A proposal by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would force tobacco companies to attach graphic and even gruesome pictures of corpses and cancer patients to the labels of cigarette packs. The idea is to discourage smoking.
We could not agree more that smoking ought to be discouraged vigorously. Its harmful health effects are obvious both from scientific research and everyday observation.
But Washington’s approach to the tobacco issue is confusing, to say the least. Congress has given the FDA the power to regulate tobacco, including the way it is marketed, but Congress has not actually banned tobacco. It’s still very much legal.
So we have a situation where the federal government may force tobacco companies to affix gruesome labels to cigarette packs, while at the same time Washington gets massive tax revenue from the sale of cigarettes. In fact, Washington uses cigarette tax revenue to help fund children’s health care.
At a minimum, that is a case of Congress sending “mixed signals.” If the proposed graphic warning labels on packs of cigarettes lead to fewer Americans lighting up, there will be less money to fund health care for children.