WASHINGTON — Imagine if cigarettes were no longer addictive and smoking itself became almost obsolete; only a tiny segment of Americans still lit up. That’s the goal of an unprecedented anti-smoking plan being carefully fashioned by U.S. health officials.
But the proposal from the Food and Drug Administration could have another unexpected effect: opening the door for companies to sell a new generation of alternative tobacco products, allowing the industry to survive — even thrive — for generations to come.
The plan puts the FDA at the center of a long-standing debate over so-called “reduced-risk” products, such as e-cigarettes, and whether they should have a role in anti-smoking efforts, which have long focused exclusively on getting smokers to quit.
Yul Brenner brought the Tobacco industry to its Knees in 1985. The govt. sponsored a public service announcement on TV where he said “I swear to you, I would give up every cigarette I have ever smoked, just to live one more day”. Millions quit with each announcement.
Instead of continuing with the campaign, the govt. made a deal with Tobacco. No more govt. anti-smoking adds, Tobacco only advertised in magazines.
Tobacco would die today if taken out of movies. Tobacco would die if govt. went into Hollywood hospices and showed your favorite stars dying of Emphysema, (Now conveniently called COPD with a cute elephant ) heart disease, stroke, and Squamous cell cancer (known for 50 years to be caused by Tobacco.)
Do you remember one of the Green girls on Star Trek? Susan Oliver, a remarkable pilot, great actress, directress, almost killed young in a Pan AM 707, succumbed to Cancer in 1994. She could have given her opinion of Cigarettes and saved millions as well.
I am sorry, but neither the govt. nor Big tobacco, care. Only YOU can prevent your Smoking Death.
I’m sorry, Tobacco has been cultivated by humans for millennia, and motion pictures haven’t been around nearly as long as that.
The anti smoking industry is enormous and ever-reaching with its lies and money-making regulations that are obviously not working the way that we were told they would work.
Only you can stop believing everything you’re told and use your own brain to make decisions for yourself, rather than unelected officials with jobs that have them set up for life on our dollar.
The anti smoking movement is a money-making industry, nothing more or less.
This article is misleading….the leading “preventable cause of death” is not cigarettes….it is Abortion!
Better idea: prosecute anyone who smokes in a public place!!!
Fascist much?
Maybe you shouldn’t patronize businesses allowing smoking, if the few that permit it anymore bother you that much? Last I checked smoking is still a legal activity, there are MORE non-smoking than smoker-friendly businesses out there, and that business owners should have the right to permit smoking if they want to.
Why, because you don’t care for the rich, satisfying scent of tobacco?
Tobacco- the plant that built this country and the British empire before it. You might think it was cotton, but we live here today because of tobacco and king James’ vow to not build his empire through conquest. Before he began using his colonies to grow tobacco, smoking was illegal in Britain because he hated it more than anything. Then he realized how broke his country was.
What if someone didn’t like how you smell- should you be locked up for it? Stating that you don’t have a smell to be offended by makes no difference in this situation, because the other person says that they think you do. That means you are at fault due to someone saying so, regardless of evidence stating otherwise. How severe should your punishment be? I’m willing to bet it It will be far worse that your perceived offense.
JJ Reuter is right; there is a word for a society dictated by authorities that misinform and control the population through sensationalized statements and locking down commerce for the agendas of the elite, and that word is fascism.
There is nothing good about fascism.
It has always been a tactic of prohibitionists to make a product as harmful as possible to back their ideology. During alcohol prohibition the US government literally poisoned alcohol to make it a worse choice. And today’s opiate holocaust is also the result of the same ideology as regulation instead of prohibition would end the use of poisoned opiates.
While I agree that prohibitionists will always rely on propaganda to cultivate hysteria amongst the masses, I feel I must point out your statement regarding the current status with prescription opiates as incorrect.
The regulation is already present. The current overblown situation has taken place while the opiates themselves were fully regulated. The only people to blame for allowing the overuse of these substances did so with their prescription pads. Yes, doctors are to blame.
Why aren’t doctors and drug companies being vilified as tobacco users are every day? The same reasons they weren’t during the amphetamine crisis of the 1960s: they have enough money to pay their way out of trouble and keep the prohibition industry (read FDA, WHO, CDC, American Lung Association, etc.) working for them by keeping the masses misinformed and unreasonably terrified. The heads of this industry are well paid with money essentially extorted from their fellow American citizens in the form of outrageous taxation and unamerican regulation that blatantly steps on citizen’s rights and destroys businesses so that others can monopolize the industry by paying off those in control.
Money, that’s what this is all about. Nothing else can create such controversy.
Pardon my last reply, I see now that I mistook your statement as advocating opiate regulation as if it didn’t already exist.
Other than that, my thoughts expressed in my last statement remain the same- make no mistake, the FDA in particular is selling drugs and tobacco products for their bedfellows in those two industries just as they are dishing out free propaganda and lies.
They do not care about our health, only our money.
Right, as they spray you and your family with nano particles of chemicals , aluminum, barium , and more .
Right , as they try to continue the fraud of Sept 11. Right , they care . Right , sure .
Let’s prohibit alcohol, ban marijuana entirely, tax sugar 500%, and close the methadone clinics. Oh wait – that would severely impact the lifestyles of liberals across the nation …
Their website touts a 100% success rate. They are quite possibly the ONLY company on the planet with that kind of record. OR your comment is an advertisement. I’m going with the latter, in deference to P.T. Barnum.
But selling & smoking pot is ok…….THAT has poisoned kids, led to more DUI & accidents & can be smoked anywhere! It DOES make you high & leads to other drug use! It also kills brain cells & is addictive ……I do not want THAT around me! Yet no regs on alcohol ….DC would go into DT’S! Not to mention all the other drugs that the FDA puts out then recalls or people die from!
You are misinformed. Using marijuana in fact creates new brain cells ( https://www.leafscience.com/2013/07/13/scientists-discover-another-way-marijuana-helps-brain-grow/) The marijuana gatway paradigm is junk science ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ending-addiction-good/201408/marijuana-the-gateway-drug-myth ) Come one down to Canada on July 1, 2018 we are legalizing that day. This will leave most of the continent legal.
You’re so uninformed about marijuana that it’s pathetic.
Exactly how long have you been living under a rock?
I didn’t know anyone but Obama still sparked up a cancer stick.
(Newports, if you’re counting.)
I’ve smoked menthols for over 50 years. Never did like Newports.
Fewer smokers=healthier population Good: lower health costs all around Bad: longer lifespans=Social Security Bankruptcy inevitability, overrun nursing homes, convalescence centers and hospices Burdened families struggling to to be wage earners and care-givers, and ever-increasingly dangerous Florida driving conditions as more blue-haired great-grandmothers continue barrelling down roads in 30 yr old Lincolns while peering through their steering wheels…….
Spoken like a spoiled, only-child, narcissist who thinks you’ll lose part of an inheritance you believe should be all yours.