When Looney Are in Charge, The Looneys Come out.

Hey folks,

Here is yet another example of when the Looneys are in charge, the Looneys that have been laying low, come out and make themselves known. Did you notice that as soon as this Congress convened, you immediately saw a push by Looneys, and the MMD, for things that no sane group of people would approve of. Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Surrender, Of course get Bush, Amnesty, ETC?

Well OK, the last was a poor example. But the Looneys that are funded by the likes of Soros, are just bombarding this new “do nothing” Congress with more and more insanity. What’s worse, this Congress is biting. Especially when it means they get more control of your lives.

Now I know some of you will see this one as good. Some will see it as bad. But you have to look at the big picture with this one.

According to the AP -New bill key to a safer cigarettes By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

The federal agency charged with keeping food and drugs from harming people may soon be asked to take a consumer product that kills more than 400,000 people a year and make it safer.

The product is the cigarette — generally acknowledged as anything but safe. Smoking accounts for nearly one in five deaths in the United States.

That toll can be reduced, tobacco foes say, and they point to a bill widely expected to pass a key Senate committee Wednesday as the tool to make it happen.

The bill is S.625

The legislation would give the Food and Drug Administration the same authority over cigarettes and other tobacco products that the regulatory agency already has over countless other consumer products. It's an authority the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the FDA does not have. But neither is it something the agency necessarily wants, according to past comments by FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.

The bill would allow the FDA to regulate the levels of tar, nicotine and other harmful components of tobacco products. Cigarette smoke alone contains more than 4,000 chemicals, more than 40 of which are known to cause cancer.

New products would need FDA approval before they could be sold, according to the legislation. It also would authorize the FDA to set national standards for cigarettes and other tobacco products to control how they are made, as well as force the disclosure of their ingredients, including compounds and additives, and in what quantities. That, supporters claim, should help expose and ultimately limit the ways cigarettes are engineered to the detriment of the public's health.

Now on the surface, this sounds good.

"If the FDA only prevented tobacco companies from manipulating their products to make it easier to start and harder to quit, it will make a major contribution to reducing the number of people who die," said Matthew Myers, president of the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, a supporter of the legislation, which has faltered in previous Congresses.

Translation, Lobbyist.

No one among those for or against the Senate bill, mirrored by matching legislation in the House, believes it could result in a safe cigarette. There is consensus that there is no such thing. But those against the bill maintain it could create that impression.

Consensus? Big Tobacco are running ads right now on TV saying there is no safe cigarette.

"It would still be a deadly product. They are not going to make it a safe product by taking out particular smoke constituents. The problem is the public is going to perceive the product is safe because the FDA has assumed jurisdiction," said Dr. Michael Siegel, a Boston University School of Public Health professor.

Yes they will. But you see folks, those that smoke ALREADY know it’s bad. They know the risks, they do it anyway. I know, I smoke.

But advocates say the bill would at a minimum give the FDA the authority to go where the scientific evidence takes it and only then make decisions based on that science to reduce the harm caused by tobacco.

More government control.

"There is a broad range of actions that the FDA potentially could take, some of which we understand now and some we can only see dimly," said the University of California, San Diego's Dr. David Burns, scientific editor of several surgeon general's reports on tobacco. "To say that there's nothing we can do is nihilistic in thinking and inconsistent with science."

The bill also would keep tobacco companies from tinkering with their products in ways that would make them any more dangerous, supporters add.

"The tobacco industry would not be allowed to manipulate the ingredients — like increase nicotine or decrease nicotine or whatever they do — without disclosing it. The bill would put the burden of proof on industry to demonstrate to the FDA that what they're doing would not be more harmful," said M. Cass Wheeler, chief executive officer of the American Heart Association.

When asked for some likely targets that regulators could tackle, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chemist David Ashley rattled off more than a half dozen compounds in tobacco and smoke that worry scientists, even though it's unclear just how beneficial removing or reducing their levels would be. They include:

WAIT!! Get this “even though it's unclear just how beneficial removing or reducing their levels would be.” Since when has science been anything some want it to be without any evidence? All of a sudden, if you want a large group of people to believe anything you say, all you have to do is say “Science,” “Scientists,” or “consensus.” Therefore you end any argument, nullify any questions, and say that it’s just fact.

_Nitrosamines, a potent carcinogen. The burley tobacco used in American cigarettes is especially high in nitrosamines.

_Acetaldehyde, a potential carcinogen that may make tobacco more addictive. It's produced when sugars, added to tobacco, are burned.

_Cadmium and lead, two heavy metals that are toxic. Their levels generally depend on the environmental conditions where the tobacco was grown.

The elegance of the bill, Myers said, is it wouldn't dictate to the FDA how to proceed.

"This bill wisely doesn't try to predict what a cigarette will look like once FDA begins to take action. Instead, it says to the scientists at the FDA, 'You have the power to require changes in tobacco products in whatever ways you believe,'" Myers said.

That is BROAD power. This is essence, could mean that the FDA could decide that there is no safe cigarette, as everyone agrees, and decide to shut down Big Tobacco. They could implement changes to the Process which is impossible for the Tobacco companies to meet, hence, they shut down.

But Ashley, an expert in the constituents of tobacco and tobacco smoke, cautions that cigarettes are a very complex product, and have traditionally changed with time as manufacturers tinker with them.

"One problem from a scientific standpoint is the product changes so often but the health effects are long-term. The cigarettes people are smoking today aren't the cigarettes of 10 years ago," Ashley said, adding: "It's hard to link a change in the products to a particular health end point because there's nothing you can get your hands around."

Another expert called the task of figuring out how to reduce tobacco's harm basic "bread-and-butter stuff" for the FDA.

"This is what they do all the time: develop performance criteria for products," said Jack Henningfield, an addiction expert and former tobacco researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That in turn would act as an incentive for tobacco companies to create products that are less harmful, he added.

As for the FDA, commissioner von Eschenbach said recently he wouldn't want his agency put in the position where it had to determine a cigarette is safe.

Nor would it appear that the agency could approve any new cigarette, even if it were purportedly safer, under the legislation, said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who opposes the bill.

Notice the only Senator that this article points out that is against it is a Republican? "Those evil big business Republicans at it again. We, the Democratic leadership, know what is best for you. We will control the Tobacco industry and keep you safe." Amazing. I guess not one single Senator on the left is against this?

"It's an impossible pathway to understand at an agency tasked with a mission that is to prove safety and efficacy," said Burr, adding that could keep any new reduced-harm tobacco product from coming on the market.

Get this folks,

Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro, the nation's top-selling cigarette brand, supports the bill. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and others oppose the legislation, saying its restrictions on advertising would help cement Philip Morris' No. 1 market position.

It really is simple. Some in society, and the government, have been trying to get rid of cigarettes for YEARS. They cannot come out a ban it all together. Remember what happened during prohibition? So they have been trying to shame you for the past recent couple of years into quitting on your own. That doesn’t seem to be working either, so now they are trying a back door approach. All for your “good.” Those that hate cigarettes, think that they now have friends in Congress. This is why this came up right now. Truth is, they do. They have a Congress that has been bought and paid for.

I do have a question. Let’s say everyone was to quit today. That would not be a bad thing for those who quits health. I’m seriously thinking about quitting myself. I would like to be around to see Joshua graduate and marry, ETC. I’m not saying smoking is good. But what if everyone quit today. Where would all the taxes come from if they stop coming from Tobacco?
Peter