President Obama signs new tobacco control bill
Under a new law signed by the president on June 22, the federal government will ban all cigarettes with candy, fruit and spice flavors starting in October. The law will also stop youth-based marketing such as sponsoring sporting, athletic and entertainment events using tobacco product brand names and logos, or giving away clothing bearing the brand name or logo of a tobacco product.
Each day, 1,000 young people under the age of 18 become new regular, daily smokers, and almost 90 percent of all smokers began at or before their 18th birthday,” President Obama said as he prepared to sign a bill granting authority over tobacco products to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “I know; I was one of these teenagers,” he said. “And so I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time.”
Obama promised his wife Michelle that he would quit smoking as a condition of running for president. During the campaign, however, he admitted to smoking a few times. Asked recently if the president had used tobacco since moving into the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “I think the president would likely tell you, as I think anybody would that has smoked or been addicted to smoking, that it is – it is a lifelong struggle.”
At the bill signing, the president said young smokers are actively being recruited, which is why the new legislation is necessary. “Kids today don’t just start smoking for no reason,” he said. “They’re aggressively targeted as customers by the tobacco industry. They’re exposed to a constant and insidious barrage of advertising where they live, where they learn and where they play. Most insidiously, they are offered products with flavorings that mask the taste of tobacco and make it even more tempting.”
Recently, a number of historic victories have been made in the fight to protect workers and the public from the serious health hazards of secondhand smoke. Policy-makers in North Carolina and Wisconsin delivered victories for health and the public’s right to breathe clean air when they approved strong smoke-free legislation to make all restaurants and bars smoke-free.
With the addition of North Carolina and Wisconsin, a total of 27 states will have strong smoke-free laws that include restaurants and bars ― protecting nearly 59 percent of Americans from the proven dangers of secondhand smoke. North Carolina has become the first traditional tobacco-growing state to make all restaurants and bars smoke-free.
In addition, policy-makers in Hawaii, Florida and Mississippi enacted into law tax increases for cigarettes and other tobacco products, protecting people in those states from the devastating toll of tobacco use. In support of these state efforts, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded public opinion polls on attitudes toward tobacco tax increases, public education media campaigns as well as strategic and technical assistance provided through its grantee, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which estimates that these cigarette tax increases combined will:
Prevent 186,800 kids from becoming smokers
Spur 112,600 adult smokers to quit
Prevent 89,400 premature smoking-caused deaths
Save $4.3 billion in long-term health care costs
Raise more than $740 million a year in revenue
The Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii is now beginning a new phase of its battle against tobacco. States can now regulate the time, place and manner of tobacco advertising as long as measures are Constitutional and new local regulations to help protect children from tobacco and prevent their smoking are now possible, the Coalition said in a recent newsletter.
