Posted on: Sunday, July 18, 2004

EDITORIAL
Senate must back smoking regulation

Long-overdue regulation of tobacco products by the Food and Drug Administration suddenly became a possibility when it was tied to two largely unrelated provisions in the U.S. Senate.

The good news is that the proposal would give the FDA broad authority to regulate the sale, distribution and advertising of cigarettes. The aim would be to reduce smoking and the targeting of children and teenagers for addiction.

In other words, thousands of lives would be saved.

The FDA tried in the mid-1990s to expand its regulation of tobacco but was stopped by the Supreme Court, which found that it lacked the power under existing law.

The less-than-good news is that the price for a Senate majority favoring FDA regulation was inclusion in the measure of an industryifinanced buyout of tobacco farmers.

Under this proposal, the tobacco industry would pay farmers to abandon a quota system, aimed at limiting production and bolstering prices, that dates to the 1930s but has since lost much of its value to individual farmers.

The price of cigarettes probably would rise by 6 cents a pack to finance the buyout, totalling $12 billion over 10 years.

Finally, both tobacco proposals are tied to a completely unrelated tax measure, desperately supported by certain manufacturers, to relieve them of punitive tariffs imposed by European countries on U.S. exports until the United States stops subsidizing these products in a manner outlawed by the World Trade Organization.

This relief measure is forced by Washington's inability to practice what it preaches in the area of free trade.

This legislative package could easily be derailed or delayed when House Republican leaders, who are less enthusiastic about FDA tobacco regulation, bring their different views into play.

As always, politics makes strange bedfellows. The other measures, however unrelated, seem a small price to pay for life-saving tobacco regulation.