For a time, news about cigarette smoking rates among this country’s young people was all good. Statistics showed dramatic drops among middle and high school students. Lower percentages of adults were smoking as well.
But those promising trends stalled out a few years ago, and last week, we learned a disturbing truth about cigarettes that could help explain why.
A Harvard School of Public Health study showed cigarette makers had deliberately manipulated nicotine levels in the most popular brands of American cigarettes, increasing the concentration of the addictive substance by 11 percent between 1998 and 2005.
The study said manufacturers had accomplished this by upping the amount of nicotine per cigarette and changing the design so smokers would get more nicotine. A sophisticated mathematical analysis showed the increases could not be random, according to the study.
The tobacco industry has practiced these tricks for decades, but the particularly infuriating element this study exposes is that cigarette makers continued to up nicotine levels even after signing a legal settlement in which they agreed to campaigns designed to reduce smoking rates. In 1998, 46 states, including Colorado, reached a $246 billion deal in which the tobacco industry agreed to compensate the states for medical costs paid for people suffering from tobacco-related illnesses.
While Big Tobacco appears to have continued its quest to get more people addicted to their cancer-causing products, the states haven’t kept their promises either. They pledged to use a significant portion of settlement money to fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Only three states – Colorado is one of them – are meeting minimum funding levels set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a situation that needs to be righted in statehouses around the country.
At the federal level, there is work to be done as well. Congress must give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over the tobacco industry.
The Clinton administration had tried to regulate tobacco via the FDA, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 ruled the agency lacked such authority unless Congress granted it. Efforts to pass bills to that end have failed over the last several years. A revived bill is expected to be introduced this month, and we hope to see strong bipartisan support for regulation of such things as nicotine manipulation and marketing to youth.
As evidence of industry subterfuge continues, it’s clear Big Tobacco will do anything to hook a new generation of customers.
