FDA Takes Aggressive Action Toward Regulation of Cigarettes

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed a new rule, which includes changes to the warnings on cigarette packaging; warnings that have remained largely the same for decades.

These proposed new warnings are obviously intended to be graphic motivation for smokers to quit and for those who have not yet tried cigarettes, to never take that step into addiction.

For decades, the tobacco industry has withheld information about the dangers of smoking; lied about the dangers of smoking; and engaged in advertising campaigns designed to hide the dangers of smoking from the public.

Big Tobacco also, to the present, continues to maintain that cigarettes are not addictive; that smokers can quit anytime they want to do so. Given the extensive manipulation of the chemicals in tobacco by the industry, hooking the American public on cigarettes has been a multi-billion dollar adventure for them. Big Tobacco knows and, in fact, designed a product that begins to addict the smoker when he or she lights up that first cigarette.

We can only hope that these new warnings on the packaging of cigarettes will prove to be a big step in deterring people from smoking or make them think about the consequences when they hold that pack of cigarettes in their hand. Perhaps if smokers view these graphic images enough times, who knows, maybe miracles do happen.

It’s a shame that it took so many years to implement these new, graphic and sobering warnings on tobacco products.

It is shameful that the tobacco industry refused to put even the most benign warnings on their products until they were forced to do so by the government. It is similarly shameful that the tobacco industry persists in trying to sell its canards and propaganda to the public.

To view more information relating to the FDA action and the new warning labels: Proposed Cigarette Product Warning Labels or the Proposed Rule.