179 



For thirty yean we have heard from the tobacco industry that "voluntary" efforts are the 

 best way to deal with the smoking and health problem. Let's be frank. Its voluntary efforts 

 are nothing but a part of its elaborate public relations scheme to sell itself as an industry of 

 good, responsible corporate citizens. The thirty year record of this industry speaks for 

 itself. Even today, the CEOs of the major tobacco companies deny that their products 

 cause disease and death. They are, as many have said, "merchants of death." 



Congress must now have the political will that Dr. Kessler and the FDA have shown in 

 their willingness to take the tobacco industry head on, to enforce the law when the law has 

 been violated. The political will starts right here with this subcommittee. Can this 

 subcommittee continue to bury its head in the sand and avoid dealing with the regulation of 

 this nation's single most preventable cause of death, as it has done for the last thirty years? 

 Or will the members of this subcommittee support what the public has demanded for some 

 time, accountability of an industry that manufactures and markets a product that the 

 federal government and every medical organization has recognized as a major addictive 

 killer? Go ask your constituents what they believe appropriate. Our survey of smokers and 

 nonsmokers alike shows the public believes FDA regulation is both appropriate and 

 necessary. As former Surgeon General Dr. Antonio Novello so aptly put it, the time for 

 studying the issue is over, the time for action is now. 



Mr. Chairman and members of this subcommittee, on behalf of the millions and millions of 

 Americans whom our organizations represent, I implore you to end the vicious cycle of 

 disease, addiction, and death. If tobacco products are to remain on the market, then the 

 American public deserves better protection. Our children have a right to better protection. 

 The special protections given to the tobacco industry must end. These products should at a 

 minimum be held to regulatory standards comparable to those that all other legal products 

 are held. FDA must be given full authority over the regulation of the manufacture, 

 distribution, sale, labeling, and advertising of these products. To that end, we have 

 enthusiastically endorsed H.R. "2147 the "Fairness in Tobacco and Nicotine Regulation 

 Act," which we believe creates the necessary regulatory structure to bring the naiion's 

 single most preventable cause of death under control for the first time. 



