Slightly more than a year ago, 40 state attorneys general announced a major agreement between tobacco companies and state governments that seemed destined to change tobacco regulation forever.
Amid plentiful fanfare and self-congratulation, both parties regarded the agreement positively; the tobacco industry would receive immunity from future liability lawsuits and the states would divide a $368 billion settlement intended to pay for health care and other expenses incurred in treating tobacco-related diseases. The final hurdle was Congressional approval.
But this proved the hardest task of all. Just last week, the bill containing the settlement, called the Universal Tobacco Settlement Act, died after failing to pass a Senate vote to continue debate.
This bill-sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Az., and presented in November-would have created a fund to channel tobacco money into programs aimed at undoing the damage of smoking. It included restrictions on public smoking and youth marketing and further penalties if underage tobacco use did not decrease over a set period of time. The bill would have cost the industry $516 billion over a 25-year period.
Party politics defeat bill
The McCain bill collapsed for a number of reasons, said John Aldrich, professor of political science. For one, Aldrich noted, McCain himself was both an asset and a liability. Although McCain is generally a figure with bipartisan appeal, Aldrich explained, this duality means "he is not wholly trusted by either party."
Additionally, in tobacco-growing states, the issue did not simply pit big business against the common people; by protecting their constituents' agricultural interests in tobacco cultivation, senators from these states contributed to the bill's downfall.
"There were going to be real pressures on these people," he said. "Tobacco areas are among the poorest parts of the state.... [Congressmen] are pulled in a direction they might otherwise not be pulled."
Both Senators from North Carolina were against the bill.
In Washington, Aldrich said, support for the bill was sharply divided along partisan lines. Noting that the strength of such divides grows as an election nears and bills change to reflect each party's agenda, Aldrich said Republicans began seeing the McCain bill as a subtly concealed tax hike.
"When they started framing [the bill] in ways that were more electorally beneficial than legislatively beneficial," Aldrich said, its chances of passing diminished rapidly.
Observers who work daily with the harmful effects of tobacco were furious that the bill became linked to taxation and big government.
"I think that's a bogus argument," said Theodore Slotkin, a professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and cancer biology. "I think that's a specious excuse for caving into the tobacco lobby."
Slotkin-who specializes in the harmful effects of nicotine on fetuses-declared his belief that the bill was a health issue, not a tax issue.
Of the two main provisions in the McCain tobacco bill-taxation and anti-smoking advertising efforts-Slotkin predicted that taxation would have influenced tobacco use more.
"I'm not sure the propaganda has such an effect, but the price sure does," he said. "I think they should raise the price to where it hurts, to make people quit."
Effects of bill remain unclear
Michael Moore, an associate professor in the Fuqua School of Business and the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, said the bill would have had complicated ramifications. "There is reason to believe, based on statistical studies, that an increase in price in relation to tar content might not be benign," he said.
Moore, an expert in alcohol and tobacco regulation,noted that in the past, regulations on cigarettes resulted in an increase in tar levels. In what became known as the "Great Tar Derby" during the 1950s, cigarette manufacturers competed with each other to be the brand with the lowest tar level. As a result, Moore said, "tar and nicotine levels dropped dramatically over five or six years."
Then, when the government prohibited companies from using tar level data in their advertisements, Moore said, "Tar levels and nicotine levels started going back up." Although he said the McCain bill might not have caused an analogous phenomenon, he added, "I've seen enough evidence of bizarre responses to regulations to be leery of this one."
Moore also said the original deal proposed by the attorneys general benefited tobacco companies because of the limits on future liability.
A possible effect of the proposed tax, he said, would have been to increase the use of cheaper, less safe brands of cigarettes and currently unregulated forms such as self-rolled cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. "When a relative price of a good goes up, people shift toward generic brands," he said.
Slotkin disagreed with the idea that more expensive cigarettes are safer. According to scientific studies, he said, those smoking "safer" cigarettes still take in the same amount of nicotine and tar. "They simply take more puffs and inhale it deeper," he said.
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