Senate finally says ‘no’ to Big Tobacco
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| Fri, 06-12-2009 - 11:31am |
The industry's influence staved off major regulations for nearly a half century. Thursday's vote changes that.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/06/11/senate-finally-says-no-to-big-tobacco/
The Senate today passed legislation Thursday that gives the Food and Drug Administration broad powers to regulate tobacco products, in many respects ending the era of Big Tobacco’s clout on Capitol Hill.
Republicans, many from tobacco states, put up some resistance – forcing the Senate into a second week of debate on the bill and three procedural votes to ensure its final passage.
But the bill passed 79 to 17, with one Democrat joining 16 Republicans in opposition. The Senate now needs to reconcile its bill with the House’s version, which passed 298 to 112 on April 2. President Obama says he will sign the compromise bill into law.
It is a remarkable turnaround from even a decade ago.
Lawmakers say that one of the first things many new members learned when they came to Washington was to avoid crossing tobacco companies.
Tobacco lobbyists have contributed more than $62.1 million to congressional campaigns since 1990, 74 percent to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.
“Congress moves slowly, the tobacco industry is powerful, and individual senators have tremendous power to slow and delay and prevent things from happening,†says Paul Billings, vice president of national policy and advocacy for the National Lung Association in Washington.
But Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts, the lead sponsor of the bill, said in a statement that the “decades of irresponsible delay are finally over.â€
“The United States Senate has finally said ‘no’ to Big Tobacco,†he added.
The shift began in 1987, 23 years after the Surgeon General released a study linking smoking to severe health problems. In that year, Congress banned smoking on airline flights within the US that lasted two hours or less.
“So many members of the House flew in airplanes and couldn’t stand the fiction of ‘smoking areas,’†said Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois, a longtime leader in antismoking legislation.
The July 13 House vote was 198 to 193.
“That was the first domino to fall,†Representative Durbin added. “People started to say secondary smoke is dangerous on airplanes – it could be dangerous in other places.â€
Evidence was building. In 1982, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had called smoking “the chief single, avoidable cause of death in our society and the most important public health issue of our time.â€
Cigarette smoking now accounts for 1 in 5 deaths every year in the US – more than HIV AIDS, alcohol use, illegal drug use, traffic accidents, suicides, and murders combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Yet even in recent times, the industry had appeared unrepentant. Seven tobacco executives, testifying before a House panel in 1994, famously declared under oath that nicotine was not addictive.
In 2004, industry giant Altria Group, Inc., formerly Philip Morris, split with the other tobacco companies and endorsed FDA regulation of the tobacco industry. But industry leaders rallied to oppose a 2006 Department of Justice lawsuit charging tobacco companies with racketeering for making false claims about the dangers of smoking, including denying that it is marketed to children.
This May 22, the US court of appeals affirmed a lower court ruling finding the companies guilty.
Commenting on the decades it took Congress to act, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) of New Jersey, who drafted the Senate version of the 1987 airline smoking ban, said: “The Senate has the speed of a centipede. Sometimes it takes a long time for all parts of the body to get moving, but we’re here.â€



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Doctors are prescribing Oxycontin when less addictive alternatives are available. My SIL just weaned himself off in the wake of an extraction of his wisdom teeth. Ask Rush Limbaugh or Cindy McCain about its addictive powers and the mayhem an addiction can cause. You're right, tobacco is not in the same league. Oxycontin is far more powerful.
Here is info on the subsidizing of tobacco farming: http://farm.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=tobacco Note that since 2005 THERE HAVEN'T BEEN ANY SUBSIDIES.
Yes, tobacco products have been heavily taxed. So is alcohol. I seriously doubt that "government LOVES the fact that people smoke because they get a whole lot of tax revenue off of smokers". Seems likely that the health costs which are related to tobacco use more than offset any income from the sale of tobacco products.
Some municipalities have tried imposing restrictions on unhealthy eating habits. New York City banned trans fats in restaurants. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16051436/ Chicago banned fois gras http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/national/main1550028.shtml (then ultimately had to rescind the ban--http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/chicago-overturns-foie-gras-ban/).
However, a comparison between fatty foods and tobacco lacks validity because tobacco is addictive AND tobacco product producers apparently dinked around with the level and kind of nicotine to deliberately make an addiction to their product more likely, stronger and more lasting.
<http://scienceweek.com/1998/sw981113.htm
Can you say the same scientific fact of addiction is also true of an unhealthy diet?
As regards the advertising of drugs, that practice got firmly entrenched long before Obama took office. When Levitra and Cialis commercials started airing during the reign of BushCo, I was just grateful to no longer be raising young children or adolescents--damn embarrassing to explain a persistent erection! FWIW, I don't care for the advertising either. Too much sales, too little information about appropriate use and possible deleterious side-effects. But if government is allowed to "meddle" with that advertising, is it "Marxism"?!
Am not willing to "let the doctor decide what drugs a patient needs, not the patient". That's my body we're talking about and as an informed and intelligent person, I fully expect to be part of the decision making process. An M.D. is my paid consultant, NOT God or my superior.
BTW, can't help but wonder if Upton Sinclair didn't have similar criticism that "Everyone is sick and everyone is a victim." Think about his work the next time you eat any kind of ground meat product.
Jabberwocka
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