PMI promotional event since this annual concert series began in 2007.”

But in other forms of entertainment, the publicity for tobacco companies are more direct, revealed Ms. Kania during a telephone interview from Jakarta. “There was a film for teenagers last year where one of the actresses, who is still in junior high school, was smoking in scenes.”

Such an effort to glamorize smoking goes to extremes, at times. “There are so many scenes of people smoking in Indonesian movies where the camera even zooms in to show the cigarette brand,” added Ms. Kania. “There is no regulation like in other countries.”

It is little wonder why a regional anti-tobacco lobby has described Southeast Asia’s largest country as a “cash cow” for the tobacco industry. “With 63 percent of its men smoking, Indonesia contributes handsomely towards PMI’s profits—making it its fourth largest market in the world,” said the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).

“In 2008, PMI owned PT, HM Sampoerna became the market leader capturing 30 percent of the cigarette market share,” adds SEATCA. “The increased market was obtained through aggressive tobacco advertising and promotions not matched anywhere else in Asia.”

The wide latitude tobacco companies that advertise their product on large billboards across the country has earned Indonesia the dubious distinction of sharing the same spotlight as Zimbabwe. “The country is also one of only two that still allows cigarette advertising,” reports The Jakarta Globe, an English-language daily in a recent edition. “The other is Zimbabwe, which like Indonesia is one of the largest tobacco exporters in the world.”

Studies by the World Health Organization and other groups reveal that the country has some 63 million smokers, with a tenth of students in their teens being smokers. Children as young as 10 years are also among these smokers, say some reports.

Indonesia’s smokers currently account for over 40 percent of Southeast Asia’s 125 million smokers. This accounts for a large number of deaths due to smoking related diseases annually—about 200,000, according to SEATCA.

The prospect of more deaths from this “smoking epidemic” has still to move Jakarta, which has not signed the world’s first public health treaty—the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been in force since early 2005.

By contrast, this treaty has been signed by Indonesia’s nine neighbors in the region, which include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The FCTC requires countries to restrict tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion; ensure people are protected from exposure to tobacco smoke; and have new packaging and labeling policies—including graphic warning signs about the dangers from smoking.
© Finalcall

As the government tightens regulations on tobacco and smoking, some people have found a new way to get their nicotine fix without smoke and ash: electronic cigarettes.

E-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine that users inhale along with a nearly odorless vapor-mist that mimics smoke, are practically unregulated and have not been rigorously tested in the United States. That doesn’t faze users such as David Moss.

Moss, 55, smoked traditional cigarettes for 40 years, but quit about six months ago after discovering a battery-operated version that provides the nicotine his body craves without the tar-filled smoke.
ELECTRICCIGS5.FE.060909.TEL

Moss, who lives in Durham and once smoked three packs a day, wasn’t bothered by the lack of studies on the e-cigarette.

“It’s unproven,” he said, “but I have no fear because I’m not smoking cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes are available online as well as in a number of gas stations and at least one mall in the Triangle.

Earlier this year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began cracking down on the import of the devices, stopping shipments at the border. Most e-cigarettes are manufactured in China.

“Basically, we don’t have any data on these products,” said Karen Riley, an FDA spokeswoman.

E-cigarette starter kits can cost $100 or more. The cigarette, which is legal to possess, is often made of three pieces: a replaceable nicotine cartridge, an atomizer and a rechargeable battery. The cartridges come in a variety of flavors, including strawberry cheesecake, chocolate and tobacco, and nicotine-free versions are available. The atomizer, or heating element, warms when the user inhales and uses propylene glycol, a liquid used in theatrical smoke machines, to create the smokelike vapors.

The odor, nearly undetectable, is not immediately offensive to those nearby, the way cigarette smoke can be to nonsmokers.

Does FDA have a say?

President Barack Obama has said that he will soon sign legislation to give the FDA power to regulate tobacco. But that new law includes no guidance specific to electronic cigarettes.

North Carolina lawmakers recently passed their own smoking law — a ban on smoking in most bars and restaurants, starting next year.

N.C. Sen. William R. Purcell, who sponsored the legislation, said that he had not heard of e-cigarettes until last week. The law defines smoking in part as “any lighted tobacco product,” so Purcell thinks the new law, which takes effect Jan. 2, would not apply to e-cigarettes.

Former smokers such as Moss and his friend Wes Clark of Morrisville like the way e-cigarettes provide an experience akin to smoking a regular, or what they call an analog, cigarette. Nicotine gums and patches deliver the nicotine, but without the routine that comes with traditional smoking, said Clark, 37. After years of smoking, the behaviors that go with it, including stepping outside for a cigarette or watching the exhaled smoke, become a big part of the habit.

Unlike nicotine gums or patches, e-cigarettes have not undergone the clinical testing required for FDA approval. The agency thinks that e-cigarettes are a “drug-device combination product” and fall under its regulation, said Riley, the FDA spokeswoman.

One of the biggest American e-cigarette importers recently sued the FDA in an attempt to loosen the import restrictions.

For smokers only

Matt Salmon, a former Arizona congressman and current lobbyist who serves as president of the Electronic Cigarette Association, emphasized that his group specifically markets its product to committed smokers and only as an alternative to traditional smoking. Although some smokers say e-cigarettes have helped them quit smoking, the ECA does not claim its products can help people kick tobacco.

But “it’s clearly a product that doesn’t carry the known carcinogens that are in combustible tobacco,” Salmon said.

Jed Rose, director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research, said his lab has done some testing of e-cigarettes that focused on the way they deliver nicotine. E-cigarettes don’t deliver all the cancer-causing agents that tobacco cigarettes do, but it’s not clear exactly what they put in the user’s body.

When asked whether e-cigarettes were safer than tobacco-filled ones, Rose said the required studies have yet to be done: “That’s a tough question to answer without safety data.”

Moss and Clark met at a coffee shop last week with a couple of other e-cigarette fans to swap flavored nicotines and discuss their hobbies. Both men are concerned that e-cigs might eventually be taken off the market.

Moss said he used to spend more than $600 a month for cigarettes for himself and his wife. The e-cigarette habit costs only about $150. And because the vapor has almost no smell, he has smoked his e-cigarette in a movie theater as well as on an airplane.

If e-cigarettes are declared illegal, he said, “we’ll go underground like anything else.”

Background: Starting on 01.01.2007, electronic locking devices based on proof-of-age (via electronic cash cards or a European driving licence) were installed in approximately 500,000 vending machines across Germany to restrict the purchase of cigarettes to those over the age of 16.

Objective: To examine changes in the number of tobacco vending machines before and after the introduction of these new measures.

Design: We recorded and mapped the total number of commercial tobacco sources in two selected districts (70,000 inhabitants) in Cologne. This major German city was the ideal setting for this study as we were able to use existing socio-geographical data from the area.

Setting and participants: We compiled a complete inventory in autumn 2005 and 2007. We also interviewed a total of 780 students aged 12 to 15 in the study areas.

Main outcome measure: Quantity and locations of commercial tobacco sources.

Results: Between 2005 and 2007 the total number of tobacco sources decreased from 315 to 277 within the study area. Although the most obvious reduction was detected in the number of outdoor vending machines (-48%), the number of indoor vending machines also decreased by 8%. Adolescents changed from vending machines to other sources for cigarettes, particularly kiosks or friends (+ 31%-points usage rate, p<0.001; +35%-points usage rate, p<0.001, respectively).

Conclusions: Although the number of tobacco vending machines decreased, this has not had a significant impact on cigarette acquisition by underage smokers as they were able to circumvent this new security measure in several different ways.

Source: Tobaccocontrol

Altria Group statement released on June 11, 2009 regarding the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act:

“We think today’s vote by the U.S. Senate is an important step forward on this legislation. For more than eight years, Altria Group has supported tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products by the Food and Drug Administration and we are glad to see the progress Congress has made toward that goal.

This legislation would establish a regulatory structure and standards for the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products that should provide important benefits to adult consumers for many years to come. We believe that adult consumers should be the primary beneficiaries of a federal regulatory framework:
(1) under which all tobacco product manufacturers and importers doing business in the United States would operate at the same high standards;
(2) for the pursuit of tobacco product alternatives that are less harmful than conventional cigarettes;
(3) that should provide for transparent, scientifically grounded, and accurate communication about tobacco products to consumers.

The legislation passed today is not perfect. For example, we have expressed First Amendment reservations about certain provisions, including those that could restrict a manufacturer’s ability to communicate truthful information to adult consumers about tobacco products. We also believe that the resolution of certain issues would best be handled by rulemaking processes that involve sound scientific data and public participation. We have made our views known on these provisions throughout the legislative process.

On balance, however, the legislation is an important step forward to achieve the goal we share with others to provide federal regulation of tobacco products. We thus encourage the House to adopt H.R. 1256, and to send it to the President for his approval.”