By Katie Kieffer
Image credit: “Gene Simmons – Paul Stanley” by Historum / Histozic[/add_caption_link] on Flickr via Creative Commons.
If young people have casual sex, they’re rock stars, as long as they use condoms. If they casually smoke cigarettes, they’re borderline criminals. According to the FDA, that is.
The FDA takes a hypocritical and overly invasive stance on two adult products: Condoms and cigarettes. The FDA’s inconsistent and excessive regulation of these adult products hurts free enterprise and represents an inappropriate extension of government in our daily lives.
This month, The Associated Press reported that condom maker Graphic Armor Inc. is releasing the first line of FDA-compliant condoms with full-color advertising graphics directly on the latex. The graphics will include images of Kiss rock stars Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.
Even pop star Ke$ha, who just closed a deal with LifeStyles Condoms to get her face on the packaging of 10,000 latexes to throw out to her fans at concerts, knows that condoms aren’t foolproof. Her condom disclaimer is: “If it breaks, you have to name your daughter or son after me.”
Besides the fact that condoms can break, reliance on condoms could encourage a sense of rock star invincibility and potentially lead to unhealthy behavior in young people. Naïve adolescents could get the wrong message from Graphic Armor’s marketing. But, an uptick in teen pregnancy doesn’t seem to worry the FDA.
FDA butts out reason
In the Indian village of Jaav, Hindu villagers color themselves in dye and smoke cigarettes to celebrate the end of winter. In America, the FDA appears convinced that smokers are just one step away from being criminals.
Accordingly, the FDA has released 36 new warning labels (it will narrow them down to nine by June 22, 2011) for cigarette packaging that will be mandatory in October 2012. On June 22, 2009, President Obama signed a landmark legislation called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) that gives the FDA unprecedented authority to bypass Congress and regulate the tobacco industry’s marketing, advertising and even product content.
The warning labels are designed such that they will cover about 50 percent of each cigarette pack’s surface area. So, retailers will struggle to sell the products because the individual cigarette brands will be covered by the FDA’s scare ads, infers The New York Times.
One proposed FDA label depicts a “typical” female smoker with an image of a mother blowing smoke on her baby, along with the words: “WARNING: TOBACCO SMOKE CAN HARM YOUR CHILDREN.” Another ad shows a graveyard full of tombstones with the words: “WARNING: TOBACCO SMOKE CAUSES FATAL LUNG DISEASE IN NONSMOKERS.”
The FDA’s packaging mandate sounded a tad extreme to me until I remembered that every smoker I’ve ever known has literally sent every nonsmoker within ten feet of them to the graveyard and every female smoker I’ve ever known was an irresponsible baby-hater. I’m just relieved we have the FDA to keep adults and babies completely safe.
I also realized that Americans don’t need to vote for members of the FDA like they do for members of Congress because we have the FDA’s word that it’s uninfluenced by politics and is looking out for us. It’s kind of nice that we can trust the FDA enough to do business on a handshake, just like the good ol’ days. Ahhh.
A better way
OK, so I was being sarcastic. I actually think American companies should be able to advertise their products without an extra-constitutional agency like the FDA stepping in and big-brothering them. Especially a big brother who’s a big hypocrite: The FDA seems unconcerned about middle school kids having access to kinky, rock star fun in the tunnel slides, as long as they don’t smoke on the swings.
My view is: Let consumers make their own choices and let companies make their own marketing decisions. Need and demand for products and services should dictate consumption, not an unelected and unaccountable government bureaucracy.
Woman smoking. Image credit: “May's wedding party, by Chong” by kloekloe on Flickr via Creative Commons.
The FDA has been quick to use its new authority to try to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes. But, a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that menthol poses no greater health risk, and may actually mitigate the risk of lung cancer by up to 30 percent, Reuters reported last week. So much for the government being an expert on the health hazards of smoking.
We need the government to effectively police the Texas-Mexico border, not excessively regulate advertising on adult products like cigarettes and condoms.
Americans should begin having public discussions about acceptable health practices in their local communities and families rather than relying on the government to make these decisions for them.
What do you think? Should an unelected federal agency like the FDA have jurisdiction over advertising on cigarettes and condoms? Or, should we leave such decisions up to individual citizens, small business owners and elected state legislatures?
What mysteries will Betsy Brock dispel in this presentation: http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/2011/04/04/tobacco-industry/
Perhaps, explicitly the evil intent of the “tobacco industry” and implicitly the utter deficiency in our ability to make decisions for ourselves.
I just found your site through your recent articles on Townhall. It’s a good conservative blog site. I really like the points you make in this article. Years ago, cigarette companies were banned from almost all advertising because the evil corporations were “marketing to children”. What is the difference between Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man versus Kiss? Which seems better suited marketing to children? Sure, cigarettes will kill you in forty years, but a condom mishap will alter your life drastically for a minimum of 18 years.
According to the USDA in 2008 (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/News-Media/News3-24-08.pdf), a child now costs approximately $11,000 per year for 18 years. A Forbes article (http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/12/smoking-health-quit-forbeslife-cx_fl_1111health.html) also from 2008 states: In Delaware, where a pack of cigarettes costs about $5.39, residents smoke more than in any other state–just over 185 packs per year. That comes out to $998.23 spent individually on smoking every year.
In his book Buyology (Chapter 1), Martin Lindstrom tells of many other countries’ requirements for cigarette warning labels. Labels in countries like Canada, Australia, much of Western Europe, and a few Asian countries contain much more graphic pictures showing the results of smoking. This has little effect on the buying habits of smokers. Customers ask for the black lung or rotting mouth packs. By comparison, the new FDA labels are cartoonish-looking to me. I can just picture some late teen ordering a pack of Camel toe-tag Silvers or Kool stroke sticks. Most people with addictions care only about the next hit. A picture of headstone is not a cheap intervention tactic.
I’m with you Katie. Let the market take care of it; supply and demand is better than any alphabet soup agency bullying citizens to its way of thinking. Keep up the good work.
I agree with you, Katie. The FDA should not have jurisdiction over a good
many things that they have the upper hand over! Less gov’t involvement is
always best!