Are cigarettes and tobacco products regulated by the FDA?

Are cigarettes and tobacco products regulated by the FDA?

Linda Hyder Ferry (Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: How has the tobacco industry influenced American culture?; How did the 1964 US Surgeon General's report impact the tobacco industry?; How are tobacco control laws changing American culture? and more...

When the FDA was originally drafted with their rules and regulations, the tobacco industry specifically lobbied to have tobacco products excluded from all of their jurisdiction. We're talking a long time ago, because tobacco was said to not be a food, and not be a drug. Now we know it clearly is a drug. They knew that at the time, but because of that initial legislation, tobacco and all tobacco products are excluded from any of the government regulation or control. Their products, the exhaust, for example from a car, compared to the smoke from a cigarette, or cigar or a pipe. A car is much more regulated and it is safer to breathe exhaust from the engine of a car than it is to breathe the exhaust and fumes from a cigarette. That is absolutely true, but that's what happens when you have an industry that is unregulated and doesn't operate in an ethical manner with the products that they make commercially available to anyone who buys them.