QUESTION: TOBACCO CONTROL
As president, will you work with Congress to enact legislation (specifically, S. 625/H.R. 1108) to rein in the most egregious manufacturing and marketing practices of the tobacco industry, and will you substantially increase the federal tobacco tax to help improve public health, save lives, and protect children from a lifetime of smoking?
ANSWER: ACS CAN
ACS CAN, along with the prestigious Institute of Medicine and the President’s Cancer Panel, strongly supports giving the US Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the production and marketing of tobacco products. Today, the tobacco industry markets its deadly products to children with impunity. Every day 4,000 kids try their first cigarette 1,000 of them go on to become regular smokers. Enacting S. 625/H.R. 1108 will prevent more kids from smoking and it will save lives. ACS CAN also supports substantially increasing the federal tobacco tax because we know that every 10% increase in the cost of a pack reduces youth smoking by 7% and overall cigarette consumption by 4%. 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco use and more than 400,000 Americans still die from tobacco related causes every year. Sensible regulation of the tobacco industry and increasing cigarette taxes will save lives.
ANSWER: John McCain Republican
Responses provided by candidate
John McCain has consistently supported regulation of tobacco products by the Federal Drug Administration and is an original cosponsor of S. 625, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. He
also was a leading voice in Congress calling on tobacco companies to cease marketing campaigns for tobacco products that target children, such as the Joe Camel campaign. John McCain does not propose to increase tobacco taxes, believes that the more efforts should be made to provide educational and preventive media campaigns to discourage any American from starting to smoke, and will work to make smoking cessation programs more widely available.
ANSWER: Barack Obama Democrat
Responses provided by candidate
I am a cosponsor of S.625 and support greater tobacco regulation at the federal level. In addition, I was an ardent supporter of reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which included a significant increase in the federal tobacco tax. As president, I will also increase
resources for public health programs that tackle smoking, particularly for programs targeting children, individuals with mental illness and other vulnerable populations.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy partner of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit acscan.org.
Copyright 2008 © American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Inc.
All content and works posted on this website are owned and copyrighted by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Inc. All rights reserved.
