Smoke Screen
Last Friday, NPR reported on “All Things Considered” that Congress is looking at a bill with sweeping changes to how tobacco is regulated; in particular, it will make tobacco subject to FDA oversight.
Curiously, Phillip-Morris is behind the bill, which may be critical to its passage; without that heavy hitter pulling its pet congresscritters’ strings, anti-tobacco legislation just might go through. Phillip-Morris is probably behind the bill due to a curious provision or three. For example, magazine ads would be limited to a black-and-white block format called (ironically enough) “tombstone.” While such ads could be expected to be hard on the tobacco industry as a whole, advertising research has determined that such ads strongly favor the largest player in the market…which just so happens to be Phillip-Morris. It hopes to gain in market share more than it loses to a general industry-wide decline in sales.
That doesn’t mean the bill faces no resistance, of course; other cigarette manufacturers, and tobacco farmers, and states dependent on large tobacco crops are all dead against it. Arguing that nicotine is not a drug, is a tough act, though, especially after documents exposing that cigarette makers knew nicotine was addictive and set the nicotine content of cigarettes to keep people hooked, and embracing candy-flavored cigarettes looks a little too creepy to be politically safe, so legislators are going through some strange contortions to justify their opposition: the bill would create obstacles for finding a way to make cigarettes safer, or the FDA is already too busy with its other duties to look into cigarettes. Despite such persuasive weaseling, however, the bill still has bipartisan support, so friends of tobacco would be in trouble if it weren’t for the veto power of the president.
Ah, yes. The president is against the bill, too, although it’s not clear to me whether it’s because he owes tobacco lobbyists a few favors or simply out of a reflexive belief that business regulation, any kind of business regulation, is inherently wrong. It’s a matter of faith. But like Congressional hold-outs, the White House won’t simply come out and say that nicotine isn’t dangerous enough to deserve regulation. That would be laughable. No, the problem is that cigarettes are too dangerous: “FDA jurisdiction might create a false impression that regulated tobacco products are safe.”
No amount of reasoning is ever going to change that level of block-headedness. (Lord knows reason has yet to make a dent in the White House’s tax policy, foreign policy, Iraq strategy, and Constitutional theory.) If the law is to be passed, it will have to be with a majority large enough to override a veto—which in turn would require a demonstration of political division among the Republicans which even torture and a very, very unpopular war have been unable to trigger. Compared to these, tobacco is nothing to embarrass the party over. So, while the law could still pass in theory, don’t hold your breath. At least try not to inhale.