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California and the Toxic-Tobacco Law
Edgy Talk
Letter to the Washington Post
What's the Endgame for Toxic-Tobacco?
Endgame for Toxic-Tobacco
Toxic-Tobacco Publications and Presentations

California and the Toxic-Tobacco Law

Californians! Keep the idea away from Californians. They're at the cutting edge of everything new. If Californians start supporting this, it will spread across the entire country. Then we are sunk."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Toxic-Tobacco Law Coalition is trying to pass federal legislation to stop us from making, marketing or importing all tobacco products in the United States. Yeah, they want to keep us from legally addicting 700,000 kids each year and killing 500,000 adults. Get that, they want to stop one of the most profitable businesses on the planet because our products cause heart disease, emphysema and cancer."

"We'll get all the smokers on our side; they'll be ticked."

"I'm not so sure. The Law doesn't keep people from using the stuff, just us from making it. In fact, the Law won't go into effect for 20 years, so we won't even get sympathy for the poor farmers. Heck, they will be retired by the time this thing goes into effect."

"Wait a minute, how can people get smokes when we're not supposed to make them in 20 years?"

"They will be allowed to store them until the effective date and they can import them after that. There is even serious talk about "federal stores" so that adults could buy tobacco and kids would not be able to get it. Everyone will get 20 years to adjust to this thing, smokers, wholesalers, retailers, advertising agencies, and government tax collectors. It is going to be hard to get these groups angry about something that won't happen for 20 years."

"People won't go for this Law. They'll say it's like Prohibition and that didn't work."

"I don't know about that. This isn't like Prohibition; adults will be able to legally buy cigarettes.

"We'll get people all afraid about the "black market" and crime like we've done before."

"Maybe, but why should there be a black market if people can legally get tobacco at a competitive price?"

Please note that the currently proposed Toxic-Tobacco Law calls for a 5-year adjustment period instead of a 20-year adjustment period.

Edgy Talk

Imagine for a moment that you own a small business. And that while you were developing new products for your business you came up with a product that would be very profitable.

But the product was also addictive and caused illnesses that were disabling and lethal when used as intended. Illnesses like heart attacks, emphysema and body wasting cancer.

Would you produce the product?

Would it be ethical?

Would the government permit you to make and sell the product?

How many of you would produce the product?

The Directors and employees of The Toxic-Tobacco Industry are doing just that. They are knowingly producing and aggressively promoting products all over the world that they know addict, disable, and kill.

They do this with impunity and greed. They claim they have a legal right to sell a poisonous product.

Where in their corporate charters does it say "We produce addictive, disabling and deadly products. Please grant us a state charter to incorporate and receive all the protections that that status confers?"

The proposed Toxic-Tobacco Law challenges the toxic-tobacco industry's erroneously claimed right. No company in the United States has an inherent right to produce a toxic product and market it to consumers with pretty pictures indicating that its product is sexy, macho, sophisticated, cool, and liberating.

Yes, smoking is:

• Sexy, if being impotent, smelly and wrinkled is attractive,
• Macho, if running frantically out of a theater to light up is being in charge of your life,
• Sophisticated, if sucking in carcinogens and carbon monoxide is smart,
• Cool, if being jerked around with your peers by Madison Avenue makes you stand out from the crowd, and
• Liberating, if being addicted to nicotine frees you up from thinking about what other poison you could take in today.

Letter to the Editor: The Washington Post

December 3, 1999

Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

Dear Editor:

In your excellent summary [Editorial, Dec. 3] of the FDA's desire for jurisdiction over toxic-tobacco products (i.e., all consumer tobacco products) you state, "In our judgement the FDA did a good job figuring out a way to avoid banning tobacco even as it asserted jurisdiction."

Praising the FDA for figuring out how not to ban the leading cause of disease, disability, death and fires in the United States begs further debate.

Clearly, previous Congresses never intended the FDA or any other agency to regulate the production of toxic-tobacco products as evidenced by their purposefully exempting "tobacco and tobacco products" from the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972, aimed "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products."

Some courageous, creative, proactive Congress in the future, however, may figure out how to ban the production and importation of toxic-tobacco products by corporations in the United States without recreating Prohibition.

That legislation might include a 20-year (or less) adjustment period between passage of the legislation and its date of implementation for all stakeholders such as farmers and excise tax recipients. During the adjustment period consumers could obtain products from their usual sources. After the legislation is implemented, consumers could be free to import products from abroad or get them from "federal stores," thus obviating the toxic-tobacco industry's canard, the "black market."

This legislation would end the ubiquitous nature of toxic-tobacco in American society by ending all advertising, promotional marketing and availability to children at hundred of thousands of retail venues.

Sincerely yours,

Terence A. Gerace, PhD, National Coordinator

What's the Endgame for Toxic-Tobacco?

The Supreme Court recently denied the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. The Court was correct; Congress never intended to give the FDA, or any other agency, control over toxic-tobacco (e.g., cigarettes, smokeless tobacco). For example, the 92nd Congress, intentionally excluded "tobacco and tobacco products" from the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972, which was enacted "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products." Surely, over 400,000 deaths and millions of debilitating illnesses each year in the United States rank as "unreasonable risks".

Today, the legal status of the toxic-tobacco industry remains privileged as some members of Congress scramble to protect it from being sued by the Department of Justice, and state legislators in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia jumped to cushion it from punitive damages awarded from a class action suit in Florida. Now that the states are relying on $246 billion over the next 25 years from an industry settlement, they fear bankruptcy might interfere with their new cash cow.

Because over one billion adults and children are currently addicted to toxic-tobacco products worldwide is no reason to permit this industry to continue making, marketing and distributing its products as if they were soft drinks. To stem the pandemic of deaths and disabilities caused by the multinational toxic-tobacco companies, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization, is bringing the nations of the world together to create a Framework Convention (international treaty) on Tobacco Control.

The endgame for the Framework Convention should be prohibiting corporations in the signatory nations from making, marketing and importing all toxic-tobacco products. Certainly in the United States, if a new business were to apply today for a corporate charter in order to make products that were as addictive, injurious and lethal as toxic-tobacco products, its application would be denied.

The Convention should also include an adjustment period (e.g., 5, 10, 20 years) between its enactment and implementation to enable stakeholders, such as farmers and other support industries, to shift to legal businesses, and governments to find alternative sources of taxation. During an adjustment period vigorous efforts must continue to decrease youth and adult use of toxic-tobacco and corporate marketing of toxic-tobacco. After the adjustment period, government, or government controlled, stores would be the only retail venues for toxic-tobacco.

Every country should have the right to adopt measures similar to the Toxic-Tobacco Law (Journal of Public Health Policy. 1999;20(4):394-407), proposed federal legislation in the United States that would:

1. Prohibit corporations in the United States from making, marketing and importing all toxic-tobacco products,
2. Become effective five years after enactment giving all stakeholders (e.g., farmers, taxing jurisdictions) time to adjust,
3. Permit adults to get products from their usual sources during the adjustment period, and
4. After the Law is implemented, allow adults to consume products that they import or buy from "federal stores."

The industry's constant canard is that restricting its activity will automatically result in a horrible "black market" with attendant crime. But, "black markets" occur under two conditions:

1) When desired products are not legally available or
2) When "black market" products are cheaper than legally produced products.

With the proposed Toxic-Tobacco Law as a model, neither condition for a "black market" need exist under the Framework Convention. During an adjustment period adults could get products from their usual sources, and after the Convention is implemented, they could buy products from government stores or government controlled stores.

The toxic-tobacco industry needs to explain where these "black market" products would come from, how enormous amounts of contraband would enter countries undetected, and why adults would use a "black market" when they could legally and economically obtain products from government stores.

The combined benefits of ending mass advertising, distribution, easy access by children, and reducing morbidity and mortality from heart and lung disease and cancer will far outweigh the fictionalized costs of the "black market" offered by the toxic-tobacco industry.

Endgame for Toxic-Tobacco?

OK. Let's see if we can logically go at the toxic-tobacco problem in the United States and come up with an endgame.

First of all what's the problem? As an unregulated industry in the United States, the toxic-tobacco industry is permitted to produce products like cigarettes and chew that kill nearly 500,000 Americans, cause cancer, heart and lung disease in millions more and addict 1,000,000 youngsters every year.

The stuff is poison if used as intended, but it is marketed as if it were a soft drink. And presented as a product that makes you sexy, sophisticated, slender, sociable, macho and independent.

Unfortunately, most of the 50,000,000 users in the United States are currently addicted to this stuff.

The toxic-tobacco companies that make this stuff are infiltrating ever corner of the globe with their poison and continue to aggressively market it as if they were candy bars.

The profit margins are great and the companies have not expressed any desire to curtail their insidious behavior.

So what can be done to stop them? The endgame should be to stop them from making addictive lethal products and widely marketing them. These companies have no inherent right to make hazardous products. Stopping them from making poisonous products does not interfere with any American's personal freedom, nor does it recreate Prohibition as long as adults are still free to buy and use products that they import or get from government controlled or government stores.

Congress has the authority to stop companies from manufacturing poisonous products, just as Congress did by banning lead in gasoline and paint. But does Congress have the courage to end a business that knowingly makes and markets a toxic product? So far it does not look like it.

So, here is what the endgame should be. Stop the manufacturers from making a product that kills when it is used as intended while not recreating Prohibition. How can that be done. First of all make sure that the addicted adult users of tobacco have a supply of stuff for the rest of their years if they choose to continue to consume toxic-tobacco products. That supply can come from stored products, products that they make themselves, imported products or products that are sold in federal stores supplied by companies that are totally regulated by the U.S. government.

Because the companies will be completely regulated by the government there will be no advertising or promotional marketing of any toxic-tobacco products. The social milieu that includes hundreds of thousands of retail venues, magazines and commericial signs will no longer be filled with attractive images of toxic-tobacco lore for youngsters and adults to see. This "new" milieu will be a less inviting one for young people to start to use these products and an easier one for adults to quit.

An adjustment period between the passing of the Law and its implementation provides all stakeholders with ample time to find other work, sources of tax revenue or other sources of supply. There will be no black market associated with this plan. Black markets arise when a desired product can be bought more cheaply on the black market than from legal venues or can not be legally obtained. Since adult users will be able to obtain products for five years from their usual sources and thereafter from imports, government or government controlled stores, there is no reason for a new black market to arise. That is, adults will have access to the products that they desire. Most likely, the vast majority of products will be purchased legally from an enormous supply provided by sophisticated equipment. Therefore, it is very unlikely that a black market could develop that undercuts the price at government controlled or government stores.

Now if during this adjustment period toxic-tobacco companies think that they have developed a safe product, they should have the right to seek FDA approval.

In order to give all stakeholders like toxic-tobacco farmers, taxing jurisdictions, the transportation industry and retailers among others, an adjustment period should be placed between the legislation controlling the industry and the implementation date after which the industry could no longer make products as an uncontrolled legal industry.

Toxic-Tobacco Publications and Presentations

1. Gerace TA. The Lancet's call to ban smoking in the UK. Correspondence. Lancet, 2004;363:399.
2. Gerace TA. Tobacco advertising and freedom of speech. Letter to the Editor. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2002;288:1586.
3. Gerace. TA. Expanding the debate on a world without tobacco, 11th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, Chicago IL, August 9, 2000.
4. Gerace TA. The Toxic-Tobacco Law: "Appropriate remedial action", 11th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, Chicago IL, August 9, 2000.
5. Gerace TA. Perceptions of health risks by cigarette smokers. Letter to the Editor. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1999;282:1722.
6. Gerace TA. The Toxic-Tobacco Law: "Appropriate remedial action." Journal of Public Health Policy. 1999;20:394-407.
7. Gerace TA, & George VA. Predictors of weight increases over 7 years in fire fighters and paramedics. Preventive Medicine. 1996;25:593-600.
8. O'Hara P, Gerace TA, & Elliott L. Effectiveness of self-help smoking cessation guides for fire fighters. Journal of Occupational Medicine. 1993; 35:795-799.
9. Gerace TA, Hollis J, Ockene JK, & Svendsen K. Relationship of smoking cessation to blood pressure, weight, and lipids. Preventive Medicine. 1991;2:602-620.
10. O'Hara P, Gerace TA & Elliott L. Telephone counseling for health promotion/disease prevention: A new approach for fire fighters. American Psychological Association/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Meeting on Work and Well-Being: An Agenda for the 90's. Washington, DC, November 16, 1990.
11. O'Hara P, Gerace TA & Elliott L. Evaluation of smoking cessation materials for fire fighters. American Psychological Association/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Meeting on Work and Well-Being: An Agenda for the 90's. Washington, DC, November, 16, 1990.
12. Gerace TA. Road to a smoke-free fire service for Florida, policies and progress. Journal of Public Health Policy. 1990;11:206-217.
13. Zimmerman RS, Gerace TA, Smith JC, & Benezra J. The effects of a worksite health promotion program on the wives of fire fighters. Social Science and Medicine. 1988;26:537-543.
14. Sexton M, Bross D, Hebel VR, Schumann BC, Gerace TA, Lasser N. & Wright N. Risk factor changes in wives with husbands at high risk of coronary heart disease: The spin-off effect. Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 1987;10:251-261.
15. Ockene JK, Hulley SB, Gerace TA, Hymowitz N, & Hughes G. Smoking behavior change patterns in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT): Their relationship to mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD). Proceedings of the Fifth World Conference on Smoking and Health. 1986:403-414.
16. Ockene JK & Gerace T.A for the MRFIT Research Group. Smoking cessation methods and long-term cesation results in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT). Paper presented at the American Psychological Association 91st Annual Convention, Anaheim, CA, August, 1983.
17. Ockene JK, Hulley SB, Gerace, TA, Hymowitz N. & Hughes G. for the MRFIT Research Group. Smoking behavior change patterns in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT): Their relationship to mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD). Paper presented at the Fifth World Conference on Smoking and Health, Winnipeg, Canada, July, 1983.
18. Benezra J, Gerace TA & Connett J. Smoking cessation in Spanish and non-Spanish Americans: The Miami experience. Paper presented at the National Cancer Institute Meeting on Smoking Prevention and Cessation in the Hispanic Population, Rockville, MD, April, 1983.
19. Burr JM, Gerace TA, Wilcox ME, & Christakis G. Miami Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT). An experiment in coronary heart disease prevention in high risk men, age 35-57. Journal of the Florida Medical Association. 1979;11:482-488.
20. Weddle J, Gerace TA, Benezra J. Characteristics of smoking abstainers, partial abstainers, and non-abstainers. Proceedings of the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial Scientific Sessions. 1979-1980, 160-161.
21. Gerace TA & Forney, W. Quit smoking program using the One-Step-At-A-Time Filters: A preliminary report, manuscript, University of Miami School of Medicine, FL, 1977.