Tobacco Documents Online

opening Statement - H.R. 5041 Warning Statement Proliferation Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While I laud your efforts to prevent young people from smoking, I question the effectiveness of the methods you present in this bill. I refer specifically to the provision regarding warning labels. We already have warning labels on cigarette packs and ads. They're on billboards, in magazines, in newspapers, even a Doonesbury comic strip! And apparently people take notice. Fewer people are smoking today than ever before. In the last 25 years some 41 million Americans have quit smoking. Mr. Chairman, I have a few problems with these new warning labels. First, I'd like to point out that we already require the tobacco industry to put warning labels on their products and ads, subject to FTC oversight. As part of the new warning labels provision, a new bureaucracy at HHS would be given regulatory authority, replacing effective FTC jurisdiction. The second problem relates to the war on drugs. If we're serious about stopping the use, buying, selling and importing of drugs -- if we believe that drugs kill, and cause great violence by people who are either high on mind-bending substances or who rob, injure and kill to pay for their fix -- then this bill doesn't help.

By placing'a warning on cigarettes that "Tobacco Is an Addictive Drug," this bill sends a message that is confusing and misleading. It's a message that suggests to me, and I'm sure to a lot of people, that cigarettes are the same as cocaine, crack and heroin. How can someone take the fight against drugs seriously when we're putting them in the same category as cigarettes? I am also mystified by the proposed warning concerning the dangers of second hand smoke. A 1986 survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that 98 percent of the public believes that environmental tobacco smoke is harmful. A study recently published by the Journal of the American Medical Association reports a similarly widespread belief. Hundreds of communities around the country have enacted smoking restriction laws on the premise that second hand smoke is harmful and newspapers are bombarding the public with claims to that effect every day. My problem, I guess, is that I don't see how the proposed warning is going to tell anyone something new. These new labels are intended to frighten people, rather than provide them with factual information. Take for example, the warning statement "Cigarettes Kill." Clearly a "scare" tactic. The third problem I have is a question of Constitutionality. The government has the power to control ad content only to ensure ads

are not deceptive or misleading. But the warnings required in H.R. 5041 are not intended to prevent cigarette ads from deceiving or misleading the public. They are intended to scare people away from smoking. They are not intended to provide them with verifiable facts. Mr. Chairman, I doubt that the government has the authority to compel cigarette ads to serve as vehicles for anti-smoking messages. These new warning labels are unnecessary. They set a dangerous precedent for other industries, whose products may become socially unacceptable. N 0 N W M+ ~ N 0