Another industry has fallen to the government onslaught.  With passage of H.R. 1256, of Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the FDA has assumed oversight control of the tobacco industry with a broad mandate to set rules on advertising, warning labels and product ingredients.  They even have the “power to set standards that could reduce nicotine content and regulate chemicals in cigarette smoke.”  The only thing they can’t do is flat out ban cigarettes or the use of nicotine.

The name of the bill almost gets it right.  This is about control, but of you, not of tobacco.  This is about the government’s conclusion that the decisions made by free people like you are not the correct decisions you should be making.  The nannies in Congress think they know better than you what is good for you.  Clifford E. Douglas of the University of Michigan’s Tobacco Research Network labeled the bill “a historic step changing the nature of tobacco in society forever.” Changing the nature of anything in society necessarily involves changing the behaviors of individuals in society.  The proper way to do this in a free society is through persuasion, but anti-tobacco crusaders have always preferred force.  The bill even includes a mandated study on the “public health impact” of raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products, once again proving that even in America, being an adult isn’t always enough to guarantee freedom of choice.

The added control for the anti-smoking forces in Washington also places the government in the awkward position of discouraging smoking, while at the same time being utterly dependent on the revenues generated by their “sin taxes” on tobacco.  This gives government a perverse incentive to reduce product potency, under the guise of public health concerns, and force consumers to purchase more cigarettes (and thus pay more taxes) to get the same “fix.”  And just to kick tobacco firms while they are down, the FDA will assess a “fee” on them for the pleasure of having their decisions controlled by the government.