Tell Congress to Protect Children from Tobacco Use
- Jul 28, 2008 - 1
A tragically high number of Americans die each year due to alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides. Yet, astonishingly, a product that claims more American lives annually than all of these combined, tobacco, is peddled for public consumption having undergone virtually no oversight.
This could soon change—and I hope it will!
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate the sale, marketing, and manufacturing of tobacco products. This commonsense bill would end special treatment of tobacco companies, empowering the FDA to subject the products to similar scrutiny required of foods, drugs, and safety devices.
Deceptive “light” and “low-tar” labeling of cigarettes and clever marketing at the tune of $13 billion annually are dubious trademarks of the tobacco industry. Such practices account for the roughly 400,000 American lives snuffed out each year due to tobacco-related illnesses. Much of these efforts are aimed at children, society’s most susceptible group of people. Studies show that children are three times more likely than adults to be influenced by tobacco marketing, and they become addicted to tobacco at a rate of 1,000 each day.
These trends must end!
If you agree, please tell your representative to vote “yes” on the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1108).
You can call your representative by dialing the Capitol switchboard at 202/224-3121. Or click here to e-mail him or her a suggested letter or one entirely your own.
Thank you for taking a few moments from your busy day to help end tobacco’s cruel cycle of death and disease.
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Learn more about: Family, Addictions, Children, Citizenship, Legislation
1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Jul 29th, 2008, at 2:36pm, Peter wrote:
Yes everyone really needs to contact their representative reference this bill. Unfortunately it looks like the Bush administration will veto the bill, so we need a strong majority to overide the possible veto. I have no idea why this administration is such a close ally of big tobacco. We really do need a new administration that appreciates how harmful tobacco is to people’s health.