We agree with many of the goals of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that the president just signed into law.
It will hold tobacco companies to unprecedented openness about what ingredients are in cigarettes. It will further limit their abilities to hook children, either with slick marketing or tasty-sounding flavors. Labels such as "low tar" and "light" might also be banned.
The government will also, finally, have more of a say in the nicotine content. Why nicotine - one of the most addictive drugs available, legal or illegal - has been this unregulated this long is beyond comprehension.
But while such regulation is well-intended and well-founded, it brings up some ethical and moral quandaries.
What other product, for instance, does the government regulate - and, by extension, approve - that kills when used as directed?
And what other highly addictive drug does the FDA allow to be dispensed without a prescription?
To what extent, it must be asked, will the FDA regulate tobacco? To a logical, scientific extent? Or to a lesser, political extent?
Let's look at each path.
Medical science and the FDA mission itself would seem to dictate that the FDA would either ban tobacco all together because it kills - or require that users obtain prescriptions for it. The latter course would essentially also ban the product, since doctors would be most unlikely to prescribe a substance harmful to the patient.
The only other option, it would seem, is the political one - where tobacco continues to exist in a regulatory gray area in which the government basically says, "Well, this stuff will quite likely kill you, but hey, have at it!"
Tobacco companies have, for decades, cowered behind the protection of the surgeon general's warning, albeit while quietly pooh-poohing it. Now, they'll get more government regulation, but added government protection with it: the FDA's eyes-wide-shut stamp of approval.
The irony is that, by regulating tobacco more fully - but not fully - the government might also be taking over much more of the responsibility for it.
Can you imagine the FDA accepting such an arrangement with any other food or drug?
Comments
The taxpayer will still pick up the tab for smokers that don't have health insurance and can't afford their medical treatments and the government will still collect taxes from the sale of cigarettes. If tobacco were made illegal, the black market would keep the supply coming and the government wouldn't have the tax money. The new law should have stipulated that smokers would receive no "free" medical help, but that too would have cut back on the taxes collected.
Prohibition didn't work for alcohol and wouldn't for tobacco.
if they make it illegal, i'll be the first to have my own little backyard grow operation. Hell, if I start having to pay over 5$ a pack I may do that.
Get real people. Go walk around the hospitals and nursing homes. Most of those people in there are not smokers. If you buy into the myth that smokers eat up your medical care dollars I have some "global warming" stock I want to sell you. If a smoker gets a smoking realated disease, and I said if, they get sick and die quickly. They are not the ones eating up your healthcare dollars hanging on for hip transplants, knee transplants, and then eating your medicaid dollars in their 80s and 90s rolling around the nursing home in thier wheelchairs. I personally would rather go out in my 60s or early 70s instead of hanging on for the hip transplant only to find that it slowed me down so much I can't make it to the bathroom in time. It's personal choice and it really doesn't cost you anything since the healthcare for smokers with a disease has never been compared to the long term healthcare cost for non-smokers who hang around as walking corpses into their 90s having your parts replaced every few months. Smokers have been demonized just like global warming and SUVs. It's all about control and taxes. If smoking was THAT bad they would outlaw it, not tax it. HYPOCRITES.
Make no mistake, ciggarettes will kill you. Much more than any other controllable factor. I quit many years ago. But, out of curiosity, I looked into growing tobacco myself. The reason you can't make it a backyard operation is the curing process. It has to be kept in a hot, controlled environment (tobacco barn) for a year to make it smokeable. The govt can tax it much as they want and the smoker has no option. LSMFT....anyone remember that?
Riverman1....came up on a farm in the late 50s early 60s and we raised and flu cured tobacco every year. I assure you that it was picked late summer, hung in a barn, cured with heat from propane heaters, and taken to auction in the fall. Definitely does not take a year to cure tobacco. The government can tax and bootleggers can bootleg, especially from those Indian Reservation producers. And yes, people can grow their own but that takes land and a lot of work. My mom changed from Lucky Stikes (LSMFT) to Pall Mall (unfiltered) when she got it in her head that Pall Malls were more "ladylike". She's 85 now and smokes Winston 100s filters. Be nice folks, don't talk about my mom. Her lungs are clear and her heart is strong and she is still ticking like a Timex.
Max, I defer to your knowledge. I really don't know, but this is the article I read and he said it should be cured for two years. He said he finds it acceptable after one year. I checked in the Wiki tonight and it has much shorter curing times as you say. It is an interesting idea if smokers started growing their own. http://hubpages.com/hub/Tobacco-Growing-and-Curing-at-Home
Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco. Heck, I remember The Flintstones and The Beverly Hillbillies selling smokes. max and river: Of course now the helicopters infrared might pick up the heat signature of your curing operation and the cops may pay you a visit in case you're growing the wacky tobacky.
The Left's smoaking Messiah. hahaha
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