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ineffective. That's the role of the FDA in many regards. We can 

 pass laws about advertising, we don't need the FDA to get involved 

 in that. 



Mr. Kessler. Congressman, we will convene in early August, one 

 of our advisory committees, the Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, 

 to look specifically at the question of what are addictive levels of 

 nicotine in cigarettes. When we have those scientific answers, I 

 would be happy to come back and share that information and con- 

 tinue this dialogue with you. 



Mr. Greenwood. OK Well my time is short and I think it is 

 running out. But let's get right to the question: Do you want us to 

 give you the authority to regulate the content of cigarettes? 



Mr. Kessler. I think the Congress should give us guidance 

 under our current authority of whether we should regulate ciga- 

 rettes as drugs. 



Mr. Greenwood. I would like you to give us guidance as to 

 whether you want that authority. 



Mr. Kessler. I think when you look at caffeine and alcohol and 

 other things that the cigarette industry is currently putting out 

 there in the news, those products are regulated. I see cigarettes as 

 much more hazardous by orders of magnitude and I don't under- 

 stand why all those other substances are regulated and cigarettes 

 are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. 



Mr. Greenwood. I take that as a yes, at this point, you would 

 like us to put your agency 



Mr. Kessler. I would like you. Congressman, to do — for us to fig- 

 ure out the right policy steps based on the right scientific answers 

 so that, together, we can reduce the demand to reduce the future 

 generations from becoming addicted. Yes, I think that is scientif- 

 ically possible to do by focusing on the nicotine in cigarettes as well 

 as considering other policy options such as you raised, advertising 

 such as restricted access. But prohibition won't work, we are going 

 to have to do this by reducing demand. 



Mr. Greenwood. OK. My guess is that kids that smoke ciga- 

 rettes don't smoke them because they are addicted early on. They 

 smoke them for a lot of ridiculous social notions about what is cool. 



Mr. Kessler. Congressman, exactly 



Mr. Greenwood. FDA ain't going to fix that. 



Mr. Kessler. But what we can talk about is if they are going to 

 smoke cigarettes, is it going to deliver the kind of doses of nicotine 

 that are sure to get them hooked. That's what we need to focus on. 

 How can we prevent that teenager who's going to smoke because 

 of peer pressure or because someone in the family is going to 

 smoke, how can we reduce the risk of that teenager getting hooked 

 on cigarettes? 



You are right. They think they are going to get hooked. They 

 smoke because — they smoke one cigarette, they think they can 

 stop. They don't know that once they start smoking regularly, it be- 

 comes very hard to quit. 



Mr. Greenwood. Thank you. Dr. Kessler. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood. 



Mr. Wyden. 



