Editorial: Butting in on tobacco

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

With Democrats in control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, supporters of a bipartisan effort to place tobacco under FDA regulation hope 2007 is the year they finally prevail.

The legislation introduced last week would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight of tobacco manufacturing, marketing and sales. Such power would allow the FDA to require stronger warning labels, regulate the amounts of nicotine and other ingredients in cigarettes and prevent manufacturers from using such terms as "light" or "low-tar" unless the claims have been proven scientifically.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the bill's lead sponsor who heads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Washington Post that Congress "cannot in good conscience allow the federal agency most responsible for protecting the public health to remain powerless" over tobacco.

Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that cigarette-related illnesses kill some 438,000 people in the United States each year, including 2,600 such deaths annually in Nevada. Mounting evidence that breathing secondhand smoke also can be dangerous has given rise to widespread smoking bans in states across the nation - including in Nevada, where a casino culture historically has been smoking-friendly.

So it comes as no surprise that the FDA legislation, which failed in the 1990s and again earlier in this decade, has come up once again. The time is right. There is more than enough proof showing that tobacco use kills, and the FDA should have jurisdiction over its manufacture and sales.