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tobacco Archive

Saturday

30

April 2011

0

COMMENTS

Courts and FDA Interpret Mandate to Regulate Tobacco as Authority to Regulate Non-Tobacco E-Cigarettes

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

First the nanny’s attempted to gain control over e-cigarette’s by labeling them as a drug. They got shot down in court, and have now given up that approach. Instead, with the courts blessing, they’ve moved onto the more absurd angle that the tobacco-less products can be regulated as tobacco product:

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it plans to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products rather than continue trying to classify them as a combined drug and medical device. The agency said it will soon be issuing a proposed rule on e-cigarettes.

Electronic cigarettes vaporize tobacco, along with a chemical compound that includes nicotine, without producing smoke. The government has said the chemicals in e-cigarettes are untested and potentially harmful.

The article above from The Hill is incorrect. E-cigarettes do not “vaporize tobacco,” but rather a nicotine bearing liquid solution.

In some ways this is actually a victory for freedom, as the FDA originally sought to regulate e-cigarette’s under its much more onerous regime on medical devices. It was the court that originally concluded that e-cigarettes are tobacco products (under the reasoning that nicotine is derived from tobacco), and thus subject to regulation under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This prevents the FDA from banning the product as an unapproved pharmaceutical, but still gives it significant authority to ban it through other means.

There is no argument that e-cigarettes can potentially harm anyone but the user, if they are shown even to do that. Thus, in a free society where individuals are able to choose what risk they wish to take, there should be zero impetus for government regulation. But this is a nanny state, where your choices are subject to pre-approval by busybodies who know what is best for you.

Saturday

27

February 2010

0

COMMENTS

World Nanny Organization

Written by , Posted in The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

If International Organizations were forced to offer truth in advertising, the World Health Organization would require a change of names to the World Nanny Organization.  Check out what they’ve been up to:

Governments must do more to protect workers in bars, restaurants and the entertainment sector from harmful smoke, and curb tobacco advertising and sponsorship, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

…”Most alarming of all, tobacco use is actually increasing in many developing countries. If Big Tobacco is in retreat in some parts of the world, it is on the march in others,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, told a meeting to review implementation of a landmark tobacco treaty five years after it came into force.

“As we all know, the tobacco industry is ruthless, devious, rich and powerful,” she said.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, under review at the WHO, is the world’s first and only public health treaty and has been ratified by 168 countries including China.

It obliges governments to protect their populations from exposure to tobacco smoke and reduce demand through price and tax measures, regulating packaging and labeling of tobacco products and curbing tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

They go on to complain that there aren’t enough “national smoke-free laws,” and that “only 21 countries have tobacco tax rates greater than 75 percent of the retail price.”

More restrictions! More draconian taxes!  WNO has spoken.

Wednesday

10

February 2010

0

COMMENTS

Nanny Taxes Are Not A Solution

Written by , Posted in Taxes, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is throwing out press releases left and right (like this one for North Dakota) highlighting all the money state government’s could soak up if they slapped a $1 tax on cigarettes.  If states did this, they inform us that all kind of wondrous benefits would follow, such as fewer kids taking up smoking and more adult smokers dropping the habit.  Oh, and we’d save millions in health care costs!  Reuters took up the call and trumpeted that the tax “could reap billions” for states.

So what is the problem?  It’s two-fold, as I see it.  One, raising revenues is not going to make a difference in budget outlooks if lawmakers do not also adopt a fundamentally different approach to governing.  Business as usual would just mean spending any additional funds to buy new votes.  There is simply no reason to believe the money would be spent only for the purposes for which government was actually instituted.  In fact, government has enough money for those purposes already.

Second, nanny taxes like these (which are just excise taxes targeting particularly unpopular or risky activities) limit individual freedom and start us down a slippery slope of deciding what activities people are allowed to partake in.  Some people do things, like smoke, which involve some harm to themselves.  But it also clearly provides a benefit, or they wouldn’t do it, and the only person capable of weighing the cost and the benefits of an individual activity is the actual individual.  After all, the pleasure we take from any particular activity is subjective to ourselves and cannot be universally measured.  I take no pleasure in smoking, but others do.  That is their right, and they should not be targeted for punishment under the guise of balancing budgets.

If it’s smokers today, who might it be tomorrow?  Motorcycle riders? Hunters? Fast food eaters?  …Blog readers?

Friday

12

June 2009

2

COMMENTS

Government Conquers Tobacco Industry

Written by , Posted in Legislation, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

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.

Wednesday

4

March 2009

0

COMMENTS

Here Comes The Nanny State After Your Cigarettes

Written by , Posted in Free Markets, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

They’ve been after them for years.  Nanny state do-gooders hate the idea that people can make their own choices about what risks to take.  Their latest freedom restricting plan?  Give the incompetent FDA control over the tobacco market.

In what appears to be the best chance since public health groups started pushing for it in the 1970s, Congress is poised to regulate tobacco, a product linked to 1,200 deaths each day but sold largely unfettered for centuries.

Legislation that the House Energy and Commerce Committee will take up today would place tobacco under the control of the Food and Drug Administration. Among other things, the bill would restrict the ways tobacco companies market cigarettes, require them to disclose the ingredients in their products and place larger warning labels on packages, and give the FDA the authority to require the removal of harmful chemicals and additives from cigarettes.

In what bizarro world has the Washington Post been living in that makes them think tobacco has been sold “largely unfettered?”  It truly boggles the mind.

Monday

5

January 2009

0

COMMENTS

Third-Hand Stupidity

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke’

Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”

Funny, that pounding sensation in my head when I read the New York Times tells me something similar.  I wonder, if I walk into a room and see a copy of the New York Times that someone has recently read, will I get dumber too?

About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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