Less Smokers Disposed to quit with Safer Cigarettes
Smokers smoke cigarette everyday and they know its harmful effects but they don’t know what is inside it. Now for the first time, smokers may be able to see what’s in the products they consume. Injurious additives could be limited, but critics said that making cigarettes safer could make smokers less disposed to quit.
Congress is poised to give the federal control destroying new authority to control the manufacturing of cigarettes and other smoking products.
For the first time this legislation could permit consumers to see what chemicals and other additives which Tobacco Companies put in smoking products. Even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was empowered to put new limits on harmful components and interdicted to selling “light” cigarettes.
It also would give the FDA new power to enlarge warning labels and limit full-color advertising for cigs and other tobacco products.
Gregg Haifley, a senior journalist for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said: “If you look at a box of macaroni and cheese, you can see what kind of color has been used. All the ingredients are scrutinized to determine whether they are dangerous to consumers’ health. Not so tobacco. It has remained virtually the only unregulated consumable product in America.”
Even anti-smoking campaign tried to make cigarettes safer, an effort that could paradoxically make some smokers less disposed to quit.
Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, reported: “We just don’t know what is going to happen. This is uncharted territory.”
Altria Group Inc., the parent company of industry leader Philip Morris, which may have an easier time maintaining its dominance in a more regulated market, has confirmed the new legislation too.
The new bill, which was approved by the House and is expected to clear the Senate in coming weeks, would effectively end an era in which the tobacco industry was largely exempt from the regulatory investigation that has been standard for food, drugs and other consumer products.
Matthew L. Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said: “This would be the most significant change in the federal government’s approach to tobacco in history. It would fundamentally change the way tobacco is marketed, advertised and sold in this country.”
In recent years, in a lot of states and countries was introduced a legislation so-called “clean-air” by banning smoking in government buildings, bars, restaurants and other public places. Also in this year Congress increased the cigarette tax, boosting it from 62 cents to $1, 01 per pack, in order to pay for expanding children’s health insurance.
Scientists continue to educate the public to let them know that even if the tobacco products have reduced toxicants, they are still injurious.
