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FDA: Kiss Those Kiddie-Flavored Cigarettes Goodbye
It's hard to argue with the FDA's decision, announced this week, to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes. To be honest, I always thought cigarettes came in regular and menthol, not chocolate and strawberry. The legislation passed earlier this year giving the FDA authority over tobacco products specifically authorized it to ban flavored cigarettes, while protecting the kind that I got hooked on.
The justification for the ban is that the cigarette companies have been using kiddie flavors, like they've used cartoon characters, to appeal to teenagers. The tobacco industry faces unique challenges given that so many of its best customers die if they don't quit, which makes replacing them with new smokers an economic necessity, whatever anyone says. And studies have found that 17-years-olds are at least three times more likely to be puffing on fun-flavored cigarettes than are those over 25.
"These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., explained Tuesday.
It sounds like a major step until you read the fine print: The biggest tobacco companies don't even make these cigarettes; the folks who did, seeing the handwriting on the wall, had pretty much stopped after Congress acted; and the ban doesn't touch menthol, the most popular flavor.
So will banning flavored cigarettes that made up some 1 percent of the market stop teenagers from opening the door to addiction?
I wouldn't bet on it.
Smoking is stupid. Nearly half a million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses. Almost 50,000 of those are people whose only exposure to smoke was second-hand. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in this country.
Which doesn't seem to mean a lot to teenagers and young adults, especially girls, who start smoking to be cool or lose weight or find something to do with their hands when they're nervous.
I started at 15 and quit at 33.
I tremble every time I have a chest X-ray. I lost my best friend to lung cancer, and she didn't smoke. The woman I am closest to, who has helped me raise my children for the past 20 years, is being treated for lung cancer, and she didn't smoke. Among the many things I would do differently in my life if I had to do it over again, one of the first would be not to cough my way through my first pack of Marlboros.
But that's me the grownup talking. When I was 15, I didn't worry about getting emphysema or cancer or heart disease. I worried about my father getting sick. I begged him to stop smoking; his cough terrified me. He half-tried a few times and stopped smoking in the house, but he never really quit. By the time I started, he'd given up trying not to. He died at 53.
And that was not, I should add, enough to get me to quit for another 10 years.
Mortality isn't much fun to contemplate. Luckily for them, most young people don't. Even when you lose someone you love to cigarettes, as I did with my father, you can completely convince yourself that it has nothing to do with you. From the perspective of a 20-year-old, 53 looks very far away. Until it isn't.
In a recent speech, President Obama sought to enlist young people in the fight for health care reform, relying on a University of Michigan study that, based on past experience, found that upward of 40 percent of all Americans would lose health insurance coverage in the next 10 years.
The Joe Wilson wannabe I was debating on television that day kept attacking the president for using a bad study as a scare tactic, although he never could say what was wrong with the study. As far as I could tell, the study was just fine. The real problem was that it wasn't a very good scare tactic because young people — who are among those most likely to lose health insurance when they age off their parents' plan and those least likely to find the kind of jobs that provide coverage — don't get scared about their health. If they did, you wouldn't need to ban chocolate cigarettes, because no one would be buying them.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
This article reminds me why we should all worry about lifestyle Nazis (a.k.a. "Liberals"). You see, Nazis / Tyrants, whatever your preferred label, never get tired of being a tyrant and they never wake up one day and say: "You know, I have been a tyrant long enough." No, they wake up and say: "Who's freedom can I crush today and what is the best method of crushing such freedom?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The tried and true method most often used by such tyrants is false government studies (official looking) supported by knowingly erroneous statistical analysis and generated by political hacks wanting government dollars. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I always refer to the following example to demonstrate how statistics can be used in a misleading way. Suppose someone told you the more firemen sent to a fire the more property damage was done. Therefore, firemen cause property damage. However, there is a "hidden variable" - the size of the fire. The bigger the fire the more property damage done and the more firemen needed to fight the fire. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Liberals do such with statistics all the time. Indeed, whenever a Liberal quotes a statistic that seemingly supports one of their outlandish positions (such as man made global warming, dangers of second hand smoke, etc.), know that such statistic is being misused and there are hidden variables that that tell the real story. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note Susan states: " Smoking is stupid. Nearly half a million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses. Almost 50,000 of those are people whose only exposure to smoke was second-hand." ---- Is that so . . . I bet the term "smoking-related illnesses" is very broad and misleading. I bet if a smoker has to walk past exposed uranium to get to a cigarette machine, and as a result, develops radiation sickness and dies, he died from a "smoking-related illness". Restated, that statistic is full of "hidden variables" and is likely nothing but pure crap. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Susan notes that: " I lost my best friend to lung cancer, and she didn't smoke." But don't let that stop one from blaming smokers for her death. Surely she was exposed to second hand smoke some where, some how, at least for a second our two during some time in her life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second hand smoke public that was manufactured in 1993 by the EPA in a bogus study of tobacco smoke concluding that second hand tobacco smoke is a class A carcinogenic. In such study the EPA claimed that 3,000 people in America died annually from second hand smoke but the EPA - the catch - they use a statistical analysis with only a 90 percent confidence interval because a 95 percent confidence interval would not support their ideology (desired result). Restated, the EPA tortured the numbers until they confessed. Notably, in 1998, the WHO International Agency for Research released the released the largest second hand smoke study to date covering research data collected over 10 years. Not surprising the liberal government run media ignored such study as it concluded that there is no statistically significant risk to nonsmokers who lived and worked with smokers from second hand smoke. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, lets get back to the Liberal Nazi. The Liberal Nazi believes the ends justify the means. Thus, Liberal Nazis believe it is ok for them to force you to live as Liberals demand for your own good. Such is the problem in a nut shell. Do you prefer to live in a country that promotes solutions based in liberty or solution based in tyranny? I believe in Liberty based solutions where people are free to engage in smart and stupid activities whether would be tyrants like Susan like it or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have never smoked a tobacco cigarette in my entire life and hope to die having never smoked a single tobacco cigarette. I hate second had smoke and believe those who subject me to second hand smoke are less than considerate. That said, I will fight to the death a smokers right to smoke in hopes that such a policy will be followed when I wish to engage in legal activity that others find repulsive. Otherwise, tyrants like Susan will eventually take all our rights and we will have to live the way such people demand - for our own good.
One of the unfortunate facts of life is that smoking is a big business. Big for the cigarette companies, but even bigger for both the Federal and State governments. They are both more addicted to the income streams from the tax revenue than their citizens are to cigarettes. Neither really want a successful stop smoking campaign, because they would all loose the billions of dollars that they generate. Also, as their actuaries point out, the more people smoke, the less their chance to live long enough to draw social security benefits. So, smoking generates income, and reduces the cost of social security. It is a double good deal for the federal government. Were it no so, a sane country would have outlawed the product years ago.
Maybe instead of appearing everywhere on tv, the pres should give up his own cigarettes whether, chocolate, strawberry or plain flavored. Lead by example. Think how impressed the teenagers will be.
Years ago, one of my brothers , a heavy smoker, had a heart attack at a very young age. My older brother, also a heavy smoker, was terrified by the incident. He quit smoking that day. It was easy for him to quit. He told me that he used to go into places of business and immediately look for the cigarette machine. After the incident he said he just blocked it out of his mind. others are still alive today. The rest of you can quit smoking instantly. JUST STOP BUYING THOSE PACKS. I was lucky, I never smoked and the money I saved has to equal two Mercedes not to mention how strong my heart and lungs remained for many years. I hate the thought of people infringing on others rights , but how many smokers in restaurants ruined others meals as their cigarette and cigar smoke invaded a good meal. I love all the new laws banning smoking in public places that serve food.
Comment: #4
Posted by: robert lipka
Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:45 AM
Continue to smoke for this adminstration has taken all our defenses away and we will die in an attack soon. Susan please ask Hillary Clinton to talk sense into Obama. Tell Barry to ease up on the socialism for a while and take care of foreign affairs that will keep us safe. I can not believe what the democrats are doing. How can you support this. I challenge you as an Amercian, a Jewish woman and a mother to write exactly what Obama is doing to Israel. How can you support this and please ask Alan Colmes the same. Did you both sell your soul? Look who his allies are? In my 54 years this is the first time I am scared.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Kathaleen
Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:52 AM
dear susan, goog,,, hate cigarettes as they killed my mother. good topic but stay away from comments in defence of thsere dictatorial socialists because they are not your people and will some day if trends continue, thet will deem you a persona non grata. get back to debating sean, your real friends. you are an old time sweet liberal, not a national dictatorial socialist criminalism. you are stevenson, not rahm,schumer,pelosi or dodd. you are no crook like acorn. i like you susan even if i do not agree with you often but here i agree. my love, a hannity person,,,, tom
Comment: #6
Posted by: tom bowden
Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:53 AM
Like you say, the FDA picks the easiest fights and picks on the weakest citizens. Tobacco should just be banned if it's all as bad as the science says it is. However, it might be worse if young people couldn't smoke cigarettes in their "immortal" years. What other substance might they try to alleviate boredom and social awkwardness and self-medicate for the more serious problems in their lives, like abusive and absent parents, educational failure, poverty, discrimination and hopelessness? Compared to booze, crack and meth, a cigarette habit doesn't seem so bad, does it? Before tobacco is banned, I would like to see some honest research into why some smokers die early and some don't. It would benefit all of us to know what those smokers are doing that protects them from the heart disease and cancer. They must be doing something to strengthen their immune systems. It might be as simple as having a "don't care" fatalistic attitude, instead of obsessing about every "bad habit" that might kill them. I know my feisty aunt got bladder cancer (a smoking-related cancer) but she refused to believe the diagnosis and without treatment it went away. She was a smoker and lived into her 80s. Is that still considered "premature death" in the smoking statistics?
I am sooooo sick of this discussion. OK, I get it...smoking is not good for you. But where is the personal responsibilty here folks. I smoked for close 15 years, enjoyed everyone and I quit. Was it a challenge, yes...was it insurmountable, no. There are currently more former smokers than smokers. It can be done and if you want then do it, if you don't then please don't bitch about it or sue someone. For close to 50 years there has been a warning lable on cigerette packs.....trust me it is absolutely unavoidable if you smoke regularly. That is far stronger a message than some animated camel lighting up. I am tired of tobacco companies getting sued because dad died because he smoked. Sorry for the loss but that was his decision. And class action suits are ridiculous especially when the government is a plantiff in the case. Excuse me but they make more money on a pack of cigerettes than the tobacco companies. Personal responisiblity here people. if you don't want to smoke then don't....if you do don't bitch and complain and sue over your decision. As for second hand smoke....total BS. if that were true then ALL baby boomers would be dying of cancer NOW because when they grew up it was as common to smoke in your house as it is to watch TV, not to mention places like cars and resturants. It was unavoidable...it was everywhere.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Adam
Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:27 AM
I'm torn on this subject.
If we have some drugs (herion, etc.) declared illegal why not all cigarettes. They are addictive and cause death ultimately. I'm awaiting mine now in the form of emphysema.
On the other hand, if you believe that all drugs should be legalized, taking the government out of the picture, then let freedom ring!
Comment: #9
Posted by: Early
Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:23 AM
Re: robert lipka
" The rest of you can quit smoking instantly. JUST STOP BUYING THOSE PACKS. I was lucky, I never smoked "
We can tell you never smoked. It's not nearly as easy as "just stop buying those packs." Not by a long shot, but the bigger question here is not whether smoking is good for you - I think we all agree that it's not. The question is why are we not doing more to enforce more stringently the laws already in place to prevent teens from obtaining cigarettes, rather than restricting the options available to law-abiding, tax-paying "free" adult citizens? If adults were "encouraged" to help prevent teen smoking by more severe penalties for selling cigarettes or buying cigarettes for minors, then adults could buy whatever type/style/flavor they wanted. I'm a middle-aged adult, self-supporting and responsible for myself, and I get tired of the health police telling me what I can and cannot eat, drink, smoke and do. How much more peaceful, pleasant, and less argumentative would this country be if we would all just worry about running our own lives and stop trying to run everyone else's?
Comment: #10
Posted by: Kyla Jones
Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:02 PM
