From former American Heart Association CEO Dudley Hafner...
"What is a smoke free society? In 1987 or thereabouts, Surgeon General Everett Koop challenged the AHA, ACS and ALA to deliver a smoke free society, but more specifically he challenged our organizations to graduate a smoke free class of high school seniors by the year 2000. With the passage of the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” who is to say that we can’t someday reach that goal. Maybe it is a little over reaching. However after languishing around a 26% smoking rate for the last several years I suggest that with the new FSPTC act, continued aggressive education and public policy we could see a smoking rate as low as 5% in a generation or two. Any bets?"
The President is slated to sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law tomorrow(Monday) afternoon! What a remarkable day for the tobacco control movement! Visit http://www.heartprescription.org/ to thank lawmakers for passing this life-saving legislation.
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22 comments:
This is a great step in the right direction, but smoking should be banned outright. I hope that day comes in my lifetime!
just what we need, more governmental dictatorship over what we do in our personal lives.
are we going to encourage the government regulation of all activities that may be dangerous to people's health?
hope they ban cars soon...
I don't think it anyone's business if I smoke.
Your just doing this for the money.
Why not work on getting rid of alcohol? It kills kids and adults and ruins family's.
Were free alright. Free to let you decide what to do with our lives. Let me fix your life.
How many of you drink or eat to much?
Do you cough when your 200ft away from a smoker? RUDE
Badgering people or rasing the cost of cigarettes isn't going to make them stop smoking. Its going to make them angry.
You can't tell me you care. Thats not true you care about yourselves.
Maybe you should all stop handing out so many drugs.
All I know is I smoke and their is nothing you can do to make me quit. I have to want to quit. Scaring me isn't going to work.
Have fun making people angry.
America the free? Not anymore.
No Thanks to you for voting YEA on final passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act! As your constituent you’re our main loss of freedom, I'm disappointed you joined many of your colleagues to ultimately pass this loss of freedom legislation.
By passing more government control to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products and marketing, this bill will further eliminate our freedom to choose, and defeat our ability to educational reasoning, Or no reasoning. It’s our choice. I do not want you, the government to take my GOD given right to freedom and choice.
Over 400,000 Americans lose their lives every year because of diseases caused by tobacco use. Of these, 150,000 die from cardiovascular diseases alone. Better science and medicine is the answer.
Tobacco regulation is a loss of freedom and more government meddling with the free market. This costs the prices to raise, government to grow, taxes to go up.
This legislation will prohibit the marketing of tobacco to children, which we have all ready. And impose restrictions on advertising aimed at kids, which we already have.
Ban candy-flavored cigarettes, what! candy-flavored cigarettes, now public enemy #1. This is unreasonable.
The bill will require the tobacco industry to disclose the dangerous cocktails of chemicals they add to cigarettes to make them more addictive, and give the FDA the authority to regulate these manufacturing practices. The Government can’t or won’t take illegal tobacco and drugs (the true enemy) that we all agree on, off the streets. We have no idea what is put in them!
The good guys and the free market get penalized, while the bad guys and crime run free.
The opposite of freedom is slavery.
In America we should not have the right to tell others what to do. We are slowly turning into a dictatorship. I am strongly against big government telling me what to do and no I am not a smoker.
I don't ever remember seeing tobacco advertisement for kids. Please point me to where these advertisements are. It is the parents responsibility to watch thier kids and to teach them right or wrong not the government.
This measure will not keep people from smoking. It is simply a part of the larger plan to control the American people and to destroy American businesses. I view government intrusions such as this as travesties, not triumphs.
And yet once again, we are allowing the government to dictate our lives. What happened to self responsibility? This bill is nothing more than more government abuse. I 'smoked' candy cigarettes as a child and it no more led me to smoke than the Marlboro Man ads of my youth. The people that I know that smoke already know the dangers and making the warnings bigger on the package are not going to make a difference. This is a bogus bill with no stats behind it and I bet that NO ONE will EVER come back and be able to say - see, smoking is down.
Get the government out of our lives and make us responsible for ourselves and our families!
the heartprescription.org site is broken. The e-mail address field does not show on the page, so it can't be entered. Therefore, no-one can send e-mail to their members of congress. you should get this fixed right away since e-mails were sent to encourage this behavior.
I agree an individual has the right to smoke or not smoke. But, everyone should also have the right to breath fresh air. Even places that are smoke free have cigrette disposal reciprocals directly outside doorways. Patrons have to pass through the second hand smoke to get inside buildings. It seems petty but for those with respiratory problems the slightest inhaled smoke causes flare ups and health problems. If everyone was responsible and considerate of others government measures would not be needed. However, that does not seem to be the case.
since fascism seems to be the order of the day, when are you guys going to go after some of the other highly significant factors for heart disease and stroke? like the corn syrup manufacturers? and the margarine makers? and how about all the chemical companies that have given us little more than ill health and environmental degradation? c'mon! take on some real giants, instead of little addicts...
"Government IS the problem!" (R. Reagan) I'm all for not allowing tobacco companies (or any other) to hide and cover up the truth behind the safety of products- this is an area of commerce, though, not public health. You should have a RIGHT TO SMOKE, as I also should have a RIGHT TO NOT PAY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES.
I cannot believe that such a bill was put into legislation, if the FDA was truly to regulate tobacco it would have to be banned! Wake up and smell the roses! All you are doing is helping the tobacco industry with this bill! Yes, Nicotine causes the addiction,however it is not what compromises and kills Americans, it is all the other chemicals in a cigaretted that kills! If you really want to save lives you need to stop selling cigs. This is just another way of keeping the smoker "HOOKED"! Shame on our government for doing such an injustice. Do you know what this will mean to a smoker...the smoker will perceive (because FDA regulated) that now it is "safe" to smoke! Wake up...this is not an exciting day this is a disaster!
I quit smoking but that was my choice to do so. I don't have the right to tell anyone else what to do. What is this world coming too!
I have read a few of the comments here and I do agree that something needs to be done. I am a smoker that wants to quit. I have tried many times to quit on my own but have not succeeded. I was given the opportunaty to try Chantix for a month and if I could have afforded to pay for the outragiously priced perscription I would now be a non-smoker. You say you want to help but where's the help??? Why not try lowering or offering FREE help to those that seriously want to quit????
sorry, but you haven't "cured" anything since they discovered antibotics. it is all about the money. stay out of my life. i have talked to five people in the last few weeks who have lung cancer. never, ever smoked, did not allow in their homes. you cannot help them. they did what you said. did not help. smoking is real "easy" for you to attack. why don't you take a look at all the chemicals that food companies put in our food and all the pollutions in our air. that's not so easy-so you stay away.TOO HARD for you and it doesn't bring in the money. i won't even mention the drugs that kill millions of americans aday that the FDA APPROVES as safe. when are YOU going to wake up.
As a You're the Cure who contacted my Members of Congress for years on this issue I am thrilled to see it signed into law. The bill provides some common sense measures to protect kids from smoking which is a step in the right directon.
We know we can't rely on the tobacco industry to do what's right for our kids so I'm grateful this legislation has been enacted. Thanks AHA for sticking with it throughout the years. The hard work has finally paid off.
Smoking is truly one of the deadliest habits you can do to destroy your health and also the health of your loved ones. Secondhand smoke is more deadly to those around the smoker than the smoker himself.
It's actually about time we have someone in government who truly cares about the people and is willing to do something about it. We wouldn't be in the economic mess we are in right now if there were more government control over finance, big business and yes healthcare! Wake up people. Put out your cigerettes and stop whining.
We will just hope that this will be implemented properly. Hope that it will start from the president so the people will realize that it is possible to quit smoking.
I AM SO TIRED OF YOU DO GOODER BUTTING IN TO OTHER PEOPLES BUSINESS ...ALL YOU HAVE DONE IS GIVEN THE GOVERNMENT YET ANOTHER AVENUE TO INTERFER IN THE AMERICAN PEOPLES LIVES ...NEXT YOU WILL BE GOING AFTER OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE AND TAKING THEIR RIGHTS AWAY TO EAT WHAT THEY WANT... KEEP GOING AND WHEN THE GOVERNMENT STARTS TAKING AWAY YOUR RIGHTS DONT SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED
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