FDA Rules Crack Down on Tobacco Marketing
and Sales to Kids
Agency Uses New Authority to Protect Kids From Dangers of Tobacco
The Food and Drug Administration has exercised its new authority to regulate tobacco products by issuing rules restricting tobacco industry marketing and sales to youth. When the rules take effect on June 22, it will mark the first time the U.S. government has put its full force behind specific, nationwide regulations intended to thwart the tobacco industry’s continuing efforts to attract kids and turn them into lifelong addicts.
While the nation has significantly reduced youth tobacco use, 20 percent of high school students still smoke, and the tobacco industry continues to spend $12.8 billion a year—$35 million each day—to market its deadly and addictive products, often in ways that appeal to children. In fact, despite the limited marketing restrictions in the 1998 state tobacco settlement, total tobacco marketing expenditures have nearly doubled since then, according to the latest Federal Trade Commission reports on tobacco marketing (for 2006).
