Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Ban On Candy Flavored Cigarettes Goes Into Effect Today
Today marks a milestone in the fight against cancer and tobacco addiction. Going forward, big tobacco companies will no longer be able to market candy flavored cigarettes to our children. Every day in America, another 1,000 kids become regular smokers – and roughly one third of them will die as a result. We owe it to our kids to give them a fair shot and put an end to unethical, insidious marketing techniques that trap them in addiction at a young age. Banning the marketing and use of strawberry, chocolate and other flavored cigarettes will help slow the rate of addiction among young smokers, prevent disease and save millions in health care costs down the line.
The ban is a provision of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, legislation that allows the FDA to regulate what tobacco companies put into their products for the first time. In addition to banning candy and fruit flavored cigarettes, the bill bans misleading health claims such as "light" and "low-tar," requires tobacco companies to disclose the contents of their products and empowers the FDA to require changes in tobacco products.
Although tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, it kills more than 400,000 people and drives up the cost of health care by approximately $96 billion each year. Today, after a decades-long fight, we are finally seeing regulations go into effect. And they could not have started with a better group than our most vulnerable, America’s children.
