From The Economist....

"A DECADE ago it would have been unthinkable, but on June 12th, Congress passed the toughest anti-tobacco bill in American history. Those who had waged a long fight against “Big Tobacco” rejoiced. Senator Edward Kennedy hailed the bill as proof that “miracles still happen” in Washington, DC.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad power to regulate tobacco products and marketing efforts. Health advocates have long complained that the FDA has oversight over more innocuous products, like lipstick, but not cigarettes, which are responsible for more than 400,000 American deaths a year. The new law will require disclosure of all product ingredients and the placement of more prominent warning labels on packages. The FDA will also have the right to review all new tobacco products before they go to market and to ban companies from advertising any of its products as healthier alternatives by describing them as “lite” or “mild”, for example.

The bill focuses on deterring young people from puffing away. It will outlaw flavoured tobacco (except for menthol), which some claim lures children, and bar tobacco advertisements from appearing near schools. The Congressional Budget Office says the new legislation will reduce the number of young smokers by 11% and adult smokers by 2% by 2019. Some say the legislation will save many more lives. Nine out of ten smokers start before the age of 18, reckons the American Cancer Society’s advocacy affiliate, so hindering tobacco companies’ access to youth could reduce the number of smokers dramatically in the long term.

The new law adds more pain to the tobacco industry, which saw a federal tax on cigarettes nearly triple earlier this year and the imposition of many new state-level bans on smoking in public places. Now the tobacco industry must finance the government’s new regulatory activities by paying fees according to each company’s share of the market. The total cost of the FDA’s tobacco regulations will begin at $85 million a year and rise to over $700 million in ten years. The battle is not over, though. The tobacco companies are expected to go to court, contesting the advertising restrictions as an infringement of the constitutional right to free speech."

The above ran in the Economist on the 18th of June, 2009. The question now is who will gain from all of this? I doubt very much this new government intrusion into the lives of citizens will do much to cure cancer, or prevent heart attacks and whatnot. Congress must have a very short memory. Look what happened when they banned the consumption of alcohol. We had almost everyone breaking the law not to mention a host of colorful characters making bathtub gin and selling it in speakeasies. The word Gangsters comes to mind and I'm not talking about Rap music here.