Majority of Americans Support FDA Regulation of Tobacco

The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids released a study Monday showing that the majority of voters support giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco. The study comes as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee votes on legislation that would grant the FDA that power.

According to the poll, 70 percent of voters support the passage of the legislation and 72 percent believe that passage of the legislation would be a major accomplishment for Congress. Support for the legislation crossed lines between political affiliation, regions and smokers and non-smokers. Seventy-two percent of Republicans, 71 percent of democrats and 68 percent of Independent voters were in favor of the proposed bill. Voters in the Northeast were the most likely to support the bill with 78 percent, while voters from the West were the least likely with 66 percent supporting the tobacco regulation bill. Non-smokers were more likely to support the bill than smokers, with 74 percent of non-smokers favoring the legislation, compared to 63 percent of smokers who supported the bill.

"Across the nation, there is broad, bipartisan support for FDA regulation of tobacco products," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The poll also quizzed respondents on a variety of other tobacco-related beliefs. Eighty percent agree with restricting tobacco sales to minors and fining retailers who sell tobacco to children. Seventy-sic percent of respondents support limiting tobacco advertising aimed at children. A majority also supported prohibiting companies from claiming their products are less harmful than others, unless the FDA determines such claims to be true.

AT a time when both the president and Congress are suffering from low approval ratings, 55 percent say they would think more favorably of Congress if the tobacco regulation bill were passed. "There are few issues before Congress on which you'd find such strong consensus across regions and across party lines. Americans agree that it's time for Congress to address the nation's number one preventable cause of death and end the deadly status quo that allows tobacco companies to target our children and mislead the public," said Myers.

Tobacco is a factor in 400,000 deaths a year, and health care costs total $96 billion annually. Tobacco is still unregulated by any government agency.

The study polled 800 registered voters and was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and the Mellman Group. The margin of error is plus or minus 3,5 percentage points.

Source: Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Press Release : (http://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/latest.jsp?resourceid=3514890&view=LOCAL)