Tobacco.org

• BURR: Tobacco legislation is smoke, mirrors  

In terms of reducing death and disease from tobacco use, this bill misses the mark by a long shot. It would keep Marlboros and Camels on the shelves by grandfathering them in while making it virtually impossible to bring reduced-risk products to market. If the goal is to reduce mortality rates, then it makes no sense to keep these higher-risk products in stores at the expense of offering lower-risk alternatives to consumers.

According to the government's own experts, if we did nothing and allowed current trends to continue, the smoking population would decrease by 6 million over 10 years. We are being asked to create a new, multibillion-dollar bureaucracy that, if successful, will be only one-sixth as successful as doing nothing. . . .

If we want efficient, effective regulation of tobacco, the FDA is not our best option. This is why I have proposed regulation under an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services responsible solely for tobacco.

In the past 10 years, states have spent just 3.2 percent of their total tobacco-generated revenue on smoking prevention and cessation programs. Currently, no state is funding tobacco prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended level, and only nine states are funding tobacco prevention at even half the CDC's recommended level.

If we want to improve public health, we have to do more to keep kids from smoking. And for those Americans who are struggling to quit, we need to at least offer them safer options. Unfortunately, the bill currently before Congress does neither.

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