US presidential candidates: Win votes by getting tough on smoking

This article in the NYT urges candidates in the current US presidential campaign to move with pace to adopt the urgings of the FDA with respect to tobacco regulation. Specifically they urge that nicotine be registered as an addictive drug and be regulated by the FDA on this basis.

I strongly concur. For 50 years the tobacco companies have understood ciogarettes to be a vehicle for delivering the addictive drug nicotine. It is tiome that public policy makers came to the same realisation which is in accord with the facts.

I have already stated my own preferences with respect to the design of a prohibitive regulatory regime that would end ciogarette consumption in one generation. The surge in lung cancer deaths in the twentieth century would come to be viewed as a historical mistake that sensible legislators acted to prevent continuing.

BTW: I am making my views known tomorrow for a class of students at La Trobe University's Wodonga campus. in some seminars on public health economics. I'll try to put the Powerpoints online.