By Cliff Douglas, CEO of Global Action to End Smoking
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Chevron defense represents a significant threat to public health, as well as a wide array of environmental and consumer protections. Weakening federal agencies’ ability to use objective science based on their own hard-earned expertise and that of the broader scientific community to evaluate products in an evolving regulatory landscape threatens to harm the American public.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has left much to be desired in its regulation of tobacco products. The current pre-market tobacco product application process is opaque, expensive, and cumbersome, and the agency has essentially created a de-facto ban on novel, risk-minimizing nicotine products that millions of consumers have turned to as life-saving options. Even with the recent, welcome decision to authorize a handful of menthol-flavored e-cigarettes, these products make up only a miniscule fraction of the total e-cigarette market, most of which is illicit.
But the solution is not to weaken the FDA’s authority; on the contrary, the future of public health in this country is for that agency to fully embrace the concept of the continuum of risk in its tobacco product authorizations. It’s time the agency to follow through on its own comprehensive plan from 2017 to build a robust off-ramp for adults who smoke while protecting youth and minors from initiating nicotine use.
I fear the FDA will not be able to make regulatory decisions that are appropriate for the protection of public health now its ability to make nimble science-backed decisions has been further jeopardized.