Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Netherworld of FDA Tobacco Regulation

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by

James A. Bacon
in

A lot of strange people are hopping into bed together with the recent passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of a bill to let the U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration regulate tobacco.

Richmond-based firms Philip Morris USA and parent Altria favor FDA oversight while tobacco competitors Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds do not. Ultraconservative Congressman Eric Cantor, a big-time magnet for tobacco campaign funding, favors FDA regulation while even more conservative Congressman Randy Forbes does not. Stacking weird upon weird, both The New York Times and the retrograde Richmond Times-Dispatch favor FDA regulation on their editorial pages.

Are you having trouble figuring this all out? I am.

From what I can make of this, the bill would not allow the FDA to ban tobacco products but would have authority over the manufacturing, marketing and sale of them. It could, for instance, ban the sale of such oddities as candy-flavored cigarettes. Big Whoop.

The real point, however, is that Big Tobacco is once again dodging the Big Issue. Deadly, cancer-causing cigarettes, which killed something like 100 million people in the 20th Century according to The Washington Post, will emerge largely unscathed. One result of FDA regulation is that it lets Philip Morris USA maintain its No. 1 brand, Marlboro, in the U.S. while, somehow disingenuously, urging you not to buy Marlboros. Meanwhile, FDA regs will do nothing to stop its sister firm, Philip Morris International, from spreading its death sticks around the world with a growth rate of 18 percent a year.

And as present and former members of the Altria tribe do their thing, nice boy politicians like Eric Cantor, now under consideration as John McCain’s running mate, continue to rake in scores of thousands of dollars in campaign contribution from Altria and PM USA. But that’s just fine and dandy with the Richmond establishment, including the Times-Dispatch. Cantor’s wife is on the board of the parent firm, but, hey, that’s OK, they always mention that when they run another glowing story about the brilliant Cantor.

But does Cantor realize he could be partly responsible for one billion dead worldwide in the 21st century? That’s the death toll predicted by the Post if global tobacco sales continue to go on unchecked.

–Peter Galuszka

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Comments

  1. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Peter, You raise legitimate issues regarding the ethics of cigarette smoking in the United States.

    But is it really fair to blame Cantor for the tobacco deaths caused by Philip Morris International, which has been spun off as a separate company, maintains its a headquarters in Europe and markets the Philip Morris brands to the rest of the world outside the United States?

    Yes, hold Cantor accountable for the ethics of supporting Philip Morris USA’s activities inside the U.S. But that’s a very different context from Philip Morris International, which is marketing aggressively to less developed countries. Marketing is severely restricted in the U.S., tobacco use is declining — cigarette shipments for PM USA declined 3.5 percent last year — and PM USA is trying (not very successfully yet) to extract harmful chemicals from cigarette smoke.

    Given the reality that tens of millions of Americans still do smoke, why *not* have the FDA regulate the cigarette industry? Why *not* try to migrate smokers to less harmful tobacco products?

    As a mental exercise, what if cigarette smoke could be rendered harmless? Or, more likely, what if we could analyze an individual’s genome to ascertain whether their biochemical make-up renders them more vulnerable or less vulnerable to cancer from cigarette smoke? (We all know the rare stories of chronic smokers who lived to 100.) Why wouldn’t it be OK for the immune smokers to continue enjoy smoking, as long as they’re not inflicting their smoke on others?

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jim,
    No, I think there is an ethical issue for Cantor. Just because some corporate lawyers made a neat little legal distinction in Delaware or wherever make everything OKAY. The reason why Altria created a separate PM International is precisely to dodge the health and fatality issues. Period.
    As a politician and a public servant, Cantor must consider the effects of his actions and not hide behind some corporate legalese. He must be held to a test that goes beyond provincial little Richmond and its power elite.
    Let’s pretend that the Nazi SS split itself into a “good” SS and a “bad” SS. And Jim Bacon says, “you don’t understand the difference, they are the “good” SS.” What’s the difference — the results are still the same. A stretch of an argument. Not really.

    Peter Galuszka

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    I do agree that if Cantor is selected as McCain’s vice presidential running mate, his ties to the tobacco industry will get a lot more scrutiny — and justifiably so — from the national media than from the Richmond media. And national opinion will take a far dimmer view of those ties than public opinion in Richmond.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jim,
    No argument there. I wonder if you could say the same for John Edwards? (Trying to be non-partisan).
    PG

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