Wyoming Vote Tracker

On Monday, Wyoming’s senior Senator introduced a tobacco bill that rivals the current legislation being considered which would give the FDA more control over the tobacco industry. Control that the FDA doesn’t want.

Fist off, let me say that I am no fan of tobacco or the tobacco industry. I have a number of relatives that smoke. The ones that I am closest to know where my stance is on tobacco use. I am opposed to it, no questions asked. It doesn’t make sense health-wise, it doesn’t make sense money wise (think of the potential millions you’d have if you put the cigarette money into a good mutual fund, not to mention lower insurance rates), and it just plain doesn’t smell good.

On a related note, I am opposed to high taxes. I’ve seen tobacco prices go way up in my 20-some years of 0berving them because of tobacco-industry targeted taxes. What’s the “intent” of these taxes? Get people to stop smoking and/or chewing. Guess what? Countless tax dollars later, the tobacco industry is still going strong and people are still smoking and/or chewing. Obviously, “taxing the industry to death” is not going to get people to kick the habit. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be deterring the Phillip Morrises and R. J. Reynoldses out there.

Believe me, I would be cheering like crazy if the tobacco companies shut their doors today and called all the retailers across the country with instructions to pull the products off the shelves. Probably not going to happen any time soon, but I would be thrilled when or if it does.

Further more I heard on the radio this morning that 75% of G, PG, and PG-13 movies feature some sort of tobacco use. All R movies feature tobacco use. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of how many glorify it and how many place it in a bad light. That leads into Disney being the first company to ban all tobacco use in its movies.

So, what’s the Sen. Enzi proposal you ask?

Enzi’s rival bill, the Help End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits Act, isn’t scheduled yet for a committee vote. Enzi based his tobacco bill not on FDA regulation, but on an idea borrowed from environmental legislation. He wants to use a cap-and-trade program for tobacco production, which would diminish annually in order to reduce the numbers of addicted people to less than 2 percent of the population within the next 20 years. The cap-and-trade section of the bill wouldn’t start until 2015.

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“Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena, particularly in addressing acid rain. My tobacco plan is based on the successful program in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990,” Enzi said.” This system achieved the desired results faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated. The same can be done for tobacco.”

The cap-and-trade program would require tobacco manufacturers to meet specific user level limits by specified deadlines, and the plan would set up a market share allocation and transfer system in which allowances could be used, banked, traded or sold freely on the open market.

“Some have suggested that FDA regulation of tobacco is the way toward safer tobacco products,” Enzi said in a written statement. “But we know that there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. Proposals to have FDA regulate tobacco are a misguided attempt to force a deadly product into the regulatory structure developed for drugs and devices — products which do have health benefits.”

The bill is facing criticism and opposition because the FDA bill is bipartisan (a whopping 12 Republican’s support the Kennedy-backed legislation). The president of national policy and advocacy for the American Cancer Society criticized the Enzi proposal as a novelty and a late entry designed to provoke debate. Seems to me that this is not the fist time “controversial” legislation has been proposed. Honestly, I’m not sure what the FDA bill is all about.

• order removal of dangerous ingredients from cigarettes
• allow the FDA to restrict tobacco advertising
• mandate stronger warning labels
• prevent cigarette sales to minors
• bar misrepresentation of tobacco’s dangers

Aren’t tobacco ads already restricted? No more Joe Camel or Marlboro Man last time I checked, and especially not anywhere near a drug-free school zone. If the dangerous ingredients are going to be removed, WHY have warning labels? What dangers would there be to bar the misrepresentation of? And last time I checked, tobacco sales to minors (including non-minors buying with intent to give to minors) were already illegal.

Like I said, I’m no user of tobacco, nor do I condone it. But the above “selling points” of the FDA tobacco regulation bill sound like a joke. Given the choice between the “bipartisan” bill and Sen. Enzi’s bill, I’d tend to throw my support behind the cap-and-trade proposal.

Tech Tags: Sen. Mike Enzi, FDA, tobacco tax, cap and trade

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