Land: FDA should regulate tobacco products

By Tom Strode - Apr 3, 2006

ERLC President Richard Land urged Congress April 5 to bring tobacco products under the regulation of the federal government and thereby protect the health of Americans.

Speaking at a Capitol Hill news conference, Land and other religious leaders urged Congress to approve legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to control the manufacture, promotion and sale of such products as cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

“Few steps could have a greater impact on our health, because tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death” in the United States, Land said. “Yet tobacco products are virtually unregulated. . . . The FDA legislation would finally end the special protection enjoyed by the tobacco industry and protect our children and the nation’s health instead.”

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, S. 666 in the Senate and H.R. 1376 in the House of Representatives, would empower the FDA to regulate the content of tobacco products, prohibit candy-flavored cigarettes, crack down on tobacco sales to under-age children, and limit advertising and promotion of tobacco products.

Though the FDA regulates food, medicine, cosmetics and pet food, it is unable to control cigarettes and other tobacco products, Land said.

“We’re simply asking that tobacco products be subject to the same common-sense consumer protections as other products,” Land said. “The tobacco companies can put whatever they want in cigarettes without disclosing anything.

“Nobody wants too much government regulation,” he said, “but what we are asking for is not overly burdensome. It would simply level the playing field between tobacco and other products. There is consensus in the faith community, both conservative and liberal, that this product must be regulated.”

Land and other speakers cited numerous statistics to demonstrate the harmful effects of tobacco in this country:

  • 1,200 people a day and 438,000 a year die from cigarette smoking or secondhand smoke.
  • The costs in health care and lost productivity total more than $180 billion a year.
  • 4,000 children under 18 try smoking for the first time daily.
  • 90 percent of adult smokers start the practice by age 18.

Further Learning

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