[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 101 (Thursday, June 26, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4139-S4140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FAMILY SMOKING PREVENTION

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise to mark the 5-year anniversary of 
the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This legislation 
was a landmark in the decades-long fight against the No. 1 cause of 
preventable death in the United States--tobacco use.
  The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act passed in 
2009--15 years after Dr. Kessler, the FDA Commissioner, began trying to 
regulate tobacco and 45 years after the Surgeon General's landmark 
report on tobacco use and lung cancer. For the first time in history, 
this law gave the FDA the authority to regulate the manufacturing, 
marketing, and sale of tobacco products.
  One express aim of the law was to reduce rates of tobacco use among 
children. The law achieved this by restricting sales to minors, banning 
flavored cigarettes, banning tobacco-brand sponsorships of sport and 
entertainment events, banning free samples, restricting advertisements 
to children, and more.
  The results speak for themselves. Just this month, the CDC reported 
that cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students has dropped to 
the lowest level in 22 years. According to the National Youth Risk 
Behavior Survey, the percentage of students who reported smoking a 
cigarette in the last 30 days fell from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 15.7 
percent in 2013. In Illinois, the percentage of students who are 
current smokers dropped by more than half between 1993 and 2013.
  The FDA's implementation of this law is incomplete, and it needs to 
act now to reverse worrying trends. The CDC reports that e-cigarette 
use among middle and high school students more than doubled in 1 year, 
from 2011 to 2012. The same study found that one in five middle school 
students who reported using e-cigarettes had never tried conventional 
cigarettes. E-cigarettes could be a gateway to nicotine addiction and 
smoking. A new study released in the JAMA Pediatrics goes even further. 
This study found that middle and high school students who used e-
cigarettes were more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes and less 
likely to quit smoking. If current smoking trends continue, 5.6 million 
American kids will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness.
  I commend FDA for its most recent efforts to bring e-cigarettes, 
cigars, pipes, and other forms of tobacco under its authority. However, 
FDA's proposed regulations remain dangerously silent on one of the most 
pressing questions of all--the marketing of these addictive products to 
children.
  In April, ten of my congressional colleagues and I released a report 
documenting how leading e-cigarette manufacturers are marketing e-
cigarettes to young people. The industry is deploying the same 
advertising techniques it used to hook previous generations of 
cigarette smokers. Many of these companies hired glamorous celebrities 
to push their brands through TV and radio ads, and sponsored events 
with heavy social media promotion. For example, NJOY advertised its 
products during the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, and on ESPN--all 
programs with substantial children and teen viewership. In just 2 
years, from 2012 to 2013, 6 of the surveyed companies sponsored or 
provided free samples at 348 events--many geared toward youth 
audiences.
  These e-cigarette companies have even revived cartoon characters in a 
way that calls to mind Joe Camel--the deadliest cartoon of the 20th 
century. While many of these companies argue that they do not market to 
children, a robust analysis recently published in the journal 
Pediatrics suggests otherwise. Between 2011 and 2013, exposure to e-
cigarette marketing by children aged 12 to 17 rose 256 percent. Mr. 
President, 24 million children saw these ads. Not only is the marketing 
and packaging intended to appeal to young people, so is the product 
itself. Let me read a list of e-cigarette flavors being marketed 
today--vivid vanilla, gummy bears, chocolate treat, and cherry crush. 
In the face of this mounting evidence, rather than accelerating its 
efforts, the FDA bowed to industry pressure last week and extended the 
comment period on its proposed regulations. Every day, 3,200 kids smoke 
their first cigarette. Every day that the FDA fails to take action 
costs lives.
  As we move to protect kids from new threats like e-cigarettes, we 
also have to redouble our fight against tobacco use in the military. 
Nearly 30 years have passed since the first Department of Defense 
report on high rates of tobacco use among servicemembers and its 
devastating impact on readiness, productivity, and medical costs. While 
overall rates of use have declined significantly, smoking rates among 
servicemembers are nearly 20 percent higher than civilian rates. The 
use of smokeless tobacco is more than 450 percent higher for 
servicemembers than civilians. One in three military smokers began 
doing so after enlisting.
  The Department of Defense spends more than $1.6 billion every year on 
tobacco-related medical care and lost days of work, and the VA spends 
an additional $5 billion a year to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary 
disease, primarily caused by smoking.
  In 1993, after reading about the dangers of secondhand smoke, CAPT 
Stanley W. Bryant, commander of the U.S.S. Roosevelt, declared that his 
ship would be smoke-free. He said, ``I'm the commanding officer of 
these kids and I can't have them inhaling secondhand smoke. I wouldn't 
put them in the line of fire. I'm not going to put them in the line of 
smoke.'' Captain Bryant is one of many leaders in our Armed Forces who 
have tried to protect the men and women under their command from the 
dangers of tobacco, but at every turn, their efforts have come under 
fire from the tobacco industry and its allies. Even Bryant's victory 
was short-lived. Within the year the tobacco industry forced in a new 
tobacco policy that stripped ships' captains of their authority over 
ships' stores and mandated that cigarettes be sold on ships.
  One of the central problems is the widespread availability of cheap 
tobacco products on military installations and ships. The Department of 
Defense policy requires that exchanges set tobacco prices 5 percent 
below the lowest local competitor. In practice, these discounts are 
greater. A 19-year-old soldier walking into a PX can buy a pack of 
Marlboro cigarettes for 25 percent less, on average, than at the 
nearest Walmart, according to a recent study in JAMA. These discounts 
are deadly. Extensive research shows that raising tobacco prices is one 
of the most effective ways to reduce use. Efforts to end these 
discounts began in the late 1980s, but nearly every attempt has been 
blocked due to industry pressure.
  This spring, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that he is 
considering a ban on tobacco sales at all

[[Page S4140]]

bases and ships. As the Department of Defense has acknowledged, our 
ultimate goal should be a tobacco-free military. When I asked about 
this last week at a hearing, I was heartened to hear that Secretary of 
Defense Chuck Hagel was conducting a Department-wide review of tobacco 
sale policies. I urge Secretaries Hagel and Mabus to set concrete 
goals, policies, and timelines--starting with an end to these discounts 
that cost lives just as surely as do wars.
  The Tobacco Control Act is one of this administration's greatest 
legacies. I urge the administration to continue its leadership by 
protecting children from e-cigarettes and our men and women in uniform 
from the harms of smoking.

                          ____________________