FDA regulation of Tobacco, what's it all mean?

Hot on the heels of my post about Camel Orbs leading me to the discovery and research into Swedish Snus, I received an email from RJ Reynolds yesterday.

"Stop FDA form making your tobacco products taste like 'lard'!" was the subject. The body of the email containing quite a bit of spin on proposed legislation to put tobacco products, which are currently mostly unregulated, under the oversight of the FDA. RJ Reynolds argues that this would allow the FDA to make any changes they wanted to products, potentially even making them taste terrible and jacking up the prices even more.

That's quite a bit of conjecture there. I didn't hear anything to the tune of "If this passes, it will have this effect on consumers." And the best reactionary headline they could come up with was to stop the FDA from making cigarettes taste like lard? That's it? Like that would ever happen.

I seriously doubt the FDA would care to control the flavor of tobacco products. What they would most likely do is require disclosure of the ingredients, tobacco levels, and amounts of carcinogens to be disclosed to consumers. Kinda like how if you look at a box of cereal you can see that it's made of high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and yellow #5 and contains 5% of your recommended daily dose of shits and giggles.

Pretty scary, isn't it? That they might actually be forced to tell us what they put in their products. And god only knows what might happen then.

But seriously, what is in our cigarettes? I'd certainly like to know. I mean, it's kinda late. For 15 years I've been burning and inhaling god knows what sort of substances into my lungs. Better late than never, but I cringe to think that besides the nicotine and tar, that there are a variety of other carcinogenic or simply toxic things I've been consuming on a daily basis.

For instance, I keep running across information stating that many cigarettes are somewhere around 15% sugar. I'm having a hard time digging up any really recent or reputable sources for these claims, but the info I do come up with is intriguing and frightening. Sugar and other sweeteners supposedly can be added to make a smoke smoother, but it is also reported that burning sugar creates a chemical reaction that makes nicotine even more addictive, as well as of course give you a pretty decent sucrose addiction as well, making it that much harder to ever quit the shit.

Ouch. That's not very nice! I've also seen statements to the effect that the sugar in cigarettes is really the most harmful part, that inhaling the burning sugar is basically pretty toxic and probably the main cause of lung cancer. True or not? I don't know. Is there really that much sugar in cigarettes? We don't know, because they don't have to tell us.

So. Ingredient, additive, and carcinogen disclosure. Doesn't really sound like a bad thing to me. Now, the FDA would also be given the power to potentially regulate additives, etc. This must be where RJ Reynolds gets their claim that the FDA could make cigarettes taste gross... Because cigarettes are sooo delicious? Really though, most likely the FDA would only regulate and restrict the levels of carcinogens, chemical additives with harmful health effects, etc. Which doesn't really sound like a bad thing.

In Sweden regulating tobacco like a food product brought about industry changes resulting in new recipes and manufacturing processes wherein tobacco for Swedish Snus is steam pasteurized, destroying most of the naturally occurring carcinogens in tobacco. In addition, you not only can easily find out what's in the product, but generally find it's a pretty short and simple list of ingredients.

Here's what we get for General Portion Snus:

Declaration of Contents: Water, Tobacco, Humectants (E 1520), Taste enhancer (common salt), Acidity regulator (E 500), Flavour substances incl. Smoke flavour.

Analytical Data: Water 50%, Nicotine 8 mg/portion, Salt 2,5%

Even the Humectants are standard and easy to find out what exactly they are. They are generally used to keep foodstuffs moist, so are pretty common. E 1520 for example is propylene Glycol, E 500 seems to be sodium bicarbonate. Yeah, baking soda. So, you've probably got more enigmatic and weird stuff in any sort of processed or prepared food and beverages you buy.

You can also get a hold of the level of TSNAs in their products, which are supposed to be the really nasty cancer causing thingies. And something which is most definitely not readily available to find out about american tobacco products. Wouldn't you like to know just what you're putting in your body?

All-in-all, this doesn't seem like a bad system. Personally I'm pretty fond of the idea of disclosure, transparency, etc. I feel like if I'm going to be paying for something to put into my body, I deserve the right to know what's in it. The same as I like the idea of government transparency. The government gets paid by us, right, so it makes sense that we should get to have some idea of what they are up to. Especially since the majority of legislation is passed in this country without our direct input. We get to vote for people to represent us, but are they really making choices and voting in a way that represents us? Hard to say sometimes.

And when it comes down to it, it is hard to say what the effects of legislation putting tobacco under the regulation of the FDA would, in reality have. There are plenty of good arguments for it. There's plenty of potential to make positive changes that would allow for consumer awareness, education, and potential health benefits to the public. But the FDA certainly is not the most straightforward government agency. Nor, if you start digging around, do they seem to be the most moral, ethically, or well intentioned agency. As is often the case these days, personal agendas tend to take precedence over public health and welfare, personal agendas generally being similar in a singular focus on personal profit.

So would the FDA really make any significant changes for the better? Or would it just allow the FDA to take their cut of the gifts and bribes from Big Tobacco? Hard to say.

Personally, at this point I have more concern over whispers of legislation that would make it basically impossible to buy tobacco products over the internet. While I understand that it is mostly being considered for the sake of cigarettes, and because of concerns from many states and on the federal level about people dodging the incredible taxes on cigarettes by purchasing online. The end result of that sort of legislation could be to make it impossible to get products like Swedish Snus in most parts of the US. Leaving folks with only the products of domestic big tobacco companies.

I know that no tobacco products is healthy. I realize we'd all be better off quitting entirely, but if there's a product that's 98% safer than cigarettes that the millions of smokers could potentially quite smoking and switch to in a very short amount of time, does it make sense to make it a felony to have it shipped to your house?

But again, whether it's corporations or government, time and again the trend we see is profitability over the well being of the public.

So I won't be writing and phoning my legislators to tell them to oppose the bill for FDA regulation of tobacco. I'm not totally optimistic the FDA be at all altruistic in their regulation, but I don't think it can hurt too much. And I'm really really curious to see that list of ingredients for my Camel Filters. Especially after they changed the blend a year ago, since I'm sure the choice to change a classic and popular cigarette blend had to be driven by profitability.

However, I am trying to keep an eye on the various tobacco issues popping up these days, and will be writing, phoning, etc., if it seems that bills are coming forward that would restrict our access to better, safer alternatives to american tobacco products.