No smoking

Today, the Senate voted 79-17 to pass H.R. 1256, AKA the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act." This vote sends the bill back to the House for a vote there; if it's passed by the House it goes directly to President Obama to sign. The Senate version of the bill is quite similar to the original House version which passed 298-112 (21 no votes) so it seems rather likely that it will pass.

This is the federal government's latest attempt to essentially FORCE people to stop smoking, of course in a roundabout way. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the bill will likely pass and when it does, there will be yet another example of the government butting its way into all facets of our lives and telling us what to do...each passage of such a bill, I think, moves us closer and closer to socialism. And we're already too close...

In the name of "protecting children" and "protecting America," the bill will place tobacco products under the supervision of the FDA, who would be charged with evaluating the content of tobacco products and then ORDERING CHANGES to those deemed "a danger to public health." Note here the extremely ambiguous phrase "danger to public health." That is just begging to be abused...who's to say what is dangerous to public health? I'm also betting the federal government won't label something like Viagra as a threat to public health...they'd lose too many contributions from Pfizer.

The bill also particularly singles out practices by tobacco manufacturers that are said to be geared toward attracting new, young smokers. This includes prohibiting "candy or other flavors" in cigarettes, prohibiting the labeling of cigarettes as "light" or "mild," and restricting advertising in certain publications that are geared toward a teenage audience. In the end, this all leads to giving the FDA the ultimate decision in whether or not a new tobacco product will be allowed to go on the market--if the FDA doesn't approve, then it doesn't happen.

Now, it seems to me that cigarettes, etc. don't really fall under the category of either "food" or "drugs" so it doesn't seem like the FDA has any business regulating tobacco products. The Republican leader of the opposition to the bill, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, proposed an amendment that would create an entirely new agency to regulate tobacco products. I certainly don't like or agree with the idea of creating more government agencies and increasing government regulation but I'm guessing that the opposition saw that the bill was going to pass regardless and attempted to at least make an effort at something less restrictive. That effort, not surprisingly, failed.

In closing, here are a few quotes from the proponents of this bill in the Senate, as well as President Obama--

"This is a bill that will protect children and will protect America. Every day that we don't act, 3,500 American kids -- children -- will light up for the first time. That is enough to fill 70 school buses." --Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

"This bill may do more in the area of prevention, if adopted, than anything else we may include in the health care bill in the short term." --Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

Commenting on the impending passage of the bill, President Obama said that the bill "will make history by giving the scientists and medical experts at the FDA the power to take sensible steps."