JUNE 3, 2003

It is most curious that this hearing asks whether "Tobacco Can Cure Smoking." It has been long settled and widely accepted that tobacco causes cancer. Switching from one form of cancer-causing tobacco to another is hardly a good answer.

I encourage the Chairman to hold hearings and consider legislation that would provide legitimate regulation of tobacco products based on sound principles of science. Only through Federal regulation of all tobacco products can claims of relative safety be confidently evaluated and communicated to the American consumer. Even members of the tobacco industry recognize the importance of Federal regulation. The Department of Health and Human Services, through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is the appropriate Federal agency to regulate tobacco and any health-related claims made by its manufacturers.

Congress should act now to provide the FDA with the regulatory power it needs to reduce youth smoking. Not in ten, twenty, or thirty years from now when the numbers of tobacco-related deaths are expected to balloon from the current four million annually to ten million. The states have failed to use tobacco settlement money for teen smoking prevention and cessation programs, and the Federal Government must act.