Federal Regulation of Tobacco
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulated tobacco products since 2009. Science- and evidence-based federal regulation will help address societal concerns about tobacco products and promote and protect public health.
Regulation can also provide significant benefits to adult tobacco consumers by:
- establishing a common set of rules for all tobacco manufacturers and importers doing business in the U.S.;
- providing a way to evaluate potentially less harmful tobacco products; and
- creating guidelines for accurate and scientifically grounded communications about tobacco products to adult tobacco consumers.
To achieve our Vision, we know that we must continue to actively participate in the external environment to help influence policy makers embrace harm reduction as the right path forward for tobacco policy and include the opinions of smokers in the discussion.
We’re working to create the conditions for harm reduction and are focused on four key areas.
- We continue to encourage the FDA to make more progress for the benefit of the 47 million tobacco consumers. That means authorizing reduced risk product applications in a reasonable timeframe and exercising appropriate enforcement actions for manufacturers that fail to comply with regulations.
- We need to address the widespread misperceptions about the relative risks of tobacco products for smokers seeking less harmful alternatives. We believe tobacco consumers deserve this information and regulators have a duty to provide it. Learn More
- We need to continue to lead the way on responsibility. That means demonstrating through our actions that we are invested in addressing the issues people care about the most – including underage use. Learn More
- We believe policymakers – including the FDA – have to say “no” to calls for prohibition-based policies that will send us in the wrong direction – like broad-based flavor bans. We all have seen that prohibition does not work in other contexts and that it creates unregulated markets with negative unintended consequences. Learn More
Our goal is to work constructively with the FDA as it continues to implement a comprehensive national regulatory framework for tobacco products.
