Oregon City Supports Statewide Ban on Flavored Tobacco Products
OREGON CITY, OR — Oregon City has taken a stand against flavored tobacco products by passing a resolution on Wednesday that calls for an end to their sale.
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A GREAT VICTORY IN PROTECTING KIDS FROM TOBACCO!
June 11, 2009
It is my great pleasure to tell you that the US Senate just passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (S 982/HR ), which gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, marketing, and sales of tobacco products. The bill was approved in a bipartisan vote of 79 to 17. After more than 10 years of hard work, this lifesaving legislation will soon become law!
This is a major achievement and one that would not have been possible without the hard work and persistence of volunteers and staff nationwide. In the past few weeks alone, more than 5,000 phone calls were placed to members of Congress. ACS CAN volunteers met with Senators over the most recent Congressional recess and participated in public events across the country to call attention to the bill. Special recognition goes to the more than 9,000 Relay For Life volunteers, nearly 8,000 of them first time ACS CAN volunteers, who sent just under 18,500 emails to their US Senators in just one week.
Here in Washington, ACS CAN kept the pressure up with an aggressive advertising campaign that used school buses (and a few weeks earlier, schoolhouses) to illustrate the number of kids who will try smoking for the first time for each day the Senate fails to act. And at www.fightcancer.org/protectkids, ACS CAN continues to run a counter tracking how many children have tried their first cigarette since January 1, 2009 alongside opportunities to take action.
After a decade in the trenches in support of this bill, we are emerging victorious. At the same time, let me introduce one note of caution that we remain vigilant in approaching the equally important work of implementing the bill and fighting tobacco on other fronts. We can never underestimate the lengths to which Big Tobacco will go to fight the inevitable.
Because the Senate and House passed bills are slightly different in content, the measure will have to be returned to the House for passage. If the House takes the bill as is, the bill can then go straight to the President for his signature. If the House disagrees, then House and Senate conferees will have to sit down and iron out the differences. Either way, the hard part is finished, and I do not expect further delays beyond the time it takes for the conferees to get together and work out the few areas of disagreement.
Today we made history. Thanks to this legislation, we can make cancer history too!
Thank you for all you have done and continue to do.
Dan
