The Heights of Hypocrisy
The Food and Drug Administration is now set to require graphic warning labels on packages of cigarettes. According to CNN:
The public will have an opportunity to weigh in on 36 proposed images through January 9. Assuming the plan moves forward as scheduled, Food and Drug Administration officials will select the nine statements and images to be used no later than June 22.Rules requiring the use of the new images and warnings on all cigarettes distributed for sale in the United States would take effect by October 22, 2012.
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Anti-tobacco advocate Richard Daynard praised the new warnings. “It’s about time,” he told CNN in a telephone interview. “Canada has had similar labels for at least five years and they’ve been very effective in reducing consumption there. It’s an absolutely costless way to get information to people in a way that they will actually pay attention to it.”
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Tobacco use, according to the federal government, causes 443,000 deaths in the United States each year and remains the leading cause of premature and preventable death nationwide.
Is there really anyone who doesn’t yet know that cigarettes cause lung cancer? The labels are unread, not because they are not prominently displayed on the packaging, but because everyone already knows what they say.
Perhaps this is a good effort by the FDA, which now has the legal authority to regulate tobacco products since Congress delegated that power to the FDA in 2009. Even so, it’s hard to believe that the government really wants us to reduce smoking when government itself raises over $16 billion dollars in tobacco tax revenues.
It’s also worth pointing out that tobacco use is not the leading cause of premature and preventable death nationship. Tobacco use kills 443,000 people each year. Abortion kills approximately 1.3 million children each year – three times the number of deaths from tobacco use.
I suggest the following warning be placed on the doors of all Planned Parenthood facilities:
