Legislation aims to curb underage smoking
30 Jun 2009, Washington, D.C., United States
Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN
Seventh-day Adventist anti-smoking advocates are among more than a thousand public health, faith and other non-governmental groups applauding a new bill heralded as the strongest action ever taken by the United States government to reduce tobacco use.
President Barack Obama speaks at a bill signing ceremony for sweeping new anti-tobacco legislation last week in the White House Rose Garden. Anti-smoking advocates are praising the bill, which gives the nation's Food and Drug Administration broad authority to restrict tobacco use. [photo: DeWitt S. Williams/ANN]
 |
Signed into law last week by U.S. President Barack Obama, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act is expected to give unprecedented authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to restrict tobacco manufacture and marketing, with particular focus on keeping kids smoke-free, anti-smoking activists say.
The bill, which comes 45 years after the U.S. Surgeon General first linked smoking and lung cancer, will impose higher taxes on cigarettes, further restrict tobacco advertising and ban what the White House calls "misleading" claims, such as "light" or "low-tar." It also aims to halt illegal sales of tobacco products to children, ban candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes and allow the FDA to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products.
...more
