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President Clinton introduced new and tougher regulations affecting the sale and promotion of tobacco today, including its classification as a drug. Following Kwame Holman's background report, Dr. David Kessler, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, explains the reasoning behind these laws that he helped to devise.
KWAME HOLMAN: Agreeing with the Food & Drug Administration that nicotine is an addictive drug, President Clinton said today the FDA will within a year begin regulating cigarette and smokeless tobacco advertising and sales. Under the new regulations, young tobacco purchasers will have to prove they are at least 18 years of age.
Cigarette vending machines will be banned from locations frequented by children such as supermarkets. Tobacco advertising on billboards will be forbidden near schools and playgrounds. And all billboards that advertise cigarettes and smokeless tobacco will be printed in black and white and contain no pictures. Tobacco companies no longer will be allowed to aim their marketing campaigns at young people and within two years will be banned from sponsoring sporting events.
Finally, cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies whose brands are most used by teenagers will be required to educate children on the dangers of smoking and chewing. The steps announced today closely resemble those President Clinton urged the FDA to adopt last summer. He said that teen smoking was a major public health hazard. Teen smoking is at a 16-year high. Smoking among young people in grades nine through twelve increased from about 27 percent in 1991 to almost 35 percent last year. On average, 3,000 children start smoking cigarettes every day.
In a recent study, the Centers For Disease Control concluded that 600,000 teenagers started smoking during a period when tobacco companies quadrupled their spending on cigarette advertising. Two tobacco giants, Philip Morris and the United States Tobacco Company, reacted to the President's remarks last summer by proposing their own curb on advertising that would avoid FDA regulation. But in May, the White House said the proposal didn't go far enough. Today, President Clinton added to the pressure on the industry.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today we are taking direct action to protect our children from tobacco, and especially the advertising that hooks children on a product. I hear from time to time politicians say that they don't really think advertising has much to do with it, and whenever I hear one say that, I say, well, how come we're all spending so much money advertising when we run for office then? If it's immaterial, let's just pull it all off and see what happens to us.
Cigarette smoking is the most significant public health problem facing our people. More Americans die every year from smoking-related diseases than from AIDS, car accidents, murders, suicides, and fires combined. The human cost doesn't begin to calculate the economic cost. The thing that galvanized the legal claims of the attorney general, the absolutely staggering burdens on the American health care system and on our economy in general. But, make no mistake about it, the human cost is by far the most important issue. We have carefully considered the evidence. It is clear that the action being taken today is the right thing to do, scientifically, legally, and morally.
KWAME HOLMAN: In a video news release made available this afternoon, an official from industry leader Philip Morris criticized the President's approach.
OFFICIAL: Philip Morris strongly believes that kids should not smoke, and they should not have access to cigarettes. That's something we all agree on. President Clinton has said he would prefer a legislative solution to deal with the under-age tobacco issue, and we agree with that too. There's too much common ground on this issue to allow the FDA to illegally seize regulatory authority from Congress and threaten to trample on the rights of the 45 million American adults who choose to smoke.
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