I received the following from a like-minded supporter of our NKYaction effort:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2009/07/03/fda-seeks-public-input-on-tobacco-regulation.htm
FDA Seeks Public Input on Tobacco Regulation
Friday July 3, 2009
Have an opinion or idea on how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should exercise its new power to regulate tobacco products? If you do, the FDA wants to hear it, advertising in the Federal Register that they are accepting public comment on tobacco regulation and enforcement under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed June 22 by President Obama.
According to the Federal Register notice, the FDA is looking for the public’s view on topics from the contents of tobacco products to advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
“We're interested in receiving input from across the country as the FDA begins to implement this important new authority intended to reduce the enormous toll of suffering and death caused by tobacco products in the United States,” said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, Commissioner of Food and Drugs in a press release. “We look forward to the public's response.”
Keep in mind that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act did not give the FDA the authority to ban tobacco products altogether.
How to Submit Comments: Comments must be received by Sept. 29, 2009, and can be submitted online at the Regulations.gov web site, or via surface mail to:
Division of Dockets Management (HFA–305)
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 106
Rockville, MD 20852
Comments submitted by mail should refer to Docket No. FDA-2009-N-0294.
For those who are too busy, here's an example form letter to send to the FDA:
RE: Input on FDA role in Tobacco Regulation
To whom it may concern:
As the FDA is seeking opinions on how to regulate tobacco, I would like to offer my own advice.
I would like to suggest that the FDA require that cigarette manufacturers include an ingredients list, starting with "processed tobacco", and including all other additives, just as in food products.
This allows the consumer to make a fully-informed choice, prior to consumption of tobacco products.
Any measure of regulation beyond consumer labeling interferes with the consumer's right to purchase and consume tobacco products, despite 50 years of warning about the effects of the use of tobacco products.
Consumers need protection from fraudulent business practices, but do not need to be protected from themselves. Legal adults must be continue to be allowed to make fully-informed decisions, even when they're counter-productive to their own health, in order to maintain a free society.
Thank you,
Personally, I'll be asking for an ingredients list, in the same manner required for food. All I want to know is what's been added.