WASHINGTON, D.C. -- March 31, 2009 -- Cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones are urging their Members of Congress to support critical legislation that would save lives by putting an end to Big Tobacco's despicable and deceptive practices to attract and addict youth to smoking and keep current smokers from quitting. The House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow on a bill that would finally grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of tobacco products. Last year the House approved the bill by a historic and bipartisan vote of 326-102.
Moving the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,” H.R. 1256, early in the 111th Congress sends a signal to the American people that Congress intends to make health a top national priority. This legislation has the potential to reduce the scourge of a deadly product that kills more than 400,000 Americans every year.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, together with more than 1,000 public health, medical, children’s, and faith-based organizations, supports this long overdue legislation. ACS CAN commends Rep. Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Platts (R-PA) for their determination in getting Congress to send this legislation to the President to be signed into law this year.
“Children can’t vote for Members of Congress, but this bill gives Congress a chance to vote for children, 3,500 of whom try their first cigarette every day,” said Daniel E. Smith, president of ACS CAN. “We hope the House will again pass this bill with strong bipartisan support, and we call on the Senate, where the bill also enjoys tremendous and bipartisan support, to promptly bring this bill up for a vote.”
Tobacco is virtually the only consumable product not regulated by the FDA. The tobacco industry business practices exploit this undeserved lack of regulation by spending nearly $40 million every day aggressively marketing its products, especially to children, for example, with enticing candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes. The legislation would ban candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, stop the marketing of tobacco products to children, require tobacco companies to list the poisons in their products and mandate larger and more effective warning labels on tobacco product packaging.
"The tobacco industry has thrived on the business of addiction for decades by calculated pursuit of children with slick marketing and advertising tactics, and has misled the public, by using deceptive terms like ‘light’ and ’low-tar,’ into believing that deadly products are safer," said John R. Seffrin, Ph.D., national chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, ACS CAN. “This bill has the power to finally break the dangerous chain of addiction for the next generation of youth and save them from a lifetime of addiction, disease and premature death .”
ACS CAN is the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate organization of the American Cancer Society, dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage lawmakers, candidates and government officials to support laws and policies that will make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer. For more information, visit https://www.fightcancer.org/.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Alissa Havens
Phone: (202) 661-5772
Email: [email protected]
Christina Saull
Phone: (202) 585-3250
Email: [email protected]