WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama says a bill giving the government much greater power to regulate tobacco “truly defines change in Washington.”

The president spoke in the Rose Garden just minutes after the House passed the bill overwhelmingly. The Senate approved the legislation on Thursday.

It gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate how cigarettes and other tobacco products are made, marketed and sold. It could curb the roughly 400,000 deaths a year attributed to smoking. The bill cracks down on sales practices that lure young people into smoking.

Obama said the bill overcame a decade of opposition. The president said the “harmful, addictive and often deadly” effects of tobacco have been known for decades.

WASHINGTON – The Senate has voted to give the government extensive new powers to decide how tobacco companies will make and market their products. Supporters say that could spare millions from smoking addiction and premature death.

The legislation would for the first time give the Food and Drug Administration legal authority to regulate and order changes to tobacco products in the interest of public health. Thursday’s vote was 79-17.

FDA authority over tobacco has long been a goal of anti-smoking advocates who say it could reduce an annual toll of 400,000 tobacco-related deaths. The House has passed its own similar version, and a resolution of differences would send it to President Barack Obama, who supports it.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – It’s looking more like the Legislature wants a broad smoking ban in tobacco-growing North Carolina.

The Senate scheduled a second and final vote Monday on a measure that would ban lighting up in all enclosed restaurants and bars.

Senators gave an initial OK to the bill last week. Another “yes” vote would return the bill to the House, which passed an earlier version extending the ban to work sites where children under age 18 visit. The House could agree with the Senate or seek a compromise.

The measure is backed by those who say secondhand smoke is a preventable health hazard for the public. Opponents argue a ban violates the right of business owners to choose whether to allow smoking, and of their patrons.

WASHINGTON  – The House was poised Wednesday to thrust tobacco companies under government control after years of attempts in legislatures and the courts to tame one of the country’s signature industries.

Senate action would still be required, as well as President Barack Obama’s signature, before the Food and Drug Administration could get authority for the first time to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Supporters were convinced that both those pieces were in place. They pointed to strong backing from the White House – where Obama has spoken of his own struggles to kick the cigarette habit – and an increased Democratic majority in a Senate that’s already shown itself inclined to support the bill.

If it does become law, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act would amount to the biggest change ever in the government’s approach toward tobacco, which has remained largely hands-off even as the health hazards have become increasingly clear.

Although the FDA wouldn’t be allowed to ban nicotine or tobacco, the agency would be able to regulate the contents of tobacco products, make public their ingredients, prohibit flavoring, require much larger warning labels and control marketing campaigns, especially those geared toward children.

“This would be the most significant tobacco bill the Congress of the United States has ever enacted,” said Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “It would bring about fundamental change in the marketing, manufacturing and sale of cigarettes.”

Opponents, including some tobacco companies and lawmakers from tobacco-growing states, contended that the FDA, which has come under criticism after fumbling a series of health scares, was already overburdened and couldn’t handle the job of regulating another big industry. U.S. tobacco production was valued at $1.3 billion in 2007.
  
Opponents also argued that the bill by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was unrealistically aimed at ending smoking altogether and wouldn’t allow nicotine addicts to learn of alternatives like smokeless tobacco.

Adult tobacco users who have not quit “should be encouraged to move from tobacco products with higher risks to those with lower risks,” said Maura Payne, spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

The House was expected to vote Wednesday on an alternate bill by Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., that would encourage development of less-harmful tobacco products and create a Tobacco Harm Reduction Center within the Department of Health and Human Services, instead of giving the job to the FDA.

The country’s largest tobacco company, Marlboro-maker Philip Morris USA, is supporting Waxman’s bill. Some analysts say the legislation could lock in Philip Morris’ market share while stunting the ability of other companies to compete.

Under President George W. Bush, who issued a veto threat after the House passed a nearly identical version of Waxman’s bill last year, the FDA said it didn’t want the job of regulating tobacco. The Obama administration is welcoming the task.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday saying it “strongly supported” the bill, and Obama’s nominee for HHS secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, backed it during a hearing this week.

The issue has a long history laced with lawsuits and politics. President Bill Clinton’s FDA chief, David Kessler, pushed hard for tobacco regulations. Around the same period, in 1994, Waxman summoned the heads of big tobacco to the famous hearing in which they testified that nicotine wasn’t addictive.

Subsequent lawsuits against tobacco companies resulted in big payouts to states, some of which funded smoking-reduction campaigns that have contributed to a decrease in smoking rates. About one in five adults in the U.S. now smokes cigarettes. But a 2000 Supreme Court ruling that FDA didn’t have the authority to regulate tobacco makes congressional action necessary.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler will be in Washington, D.C., Thursday to speak at a congressional hearing on tobacco.

Rep. Mike McIntyre, of North Carolina’s 7th District, invited Troxler to testify before the House Subcommittee on Rural Development, Biotechnology, Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture. McIntyre is the subcommittee’s chairman.

Troxler’s testimony will focus on the potential impact of federal regulation of tobacco on North Carolina farmers. Bills pending in the House and Senate would place tobacco products under federal oversight.
The hearing begins at 10 a.m. in room 1302 of the Longworth House Office Building.

Winston-Salem Journal

Unlike global warming and the environment, there is little if any debate over the adverse effects of smoking on health. As a result, more stringent government regulation of tobacco products is inevitable. A bill for regulation by the Food and Drug Administration passed in the U.S. House last year, and its supporters in the House this year stand a good chance for victory there and in the Senate. Sens. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem and Kay Hagan of Greensboro have crossed party lines to introduce an alternative bill that, while far from perfect, could lead to reasonable FDA regulation.

Burr and Hagan propose that a new agency be created to regulate tobacco. We believe that would be unnecessary and unwise. This is not the time to be growing government, and the agency that Burr and Hagan propose would have less power than the FDA. While the FDA may not have the best track record, it is the appropriate agency for regulating the manufacture and sale of tobacco, a legal, but habit-forming and deadly product.

As with our endorsement last month of a bill in the state House to ban smoking in virtually all enclosed workplaces and buildings open to the public in North Carolina, our support of FDA regulation of tobacco products is a break from the past. We have long opposed regulation. Tobacco has for generations supported farmers, factory workers and many others throughout our region. That picture is changing as we transform from a manufacturing to a high-tech economy, but tobacco still holds a strong place in the region.

We opposed FDA regulation out of concern that its marketing restrictions would cement Philip Morris as the nation’s No. 1 cigarette maker, to the detriment of Winston-Salem’s Reynolds American Inc., the nation’s No. 2 manufacturer. That’s been Reynolds’ argument as well. But Reynolds has had years to catch up with Philip Morris in an unregulated environment. Instead, it has continued to lose cigarette market share.

We also saw FDA regulation as government intervention. But the health effects of smoking are broad and significant. These dangers, which include cancer and heart disease and contribute to almost 14,000 deaths a year in North Carolina alone, have come to outweigh our concerns about the marketplace and government intervention. The FDA is charged with regulating prescription drugs and monitoring our food supply to protect us from harm. It should do the same concerning the harmful substances in cigarettes. The highly addictive nicotine in cigarettes is a drug.

Adult smokers have the right to use a legal product, and neither bill seeks to ban tobacco or regulate tobacco farmers. But the government has the right, and the duty, to protect its citizens from harm – especially when all Americans are affected by the health-care costs of a product. Tobacco costs the state of North Carolina $2.5 billion in health-care bills each year, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Burr and Hagan’s opposition to FDA regulation is understandable. Under the FDA’s watch, at least eight people have died in recent months from eating tainted peanut products. As Time magazine noted earlier this month, that’s “the latest in a series of black eyes for the FDA over unsafe foods, dangerous medicines such as Vioxx and allegedly cozy ties with the pharmacy industry it regulates.”

President Obama has pledged to reform the FDA. His expected choice to lead the agency, Margaret Hamburg, is a results-driven public-health expert. The FDA has the needed experience to regulate tobacco and should do the job well if managed properly.

In contrast, Burr and Hagan’s bill would create a new body, the Tobacco Regulatory Agency. It would be under the Department of Health and Human Services. The senators want to protect the tobacco industry. Their proposal would submit it to regulation that would be far less stringent than the FDA’s under the bill proposed by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat.

The Burr/Hagan bill is “a step in the right direction,” said Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American. “It increases the likelihood that there will be some science-based discussion about what methods of regulating the tobacco industry might be most effective at making substantial improvements in public health. It is a much better place to start that discussion than the Waxman legislation.”

Both bills impose fees on tobacco companies to pay for the regulation. The Burr/Hagan bill estimates the proposed new agency would cost about $100 million a year, the Raleigh News & Observer reported recently. FDA regulation would ultimately cost several times that amount. The latter would be a heavy price, but critics say the cost estimate of the proposed new agency is not enough to support effective regulation.
The Burr/Hagan bill does eliminate most tobacco advertising, as does the FDA bill, and it requires disclosure to the Tobacco Regulatory Agency of all ingredients. It requires consultation with the FDA and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on products that claim to be safer. But it gives tobacco companies much influence in the regulatory process.

And most important, though the Burr/Hagan bill limits the amount of tar in cigarettes, it makes no further regulation of content. “We are interested in providing full disclosure to consumers and giving them the list of ingredients in the product, but we are not interested in the government changing what the definition of a cigarette is,” said Caitlin Legacki, a spokeswoman for Hagan.

The Waxman bill would allow regulation of amounts of nicotine and other toxic ingredients, as well as the elimination of ingredients. That’s a crucial provision.

The Burr/Hagan bill could lead to meaningful compromise on FDA tobacco regulation. Supporters of this bill and the Waxman bill could start the process by agreeing on maximum levels of toxic ingredients that will be allowed in cigarettes. Perhaps the regulation could begin with cigarettes, and phase in other tobacco products gradually.

The human and financial costs of smoking are undeniable. More stringent oversight of tobacco products is needed. It’s time for FDA regulation.

WASHINGTON  – A North Carolina senator who’s co-sponsoring legislation on cigarette advertising has received $355,000 from tobacco groups and employees, election records show.

The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that the contributions to GOP Sen. Richard Burr’s campaign since his election to Congress in 1995 are second only to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, another tobacco-producing state. The Center for Responsive Politics says McConnell has accepted $390,000.

Burr and Democratic North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina have joined to sponsor a measure that would ban advertising in magazines and newspapers and prohibit certain words from being used to describe tobacco products.

They hope to sway Congress to not pass a measure that would be even tougher on the tobacco industry.

Burr’s top overall contributor is R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and its parent company with $194,000. The company, which is the nation’s No. 2 tobacco company, is based in the senator’s hometown of Winston-Salem.

“Senator Burr has represented the state for a long time, either in the Senate or the House, and I think through that long representation he has done an excellent job of being receptive to business issues of all types,” said Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American. “Given that receptivity, we have supported his campaigns.”

(From Winston-Salem Journal)
A milestone anniversary passed the other day, and I really didn’t give it much thought until a headline flashed by in my e-mail inbox.

“Perdue budget would raise cigarette tax $1 a pack,” the e-mail said. An accompanying photo showing a glowing ash hanging off the end of a cigarette jogged my memory.

“Has it really been a year?” I thought.

Apparently, it has. One year and two days ago, I determined to quit smoking. To lessen the chances of backsliding, I wrote about it, my theory being that if tens of thousands of people knew about the pledge, I would have to take it seriously.

Quitting was a personal decision, and I didn’t attach any great significance to it other than the fact that I come from a tobacco family, so I know firsthand how much economic good tobacco has provided to this state and its residents.

One more former smoker had joined a long line. So what? The tobacco industry was in transition, sure, but certainly it had many long, profitable years ahead of it.

But with the once-unthinkable – a 285 percent increase in the cigarette tax proposed by Gov. Bev Perdue – on the table, can we really be sure?

Once upon a time, it was considered political suicide to mess with the golden leaf. Not just here, but in Kentucky and Virginia, too. And in Washington, U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms could be counted on to keep Sen. Ted Kennedy’s radical ideas about the tobacco industry at bay.

Not anymore.

Helms left the Senate in 2002. Some form of federal regulation of tobacco, most likely by the Food and Drug Administration, seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Sens. Richard Burr, a Republican, and Kay Hagan, a Democrat, signaled as much last week when they teamed up to propose legislation that would create a whole new federal agency to keep tabs on tobacco.

Parts of Kentucky have strong prohibitions against smoking in public. Most notably, Louisville – once the proud home to Philip Morris, Lorillard and Brown & Williamson manufacturing plants – has banned cigarettes in restaurants and bars.

Earlier this month, Virginia followed suit when Gov. Tim Kaine signed legislation that virtually banned smoking in that state’s public restaurants.

Closer to home, R.J. Reynolds offered for sale its signature building in downtown Winston-Salem, a significant and highly symbolic move.

And a bill in Raleigh that would ban all smoking in public workplaces is closer than ever to passing as it moves through the General Assembly.

On the back of that comes Perdue’s proposal to increase cigarette taxes from the current 35 cents a pack to $1.35. Until 2005, the state cigarette tax was just 5 cents a pack, a clear sign that the legislature considered that (cash) cow sacred.

No more. Legislative assaults on the tobacco industry had been mostly regulatory and cultural in nature. They are financial now.

We can – and likely will – debate the proposed cigarette tax for weeks and months. Within an hour of it being posted online at the Winston-Salem Journal’s Web site, a story about the proposal generated several pages of commentary from readers.

That’s fine, necessary and probably cathartic as we move through the various stages of the slow death of an industry that was so good to so many of us for so long.

If Helms’ era could be characterized as denial, then the days when two senators from North Carolina propose federal regulation have to be viewed as acceptance.

Lung cancer killed both of my grandfathers, one before I was born and the other when I was in college – an education partially paid for with tobacco money. Throat cancer also slowly killed my dad, who worked for 20-plus years at Lorillard. All three men were heavy smokers.

As a former smoker for more than a year now, it’s time for me to admit – and accept – the fact that the surgeon general was right and that we need to do whatever is necessary to curtail the use of cigarettes, be it banning public smoking or a piling on a 285 percent tax increase.

The tobacco industry lies prone in an oxygen tent starting to gasp its last few breaths. It’s time to say goodbye to an old friend.

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama’s picks to fill the top two positions at the Food and Drug Administration have repeatedly bucked tobacco companies and pushed for greater restrictions on cigarette marketing, second-hand smoke and sales to minors.

Though the FDA does not currently regulate tobacco products, Congress is moving ahead on long-stalled legislation to give the agency oversight of cigarette companies.

That could give Obama’s choice to lead the agency, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, and her top deputy, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, great sway over the industry.

As New York City’s heath commissioner in the 1990s, Hamburg fought for a total ban on indoor smoking in public places long before states and cities began adopting such aggressive restrictions.

And as health commissioner in Baltimore, Sharfstein pushed through an indoor smoking ban in the city that paved the way for a similar statewide ban.

Neither Hamburg nor Sharfstein have publicly signaled their intentions regarding tobacco oversight since being tapped for the posts.

Hamburg couldn’t be reached for comment and Sharfstein declined to comment through a spokesperson at the Baltimore health department. 

 Obama reiterated this month that he supports giving the FDA oversight of tobacco.

And on Wednesday, a key House committee approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, R-Calif., that would do just that. The full House is expected to give its approval soon.

In the Senate, where the measure failed to pass last year, supporters of the FDA plan believe they have the votes to pass it in that chamber this year.  But Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., have proposed an alternate plan to create a new federal agency to regulate tobacco that could again stall the FDA proposal.

Because the Waxman legislation would give agency officials flexibility to develop new cigarette warning label standards and marketing restrictions, anti-tobacco groups said it was important for Obama to have nominated people who have worked to reduce smoking rates.             

“The buzz has all been very positive,” Kathleen Dachille, director of the Center for Tobacco Regulation at the University of Maryland Law School, said of Hamburg and Sharfstein.

Dachille worked closely with Sharfstein to enact stricter smoking regulations after he was tapped to lead the city department in 2005. 

He was the leading advocate to ban smoking in all workplaces in Baltimore – restaurants and bars included – and fought hard for a similar statewide ban.  

The proposal stalled at the state level because of resistance from tobacco companies and the restaurant lobby. After Baltimore passed its own ban in 2007, opposition to a statewide ban dwindled.     

“Baltimore was a major tipping point, and he was able to accomplish that.  It was the key jurisdiction that opened the door to statewide legislation,” Dachille said.

Last year, Sharfstein also pushed to ban sales of single small cigars – brands like Black and Mild and Swisher Sweets – after a health department investigation found the inexpensive smokes were popular with inner city minors. 

While some young people couldn’t afford to buy a pack of cigarettes for $5, the investigation found they could easily scrape together enough change to buy a single small cigar that sold for less than $1.     

When the state legislature did not pass a restriction that would have required Maryland retailers to sell the cigars in packs of five or larger, Sharfstein issued his own five per pack minimum requirement in Baltimore, which became the first city to do so. 

The measure was opposed by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Philip Morris and other tobacco companies, who threatened to fight the new restriction in court.

Before joining the Baltimore health department, Sharfstein worked on tobacco policy issues including FDA regulation as an investigator for Waxman, then the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In 2003, he helped write an investigative report that concluded that Philip Morris continued to lie about control of nicotine levels in its cigarettes and that R.J. Reynolds was not being truthful about marketing to minors.  

As New York City health commissioner in the early 1990s, Hamburg fought successfully to ban cigarette advertisements on city subways. 

In the mid-1990s, New York banned smoking in most restaurants.  At the time, few states and cities had taken that step, but Hamburg wanted the city to go even further. 

At the time, she backed a total indoor workplace smoking ban, something the state and city did not enact until 2003.

“In many respects, she was ahead of her times,” said Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-tobacco group.   “She has a demonstrated track record of working to reduce tobacco use that will hold her in good stead if Congress grants the FDA jurisdiction.”

A spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds declined to comment on how Hamburg’s views on smoking could affect the company.

“The real issue is whether the Food and Drug Administration is going to be able to appropriately regulate tobacco, given that it is by all appearances too overburden to meet its current obligations monitoring food and drugs,” said spokeswoman Maura Payne.

Sean Mussenden can be reached at smussenden@mediageneral.com or 202-662-7668.