President Clinton Takes Aim at Tobacco Industry with FDA Proposal

Strategic Insights -

In a high-stakes confrontation with the tobacco industry, President Clinton announced on Thursday that he has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use its drug regulatory powers to stop the sale of cigarettes to children and teenagers. The evidence, according to Clinton, is "overwhelming," and the threat to young people's health is "immediate." The proposal would require age identification cards to be presented in all cigarette sales, restrict tobacco advertising, and invoke other curbs to keep cigarettes out of the hands of minors.

Key Takeaways:

  • The FDA proposal would require all tobacco sales to be made through "face-to-face transactions," with retailers verifying the buyer's age with a photograph identification card.
  • The plan also includes restrictions on tobacco advertising, including a ban on outdoor cigarette ads near schools and limiting other outdoor ads and ads in publications with youth readerships to black-and-white, text-only formats.
  • The proposed new FDA rule would create a $150 million per year industry-funded educational program to reduce youth smoking.
  • Clinton's plan does not directly affect adults, but rather seeks to prevent children and teenagers from becoming nicotine addicts.
  • The president believes that if Congress enacts his proposed new restrictions into law, the move to use FDA regulation may become unnecessary.
  • The tobacco industry immediately pushed back, with a group of five major U.S. tobacco companies filing a lawsuit in a North Carolina federal court to challenge the proposed FDA jurisdiction over the regulation of tobacco as a drug.

Statistics:

  • More than half of all adult smokers had already become regular smokers by age 18.
  • 70 percent of smokers later regret their decision to smoke.
  • 2 million Americans died in 1995, with 400,000 of those deaths related to health conditions caused by smoking.
  • 264,000 jobs in North Carolina depend on tobacco, according to Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina.

Sources:

  • "Tobacco Fines Foes" by Helen Thomas, UPI White House Reporter, Washington, Aug. 10.