tobacco

The Democrats’ bill placing the tobacco industry under the oversight of the Food and Drug Administration is on its way to the White House, having passed the Senate today, and party leaders are patting themselves on the back for their accomplishment. (Some lawmakers, after all, have been pushing this concept for decades.)
But Paul Smalera, writing [...]

All that’s left is the president’s signature. Here’s the statement from Paul G. Billings, vice president for policy and advocacy at the American Lung Association:
Today marks an historic culmination of a more than 20 year journey to provide the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urgently needed regulatory control over the tobacco industry. This long [...]

The nicotine and other chemicals found in tobacco products might be addictive, and they might contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States each year, but currently the Food and Drug Administration — charged with ensuring the safety of the products Americans ingest — has no authority to regulate the industry.
That’s getting [...]

While most GOP lawmakers are opposing legislation to tighten government regulations over the tobacco industry, one outspoken Republican is making statements not often heard from even the most liberal members of Congress. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is pushing an outright tobacco ban. From The Hill:
“What we should be doing is banning tobacco,” Coburn said in [...]

The Senate this morning is poised to vote on a historic bill empowering the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry for the first time. The proposal, approved by the House in April, is expected to pass, but not without opposition from Southern lawmakers hoping to protect their famously regional industry. And this [...]

It may come a surprise to some that the government has tougher safety standards for Cocoa Puffs than for Marlboros, but under current law, the Food and Drug Administration has no power to regulate the cigarette industry.
House lawmakers took a step today to change that, passing legislation placing tobacco products under the regulatory eye of [...]

The tobacco industry is fighting a lonely battle against health insurance for poor kids.
A coalition of tobacco industry groups ran a full-page ad in the influential Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, on Monday warning President-elect Barack Obama that a proposed tobacco tax hike to cover the expansion of the popular State Child Health Insurance Program [...]