experiment. it was grounded on its sincere desire to rid society of the ills of alcohol. it was designed to improve health, cut crime, relieve taxpayers of a portion of the burden of subsidizing prisons. the problem is we know it as prohibition. it failed to take into account human nature and the truisms that things are apt to go wrong when government tinkers too much with personal choices. . we are about to repeat history. there will be speeches here on the floor, i just heard one, about how this bill is going to help children, how this bill is going to improve public health. unfortunately the kennedy bill that has come from the senate back to the house here is not going to be able to achieve the goals in which it desires. what i will do here this morning and as i also manage the bill itself, is bring up some of the highlights and concerns. the first identify light and concern is that members -- the

first highlight and concern is that members you need to do your due diligence and read the legislation that is coming to the floor, please. there is a herd mentality that is occurring right now whereby there is blind faith given to leadership and people are just voting for things they have no idea what is truly in the legislation. so i'm going to highlight some of the great concerns because we need to be a responsible legislative body. a responsible legislative body is one that doesn't kick or punt the tough questions to the supreme court. that's what we are doing. i'm going to address the supreme court and the first amendment and fifth amendment issues, i'm going to address the same quit or die strategies of absinence in being applied to smoking. i'll also address harm reduction that should have been incorporated, claimed to be incorporated, but is not. i'll also mention how this bill further burdens the f.d.a. and

its core mission while at the same time the majority is talking about how the f.d.a. cannot protect the american people with regard to tainted food and adulterated and counterfeit drugs. i'll also like to mention that how this bill actually locks the marketplace to prevent innovation and competition. we are truly on the waive of of socialism in this country. so first let me refer to the first amendment. the kennedy bill directs the secretary of of h.h.s. to promulgate an interim final rule that is identical f.d.a.'s 1969 rule which legal experts across the political spectrum have stated would violate the first amendment. while these views should carry great weight, even more dispositive of the fact that the united states supreme court has also weighed in on various provisions of the rule finding them already unconstitutional. they have already ruled.

yet we are going to put them right back in legislation. not very responsible. so before members get down here and start pounding their chest as though they are doing great things, this is irresponsible for this body. in the tobacco company vs. riley, the united states supreme court struck down a massachusetts statute similar in many ways of the f.d.a.'s proposed rule. the statute banned outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, and playgrounds and also restricted point of sale advising for tobacco product thes. this ran afoul of the test established in the central hudson case. as it was not sufficiently narrowly at this tailored -- narrowly tailored and would have separate impacts on community. -- from the community to the community. you'll clean it up, won't you i confused you?

the court then noted since the massachusetts statute was based on the f.d.a.'s rule, the f.d.a. rule would have similar unconstitutional effects on the nationwide basis. as justice sandra day o'connor wrote in -- for the court, quote, the oun formally broad sweep of the geographical limitations demonstrates a lack of tailoring, end quote. additionally the proposed rule in the kennedy bill would require ads to use only black text on white background. again the united states supreme court found a similar provision unconstitutional. zauderer, i'm doing all right with you today? , and the office of disciplinary council n. that case dealing with advertisers in legal services the use of colors and illustrations in ads are entitled to the same first amendment protection given

verbal speech. justice brian wright wrote that pictures and illustrations in ads cannot be banned simply on the strength of the general argument that the visual content of advertising may under some circumstances be deexceptive or manipulative, end quote. there are numerous other speech restrictions in this legislation that raise serious first amendment issues and will create a swarm of lawsuits that will only divert us from trying to develop more effective approaches to tobacco use in the united states. to put forward speech restriction that is a broad range of experts have stated almost certain to be struck down would be highly counterproductive and should not be done by this legislative body. actually there probably will be a record time between when this bill is signed into law and when lawsuits begin to be filed in federal court. now, i referred in my opening to these quit or die strategies.

the quit or die strategy, the reason i call that is, this is an absinence in approach to tobacco. meaning you either quit or if you continue to use the product , you die. that's their absinence in approach. the previous speaker even talked about, this bill is going to promote nicotine therapies and we are going to move people toward these therapies and they'll get a chance to quit. nicotine therapies work for less than 7% of the american smokers who use them to quit smoking. each year approximately 20 million smokers use nicotine replacement therapies in an attempt to quit smoking. think about this. you got over 40 million smokers, two million try to quit, and there is a 7% success rate. this bill locks in the 7% success rate and does not allow the marketplace to exercise innovation to move or as a

gateway of smokers to smokeless-type products in a harm reduction strategy to lower in a continuum of risk. 7%? so individuals are going to come here to the floor and claim that a 7% success rate is wonderful. 7% success rate is failure. failure. why should we as a body embrace failure? we should not. this legislation, the kennedy legislation, locks down the marketplace. it locks it down. and it says whoever has what particular market share, that's it. that's where it's going to be. with regard to introduction of new products? no, no, no, we are going to create a two-tiered standard, you are going to have to show with regard to the product the impact on the individual and population at large. in order to do that that is a hurdle, it's called a bridge too far. when you create a two-tiered

standard that is a barrier, entry barrier of new products to the market, you lock down innovation, you secure competition in a present pattern, and then with regard to these therapies we are saying, ok, this is cool. this is good. we are doing something great for public health. we are going to lock in a 7% success rate. wow. now, members are also going to come to the floor and say this is really great. we are going to be helping people quit smoking. are you kidding me? you know what this bill does? this bill increases the success rate now of quit smoking by .2 of of a percent. .2 of a perfectly. you proud of that? .2 of a percent. what is that? let's go to our friends, one of our strongest allies in our transatlantic alliance, great britain. the royal college of physicians

also looking at this issue in their report, and they are looking also to solutions to the smoking epidemic, they write, in their review of other countries, it indicates that the best conventional tobacco control measures reducing smoking prevalence is between .5 and one percent anage point per year. -- percentage point per year. whoa. great britain went out there and found other countries taking aggressive measures are able to reduce smoking prevalence by .5 to one percentage points per year, none have taken into account what mr. mcintyre and i presented to the floor for harm reduction strategies. so great. the rest of the world is at .5 and one and we are going to be at .2%. you are going to make that success. we are doing great things to improve public health. are you kidding me?

we are not. we are continuing failure. failure. so don't come to the floor and act like someone is the champion here because we are not. .2%. i'll yield to help you with math. .2%. mr. polis: the source. will the gentleman yield for a moment? mr. buyer: .2%, 2%, you think that's great. mr. polis: i'd like to yield to ask your source? mr. buyer: sure, it's the royal college of physicians. mr. polis: that's from another country? is the gentleman aware the congressional budget office estimates it will reduce youth from smoking by 11% over this next 10 years and adult smoking by 2%? those are our own estimates. mr. buyer: the royal college of physicians i'm indicating with regard to reduction of prevalence of smoking of .5 and one percentage point per year of places around the world.

2% c.r.s. this is c.b.o. i don' know where you're getting your facts. this is c.b.o. . the last time i checked c.b.o. is the united states. yeah. c.b.o.'s the united states. now let me also move to harm reduction strategies. here's why i'm really upset. i'm upset because what we really should be doing if we really had an interest in improving public health, it's we should be migrating populations. moving populations. and when you move populations, you also want to inform people with regard to choices and the risks associated with products. we do that every day. in the types of automobiles in which we buy. whether are you going to wear your seat belt.

i suppose, i don't know, you want -- do you wear a helmet to work when you drove your car today? i guess it's a choice you could make. people make harm reduction choices every day. in the foods we eat. what we drink, whatever we consume. we make these decisions every day. how come we don't apply harm reduction strategies to tobacco? we should. so in the marketplace right now there are many times of products. now, what is unique about what's happening here is that this legislation doesn't even touch that which is most harmful which are cigars and pipes. cigars and pipes you can directly ingest these toxins and carcinogens in a far greater strength into the body and it's more harmful. that's not even touched in this legislation. so let's just talk about what's touched. if you look at the continuum of risk and the choice available products out there today, the most harmful which would be

under this bill are the nonfiltered cigarettes. that's why i put them at the 100%. next is if you actually put a filter on that cigarette. we are beginning to reduce the harm. then you've got tobacco heated cigarettes. we don't understand all the science about the tobacco heated cigarettes. then you have an electronic cigarette whereby it's a way -- nicotine delivery advice yet we know that when you don't ingest the smoke that you have a less harmful product. then there are the u.s. smokeless products. now we can reduce the risk by 90%. and say to an individual that you can obtain your nicotine you want, guess what? you can reduce the harm by 90%. these are still all harmful products. then can you go to a swedish snuse and now you can reduce almost 98% of the risk. the difference here is one is fermented and the other is pasturized. then you can go to dissolvable

tobacco product that is have no nitrocimines and almost a 99.5% reduction of the risk so you can actually get your nicotine by either an osh -- orb or stick you lay on your tong or a strip you lay on your tongue or a stick that looks like a tooth pick and you can roll it and obtain your nicotine and remove 99% of the health risk. 99%. but this legislation is going to say no to these types of innovations. no. that somehow we are going to lock in to that which is the most harmful instead of permitting a migration. what we want is as individuals migrate and you've got then to the their pudics and medicinal types of of nicotine, you want them to quit. when you migrate them you migrate them to eventually quick smoking. what we have done is we are not doing this. in the bill there is -- let me

have the last 30 seconds miss foxx: -- ms. foxx: i yield another minute. mr. buyer: what we have in the bill is abcontinuence in. it mentioned har reduction but because there is a two-tiered approach to the approval process for the introduction of new tobacco products, it is truly an entry barrier so we have locked down the marketplace. and when you lock the marketplace, you do not improve public health in this country. and that is the greatest concern that i have here today. . i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. members are reminded to address their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. currently a head of lettuce receives more regulation than tobacco products. i would simply ask, which is more dangerous to the american people? i'd quote from "the new york

times" today which endorsed this bill and has been supportive of it in the past. it is now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that tobacco companies have suppressed harm and manipulating the design of cigarettes to increase their addictiveness. federal regulators will help stop the abuses and help prevent americans from losing their lives to smoking. and this, mr. speaker, is the first step. mr. speaker, i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. green. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for three minutes. mr. green: thank you, mr. speaker. and members and i thank my colleague from the rules committee for allowing me to speak for three minutes. i respectfully disagree with my colleague and member of the energy and commerce committee from indiana. and i rise in strong support of h.r. 1256, the family smoking prevention and tobacco control act. i'm an original co-sponsor of the bill and i am pleased we will finally send this piece of legislation to the president. and, again, i respectfully

disagree with some of the statements earlier. for many years congress has tried to address tobacco use and the impact on our country and our people. nearly 21% of the american -- america smokes cigarettes which is a reduction in the last few years. 2% of high school students are smokers -- 23% of high school students are smokers. 23%. according to the mental health association, every day 1,100 adults start smoking. over 1,000 young people start smoking. every day these young adults start smoking, they're entering a lifelong addiction. therefore, the number of young adults who start smoking every day is tragic, especially when you consider that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in our country. once you're addicted to tobacco it's with you for life and death. most states -- most smokers start at 13, 14, 15 years old. the family smoking prevention and tobacco control act will give the food and drug

administration, the f.d.a. the authority to regulate tobacco for the first time. as was said earlier, we don't regulate tobacco now. we're finally giving the food and drug administration the authority to regulate it. this bill is fully paid for and the f.d.a. activity on tobacco will fully fund it through a user fee, not through the f.d.a.'s existing budget. these new funds will not take away or affect any of the f.d.a.'s current activities. the bill also subjects all new tobacco products to premarket review. it will give the secretary of health and human services the ability to restrict the sale, distribution, promotion of tobacco products. the secretary will be able to establish tobacco products standards and requiring manufacturers give the secretary harmful ingredients to tobacco products. we don't know what we're smoking today. it will require a new labeling of tobacco products. i'm pleased this has the support of tobacco manufacturers, such as philip

morris and the american cancer society and the campaign for tobacco-free kids. the family smoking prevention and tobacco control act is a step in the right direction to address the issue of smoking in our country. i ask members of congress, how many loved ones and constituents do you know have died from lung cancer caused by smoking? this bill can help those 13, 14 and 15-year-olds who are growing up now not to become addicted to tobacco. i strongly support the bill and i urge my colleagues to support it as well. and, again, thank you for the time and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlewoman from north carolina. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to point out a couple of issues. it seems to me that if a head of lettuce has more rules than tobacco, then i think we should reduce the regulations on lettuce. i think we're going in the wrong direction in terms of this issue. the other thing i'd like to point out is something that my colleague from indiana pointed

out. this bill focuses totally on the issue of abstinence. it's interesting to me that i've been in so many debates where the majority party completely puts aside abstinence education when it comes to sex education in the schools. they say abstinence education has absolutely no benefit when we know the research shows the opposite. but on this issue, they'd like to go totally for abstinence education. and i'd now like to yield two minutes to my colleague from indiana, mr. buyer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from indiana is recognized for two minutes. mr. buyer: thank you. i'd just like to bring up two points, mr. speaker. the gentleman while during my presentation brought up the 11% issue. i immediately after i gave my remarks went to the congressional budget office. it was a very clever attempt, mr. speaker, of the rules committee to try to confuse the

american people. so i'll read directly from the c.b.o. report so the record is clear. based on the information from academic and other researchers, c.b.o. estimates that h.r. 1256, which is the waxman bill, which is not being heard here. it's the kennedy bill being referred here, would result in further reduction the number of underage tobacco users of 11% by 2019. c.b.o. -- here's what he -- here's the other part, the rest of the story that the rules committee did not share with the country. c.b.o. also estimates that implementing h.r. 1256 would lead to a further decline in smoking by adults by 2% after 10 years. wow. wow. now, let me refer to the other. too often we often are cute here. cute is with reference with regard to lettuce. do you realize if you take that

lettuce, dry it and roll it and smoke it and you go ahead and you smoke your lettuce, do you realize that you're going to end up with similar problems than if you were smoking tobacco. it's not the nicotine that kills. it's the smoke that kills. so it's the -- it's the inhalation of the smoke. that's what causes and is responsible for the pandemic of cansers, of heart disease, respiratory disease and other factors. it's the smoke. so the migration of people from the smoke into smokeless and other types of forms of therapies, if they want to obtain their nicotine, it's ok. mr. waxman himself would say, i do not want to outlaw tobacco. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. i think that one of the differences between smoking

lettuce, and i have to admit this is the first time that i heard of smoking lettuce and smoking tobacco is tobacco because of the nicotine content is highly addictive and, again, there is evidence, undisputable evidence that companies have deliberately increased the levels of addictive nicotine within those products. and american lives have been lost as a result. one of the other important aspects of this bill is ending the practice of many of these tobacco products which are targeted specifically to children. borrowing the flavor -- barring the sale of flavor tobacco products, such as fruit and cloves and chocolate with names that are enticing children like very berry. this would ensure that those are properly regulated. mr. speaker, i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from california, ms. harman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from california is recognized for three minutes. ms. harman: i thank the gentleman for yielding and rise

in support of the rule and the bill, as amended, by the senate. mr. speaker, as they say in the intelligence world, this is a slam dunk. i've experienced the tragedy that afflicts many tobacco users and their families. both of my parents were chain smokers. my father, a physician, quit when i was young but our house reeked of second-hand smoke, and my mother continued to smoke until she could no longer hold a cigarette. after long illnesses, both parents died from lung cancer. it was a nightmare and one i would spare other families. as a grandmother of three, i hope my grandkids will never smoke. approximately 4,000 children try a cigarette for the first time each day. by the end of this week, thousands of americans will have died from tobacco-related diseases, and thousands more will become new regular users.

we can take a big step forward breaking this deadly cycle by giving f.d.a. the authority to regulate tobacco products. that's all this bill does and it is long overdue. the legislation we are voting on today is a product of a long, decades long crew aid by our colleague, henry waxman, by senator edward kennedy, by the campaign for tobacco-free kids and scores of public health groups. and it is a big down payment on health care reform. mr. speaker, california alone spends over $9 billion annually treating tobacco-related diseases. this critical funding could be put towards our failing health care infrastructure and make health care more affordable for everyone. with its passage today, i hope this bill will become law promptly and i hope, mr.

speaker, that c.b.o. will find the way to score the savings that come from this and other preventive health measures. if we can do this, we can find a way to cut the cost of health care reform, national health care reform, which is urgently needed this year. so as i see it, this is a down payment on health care reform and it's a down payment on the health of our children and our grandchildren. this bill will save lives and scarce resources. this bill is a slam dunk. vote aye on the rule and the underlying legislation, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back her time. the gentlewoman from north carolina. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to yield briefly to my colleague from indiana which has a very important point to make on this issue. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. buyer: i'd say to my good

friend from california, i am not an advocate for smoking here at all. i am trying to try to improve the health of our nation. this locks down the marketplace. to the speaker, my reference to ms. harman is, i want you to know that's my sincere effort here is how do we improve public health and other nations around the world are all struggling like we are for good sound public policy and how we regulate a legal product by adult users. so there are restrictions with regard to access to children and then with regard to adult users, countries around the world are beginning to look at harm reduction and apply those tragedies to tobacco. we had an opportunity to do that. it failed here on the floor and i recognize that. it's probably something that's new, and what i'm going to do and i welcome -- join the gentlelady from california. we work really well together during our entire time here. i'd love to work with you on harm reduction strategies. i'll just read this from the american association of public

health physicians. mr. speaker, the rules committee doesn't want me to cite the world college of physicians, so i'll cite an american institution. the american association of public health physicians found that, quote, in practical terms enhancement of current policies based only -- based on the premise that all tobacco products are equally risky will yield only small and barely measurable reductions in tobacco-related illness and death. addition of a harm reduction component, that's why i want to work with ms. harman, however, could yield a 50% to 80% reduction in tobacco-related illness and death over the first 10 years and likely reduction of up to 90% within 20 years. and that's why i'm so passionate, ms. harman, about a harm reduction strategy. i embrace your personal story, and that's why i am so sincere about a harm reduction. ms. harman: will you yield to me? mr. buyer: i yield to the gentlelady. ms. harman: i appreciate long years of collaboration on

important issues, especially affecting the military, like sexual harassment and this wave of sexual asexual assault and rape against women. i appreciate that very much, mr. buyer. on this issue, sure, let's work together on a harm reduction strategy. i think this bill, with i'm for and you are obviously are against goes only part way. a lot of people have terrible stories like mine. i embrace the fact that you are against smoking. i surely hope that becomes a much more prevalent practice by our young kids. that's what my purpose here is. i never want anyone else to have the kind of tragedy that i had with parents who were addicted like mine. mr. buyer: i thank the gentlelady. reclaiming my time. i'll embrace that and probably what we'll need to do if this president signs this bill into law, you offer to work with the gentlelady and we'll introduce a bill to incorporate harm reduction strategy.