Volume 1

The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
Date:
2000
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to virtually all other food or drug products available in Britain”.''* The Faculty of Public Health Medicine described current regulatory frameworks as “wholly unsatisfactory”: _ “There are.no EU regulations that require tobacco companies to reduce or control the concentration of specific harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke, other than the single European Union directive governing the maximum tar yield per cigarette.”!!” Similarly, Mr Clive Bates, Director of ASH argued: “Tobacco products ... do not fall conveniently into any pre-existing regulatory framework such as for pharmaceuticals or food and drink ... We can see the way pharmaceuticals are regulated incredibly tightly. Every single claim, every single ingredient, has to be backed up by very substantial trials, evidence and justification presented to a sceptical and arduous regulator. Tobacco products have very complicated designs and very sophisticated engineering and they face none of those kinds of regulations ... They are difficult to regulate ... so you need to do something from scratch. Sadly, governments round the world have not stepped up to this challenge.”!”° Mr Paul Lincoln, a director of the now-disbanded Health Education Authority said that in his view voluntary agreements had not worked and had “been breached in many ways”. It was for this reason that he favoured statutory regulation.’”' 59. Our view is that the current regulation applying to tobacco products is entirely inadequate. By an accident of history, the huge health risks of tobacco only became clear well after the practice of smoking had become culturally entrenched. Below we examine the adequacy of the regulation of additives (paragraph 147). We also examine the paradox whereby nicotine replacement products are subject to strict regulation whereas tobacco products are subject only to ' very limited regulation. 60. We suggested to DoH officials that it seemed curious that drugs were regulated by the Medicines Control Agency and that food stuffs now fell under the aegis of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), while tobacco appeared to be subject to no serious regulation. The Chief Medical Officer told us that he was not aware of any proposals to incorporate tobacco products into the work of the FSA when its jurisdiction was being determined.'” Mr Tim Baxter, the Team Leader of the Tobacco Policy Unit, also pointed out to us that tobacco products are specifically excluded from the terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1997, although “provision existed for secondary regulations to control tobacco products”.'”? Our reservations appear to be mirrored by the general public. The majority of those questioned by the Consumers’ Association (67%) agreed with the statement that “the government should do more to discourage smoking”.'™ 61. Sir Alexander Macara, former chair of the BMA council, told us that he felt that one reason that the Government was afraid of introducing regulatory reform was “a terror about being accused of being nannies or health fascists”.'* We take the view that if the Government fails to take the sort of direct regulatory action we recommend below as a consequence of its anxiety not to be seen to be ‘nannying’, it would be failing in its responsibilities. IB Ry, p.186. M9 Ry, p.641. 1209Q179-80. 1219113. 122 Q95. 123 O96, 24 Ry. p.508. ssh 0 14
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