Commonwealth Hits Out at FDA

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 03/23/2010

Commonwealth Brands, the US' fourth largest tobacco manufacturer, said on Thursday that it was "in disbelief" over the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) publication of the 1996 rules in the Federal Register, according to a PRNewswire story. On March 18, 2010, the FDA published in the Federal Register the reissued 1996 rules that seek to clarify and enforce marketing, advertising and promotional restrictions on tobacco products. "Commonwealth Brands, Inc. fully supports measures that are specifically aimed at preventing youth smoking," said Anthony Hemsley, vice president of corporate and government affairs. "However, the Food and Drug Administration continues to ignore the very industry it is supposed to be regulating. Despite numerous requests for meetings and consultation, our legitimacy and expertise is sidelined. "The only way to create meaningful and proportionate regulations is to involve the industry. Issuing rules that only serve to jeopardize a legal industry that contributes billions of dollars in excise taxes, employs thousands of people across the states and maintains a supply chain involving thousands of retailers and distributors makes absolutely no sense whatsoever." Commonwealth said that two of the rules' provisions had already been proven to be unconstitutional by the courts, while a third, that sought to remove many tobacco brand names from the market, was clearly also against the industry's constitutional rights. "How many times must we resolve these constitutional issues in the courtroom?" asked Hemsley. "How much taxpayers' money must the FDA waste before a judge? And how long will it be before the FDA accepts the legal rights and input from the tobacco industry, which may well avoid unnecessary expenditure and time in court? "It is fundamentally wrong for the FDA to treat the tobacco industry differently from the other industries it regulates. Instead of forming a relationship to develop reasonable goals, the FDA appears solely interested in listening to vociferous, anti tobacco activists that have no concern for our adult consumers that purchase our legal products, or the viability or potential unintended consequences of what they are recommending." Enditem