A watchdog for big tobacco

EVERY STEP that government, on any level, can take to make smoking less common and dangerous is a public-health gift that keeps on giving. That is why members of the US House of Representatives deserve applause for their 326-102 vote in favor of giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco. If the Senate can provide an equally veto-proof majority when it considers the bill this fall, regulators will have new tools to control the marketing and content of a deadly and addictive product.

Such a majority will be needed because President Bush has said he intends to veto the bill. The administration argues that the beleaguered agency should not be burdened with new duties, but then decries as a new tax the user fee the FDA would collect from tobacco companies to pay for the new duties. Bush also offers the peculiar logic that the FDA should not be in the business of regulating a dangerous product, a fig leaf for the fact that even in its final months the administration is still doing the bidding of the tobacco industry, much of which opposes FDA oversight.

Much, but not all - Philip Morris USA has thrown its backing behind the bill. To build support, however, antismoking advocates had to make compromises. One is that the FDA cannot completely ban cigarettes or addictive nicotine. Another concession was removing menthol from a list of flavor additives that the FDA can ban immediately, such as cloves and vanilla. African-Americans, in particular, favor mentholated cigarettes; organizations seeking to reduce smoking among that minority are disappointed with the bill.

However, strong elements in the bill should help cut down on tobacco's toll among all consumers, including African-Americans. The bill calls for far more graphic package warnings about the hazards of smoking and a ban on use of the words "light" or "ultralight" in cigarette marketing to suggest some products might be less harmful. The FDA could reduce nicotine to a nonaddictive level if it decided that was necessary to protect public health.

Other measures, such as higher cigarette taxes, public education campaigns, and bans on smoking in public places, have reduced the incidence of smoking, but it still causes 400,000 deaths a year in the United States. That makes it the largest preventable cause of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Senator Edward M. Kennedy has been pushing an FDA regulation bill since the mid-1990s. Congress could take no better step to improve Americans' health and reduce healthcare costs than to pass this legislation with margins that a Bush veto cannot stop.