TAKE ACTION! Tell Your Senator to Protect Children and Public Health from Tobacco Use!

This week the U.S. Senate will begin to consider the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2017. The U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of the appropriations bill with two provisions that drastically reduce the FDA's newly gained oversight over all tobacco products. One provision seeks to completely exempt certain cigars from FDA regulation. The other provision exempts e-cigarettes, cigars and certain other tobacco products now on the market from an important product review requirement, taking away a powerful and efficient tool to protect children from candy- and fruit-flavored e-cigarettes and cigars. 

Provisions such as these would undercut a recent step the FDA took in May to protect children and public health, a final rule that will enable the agency to begin to oversee cigars, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products that had been outside the FDA's authority. We must tell certain Senators that adopting those provisions to the appropriations bill would have a drastic impact on our government's ability to protect children and public health from the harms of tobacco use at a time when youth use of these new tobacco products is on the rise. In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the 2015 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which highlighted that the alarming increase in youth use of electronic cigarettes continues. From 2011 to 2015, there was a more than ten-fold increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students – from 1.5 percent to 16 percent. In addition, high school boys now smoke cigars at a slightly higher rate than cigarettes – 11.5 percent for cigars and 10.7 percent for cigarettes. The final rule will enable FDA, for the first time, to oversee the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of these products, providing the agency with new tools to address the problem of three million middle and high school students using e-cigarettes and 1.4 million using cigars.

Please call your Senators if you see them listed below and tell them we cannot afford to add these two provisions to the agricultural appropriations bill.

The table will tell you which Senators have co-sponsored the bill to exempt certain cigars from FDA regulation. ASAM has created an engagement tool with talking points that will help you contact your Senators that can be accessed here.