Category: business

“The days of Congress doing the bidding of the tobacco industry are over,” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., recently declared. “This long overdue legislation would give FDA broad powers to regulate tobacco products and protect Philip Morris.”

Actually, Waxman said “protect public health,” but I’ve taken the liberty of decoding the phrase for you. The bill to which Waxman was referring, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, has the enthusiastic backing of Philip Morris, which thinks regulation by the Food and Drug Administration will help shore up its position as the leading cigarette manufacturer. Take that, Big Tobacco!

Waxman’s bill, which has bipartisan support and a good chance of passing now that the Democrats control Congress, shows that politicians are happy to help big corporations hobble their competitors, as long as they can claim to be acting in the interests of consumers. This trick is especially easy in the case of tobacco, since its consumers are considered irrational by definition and therefore do not get to judge their own interests.

Waxman’s bill would codify the advertising and promotion regulations issued by the FDA in 1996, when the agency was pretending it already had the authority Waxman wants to give it. (The Supreme Court disagreed.) Among other things, tobacco ads in publications read by minors would be limited to black text on a white background, as would tobacco signs in stores open to minors.

By impeding brand competition, advertising restrictions help keep market shares the way they are, which is fine — if you’re Philip Morris. As an R.J. Reynolds spokesman put it, “If you eliminate ways to communicate with … consumers, that certainly benefits the market leader and makes it difficult, if not impossible, for those who aren’t the market leader to compete.”

As the biggest cigarette maker and …