Flavored tobacco law failing
With the failure of one law comes the pursuit of new ones.
Since the Food and Drug Administration has taken over the regulation of tobacco, many new ideas and laws have come into play that leave issues of civil freedoms dangling in the balance. The main one that some states are beginning to notice is the ban on flavored cigarettes and cigars.
Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA, has been quoted as saying, “Flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become smokers.”
This is the reasoning for the new ban.
I disagree; we already have a law in place that bans minors from smoking.
As recently reported in The Daily Eastern News, we saw in the news that 11 businesses were busted in Charleston alone for selling cigarettes to minors. I imagine this is also the case in many cities across the country.
So, basically, this law is failing outrageously. With this law failing to get the job done, instead of creating harsher punishments for those who sell to minors, we have decided to put into place a new law that bans flavored tobacco because, somehow, that is the cause for teens smoking.
Bad parenting and a poor work ethic is why kids are smoking!
Why does the FDA think that putting a ban on flavored cigarettes will change anything when businesses are still selling cigarettes to minors, regardless of flavor? To me, that is like saying that since the law against murder isn’t working we are going to ban all knives. Nonetheless, the FDA doesn’t stop there.
They are also considering not only dedicating 50 percent of a cigarette pack to a health warning but even putting the image of a diseased lung on cigarette packs.
Does that not seem seriously over the top and down the other side of the mountain? What they haven’t accounted for is the loss in tax dollars that is set to follow this ban on flavored tobacco. Some states are predicted to lose up to $140 million in tax money from the banning of flavored cigarettes.
Where do they plan to make up for this lost money? God forbid it be from education funding.
Another thought is that since the FDA takeover, the tobacco center at the FDA has issued numerous fees on tobacco corporations that fund the center’s very existence.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, it is predicted that by 2013 these fees will bring in up to $500 million annually. As usual we can see that somebody sure does stand to profit a lot.
Is it possible the tobacco corporations are being exploited for continuous profits by the U.S. government? Of course.
After all, tobacco companies are stuck with sales taxes much higher than alcohol or any other products on the market. People think this is fair because the rise in health care costs because of tobacco-related illnesses. News flash: Alcohol and fast food also lead to many health problems such as liver disease and heart disease.
They both rack up comparable health care costs. Tobacco doesn’t deserve all the blame. In my opinion, the government is taking the easy way out and the profitable way to pointing fingers where fingers aren’t meant to be justifiably pointed.
Julian Russell
12/3/09 Dennews
