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EDITORIAL: Our View: A long-overdue attempt to regulate tobacco  

Naturally all of these changes were fought by the tobacco companies, save for the biggest, Philip Morris corporate parent Altria Group. The leaders of the latter didn't embrace them out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they think they'll keep the same percentage of a dwindling market of smokers regardless of the regulations. Still, fewer Americans are lighting up each year, and the latest moves are expected to shave youth smoking by 11 percent over a decade.

Given that smoking companies, many southern lawmakers and other politicians flush with campaign cash from Big Tobacco managed to stand in the way of such regulations for decades, the votes here - 307-97 in favor in the House, 79-17 in the Senate - provided not only a welcome surprise but a real exclamation point. Obviously this is a law whose time has come.

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