House passes yet another blow to the tobacco industry

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/02/tobacco.regulation

Greatly expands the FDA's power over regulation. Burr has threatened a filibuster, but all signs point to that failing.

[Lief 🗽]

It's pretty insane that the FDA already doesn't have that power.

[Earth]

Unneeded and unnecessary.

[Devilman88]

This is stupid! The government is pushing so hard to banned tobacco, but alcohol kills many more people a year then tobacco. These people are stupid.

Whats next the government will ban fast food or set a weight limit on people?!? Welcome to a dictatorship America.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Uh, this doesn't ban tobacco. It gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate it. Makes sense to me.

[Earth]

Uh, this doesn't ban tobacco. It gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate it. Makes sense to me.

Are you hoping for a healthy cigarette? To me, this is the definition of unnecessary.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This seems sensible and obvious to me. Protect truth in advertising and protect the consumer from harmful/deceptive products.

[A18]

" 'This legislation is a major victory for those of us who prize the health of this nation over the profits of tobacco companies,' J. Randall Curtis, the incoming head of the American Thoracic Society, said in a written statement."

The "health of this nation." I'll leave it to the reader to determine just how sloppy that rhetoric is. As for the "profits of tobacco companies," how about substituting the "liberty of consumers and producers to freely buy and sell the products of their efforts"? Better yet, how about talking about the actual issue—marginal effects?

But the policy implications themselves are merely unfortunate. More significant is that democratic accountability will shrink still further. How convenient to have matters of public controversy decided by those who do not face the electorate. How convenient, and how dangerous.

[dead0man]

Uh, this doesn't ban tobacco. It gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate it. Makes sense to me.

By this logic coffee and soda should be under the FDA as well.

[Ebowed]

Uh, this doesn't ban tobacco. It gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate it. Makes sense to me.

By this logic coffee and soda should be under the FDA as well.

Haven't you heard?  Regulation is supposed to be applied on an inconsistent basis.