The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act can take credit for banning candy-flavored cigarettes and requiring tobacco manufacturers to list their ingredients. And according to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, the law has been a success. But as ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross points out in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, such legislation will save exactly zero smokers.
Other regulations in the FDA pipeline, including mandating large graphic warning labels on cigarette packages, will likely have the same effect. What can, however, largely benefit smokers, says Dr. Ross, is tobacco harm reduction. Products such as smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes are simply more effective than current FDA-approved smoking cessation methods. One might expect public health organizations to embrace these products but the result, unfortunately, has been exactly the opposite.
Click here to read Dr. Ross s take on this important issue in full.