Should the FDA Regulate Tobacco? Health Freedom Advocate Says Criminalizing Cigarettes is a Mistake

The U.S. Congress has just voted to categorize tobacco as a drug, handing the FDA regulatory authority to control the advertising, marketing and sales of cigarettes. This hilarious move, if approved by the Senate and signed by the President, would put the FDA in the position of approving the sale of a "drug" that the entire medical community openly admits kills millions of people. According to the CDC, tobacco kills 438,000 people each year in the United States alone (1). Now, thanks to the U.S. Congress, the FDA could soon be the government office responsible for allowing these 438,000 deaths each year!

Think about it: Right now, FDA-approved drugs kill around 100,000 Americans a year, and that's if you believe the conservative figures from the American Medical Association (the real numbers are at least double that). Add tobacco deaths to that list, and you come to the startling realization that if tobacco is considered an FDA-approved "drug," then FDA-approved drugs will kill well over half a million Americans each year! (538,000 fatalities a year due to FDA-approved drugs, using government statistics.)

That's a level of fatalities that terrorists haven't even come close to approaching.

Why the FDA doesn't want to regulate tobacco
Obviously, the FDA does not want to find itself in this position, because if regulatory authority over tobacco is shoved onto the FDA, it would be forced to declare tobacco an unapproved, unsafe drug and ban its sale.

Why? Because there have been no clinical
studies whatsoever supporting the use of tobacco as a medicine. And if it's considered a drug, then the FDA must apply the same rules to tobacco that it applies to other substances. And there's absolutely no way a series of clinical trials could show tobacco to be safe or effective at treating disease. (Unless, of course, Big Tobacco funds the studies, in which case cigarette smoke could be made to look like it CURES cancer, thanks to fraudulent science and corrupt researchers...)

Thus, if the FDA were to follow its own rules, it would have to ban tobacco outright, considering it an "unapproved drug" and raid all the tobacco companies, confiscating their inventory and dragging them into court just like the FDA does with diet pills companies or cherry growers.

Of course, the FDA could decide to selectively NOT enforce its own rules against tobacco companies, but that puts the agency in an even worse position of making an exception on its drug enforcement policy, singling out the most dangerous "drug" ever created as one that suspiciously escapes regulatory action. That would make the FDA look like even more of a regulatory failure than it does already, calling into question whether the FDA simply bases its regulatory decisions on the size and influence of the corporation affected rather than genuine public safety.

Because, let's face it: Cigarettes will kill you. There's no debate anymore. Even the doctors -- who are the slowest people in the world to accept new ideas -- are on board with this one. Sure, it took them a few decades to stop running Big Tobacco ads in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and doctors used to take money from the tobacco companies to say cigarettes are "Recommended by doctors," but those days are long gone. Today, virtually everyone agrees smoking cigarettes is one of the most dangerous activities a consumer can engage in when it comes to health.

So how on Earth, then, could the FDA allow cigarettes to continue to be sold at all? If it enforces its own rules, it would simply have to ban cigarettes altogether.

And I say banning cigarettes outright is a huge mistake. Here's why:

Why a ban on cigarettes is a threat to your freedom
Now, I'm the first to say that it would be great if everybody in the country stopped smoking cigarettes. I hate the things, and most of the people who smoke them are the most idiotic, brain-numbed people you'll ever meet. I've watched numerous family members die from cancers that were no doubt caused by cigarette smoke, so I have every reason to support any reasonable effort to outlaw them.

Except I don't believe government should be in the business of telling consumers what they can and can't smoke. If someone wants to light up and kill themselves in their own living room, go right ahead! I just don't think the rest of the taxpayers should have to pay for their health care!

Yep, you heard me right: Don't ban cigarettes, just ban government-funded health care benefits to people who choose to smoke (make them buy their own smokers' health insurance). After all, if they want to commit suicide with tobacco, why should the taxpayers pay for their cancer treatments, hospital stays and artificial lungs? Every time someone lights up a cigarette, they're creating a cost burden to society -- a burden paid for by people like you and me who actually take care of our health. Thus, their smoking steals money from OUR pockets.