Ben points me to William Saletan’s article on the FDA bill and asks what I think of it. Obviously Saletan’s far more of a paternalist than I am and thinks he knows best what people should and should not consume. The only reason he wouldn’t ban tobacco is because a black market would develop. The fact that some people want to enjoy it doesn’t even enter into his calculations.
But that aside, his take on the bill is better than most, but still too optimistic. If all we wanted was safer tobacco products we would allow the FDA to approve them based on a straightforward comparison to existing products. Instead the law requires the agency to take the much more paternalist approach of trying to predict whether the gains from safer products would be offset by more people taking up tobacco or fewer people quitting. It’s too early to tell just how this will play out, but it’s a potentially huge hurdle to the creation and marketing of safer cigarettes and alternatives.
I’m also skeptical that the FDA can optimally regulate nicotine yields. Mandating lower yields, as the FDA is now empowered to do, would cause current smokers to light up more frequently or inhale more intensely. They’d be taking in more tar and carcinogens to get the same hit of nicotine, a substance that in itself is basically harmless. The hope would be that lower yields cause fewer new smokers to become dependent and ween some smokers off the drug; I’m not comfortable with the idea of sacrificing smokers’ lives to potentially prevent others from taking up the habit.
Saletan thinks that FDA tobacco regulation will be “rational.” I disagree, and the recent uproar over e-cigarettes is an example of how regulations are more likely to play out. Michael Siegel highlighted the absurdity a couple weeks ago:
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and American Lung Association have supported the legislation, about to be enacted, which asks the FDA to make cigarettes safer by removing certain of the more than 4,000 known constituents in the tobacco smoke.
At the same time, these groups have asked the FDA to ban a product (electronic cigarettes) which has already been developed and which already has eliminated all of the 4,000 known constituents in tobacco smoke, other than the nicotine.
I can’t help it, but this is the ultimate in insanity.
Why would you put your heart and soul into a a piece of legislation that, at very best, will allow the FDA to remove a few of the constituents from cigarette smoke but at the same time, demand that a product which has succeeded in removing all (but nicotine) of these constituents be immediately taken off the market?
E-cigarettes resemble smoking in appearance, threaten the market for patches and gums produced by major drug companies, and give health activist groups a new evil to rail against, but there’s no evidence whatsoever that they are harmful — certainly not more harmful than real cigarettes. In a rational regulatory environment they would not be threatened. What we have instead is a highly politicized regulatory environment, one in which the lobbying arms of drug companies, Big Tobacco, and public health groups will wield the greatest influence. Expecting good regulations to emerge from this process is, well, irrational.
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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