WASHINGTON - -In a historic shift in public health policy almost half a century after the U.S. surgeon general first warned of the lethal dangers of smoking, Congress is poised to give the federal government sweeping new authority to regulate the manufacturing of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The legislation, long resisted by the tobacco industry, could allow consumers to see for the first time what chemicals and other additives tobacco companies put in their products. It would empower the Food and Drug Administration to put new limits on harmful ingredients and prohibit tobacco companies from marketing "light" cigarettes.
And it would give the FDA new authority to enlarge warning labels and severely restrict full-color ads for cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Yet the victory, which eluded anti-tobacco advocates for decades, comes with challenges as well as promise, as federal officials are given never-before-used tools to control a product that is still linked to some 400,000 deaths every year in the United States.
Particularly tricky may be keeping up the momentum of the anti-smoking campaign even as regulators try to make cigarettes safer, an effort that could paradoxically make some smokers less inclined to quit.
"We just don't know what is going to happen," said Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health who has studied tobacco use for decades. "This is uncharted territory." Nonetheless, the legislation - which has passed the House and is expected to clear the Senate in coming weeks - would effectively end an era in which the tobacco industry was largely exempt from the regulatory scrutiny that has been standard for food, drugs and other consumer products.
The bill culminates a decades-long campaign by advocates who have chipped away at the industry's power with taxes, multibillion-dollar lawsuits and state and local limits on where smoking is allowed.
"This would be the most significant change in the federal government's approach to tobacco in history," said Matthew L. Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a leading national advocate of tougher tobacco regulation. "It would fundamentally change the way tobacco is marketed, advertised and sold in this country." In recent years, dozens of states and cities have passed "clean-air" regulations banning smoking in government buildings, bars, restaurants and other public places. Earlier this year, Congress passed the largest-ever increase in the federal cigarette tax, boosting it by 62 cents to $1.01 a pack to pay for an expansion in children's health insurance.
