Smoking habits will linger on, despite tasteless legislation

Originally published July 20, 2009.

If you smoke cloves, you won’t be for much longer—at least in theory.

Meet the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which was signed into law on June 22. It hands the oversight of the manufacture, marketing, and sale of tobacco products to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Starting in October 2009, flavored cigarettes (including cloves and fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, though not menthols) will be officially outlawed. Additionally, tobacco companies will no longer be able to advertise through means like logo-printed clothing, samples, or even sponsorship of entertainment or athletic events. Companies must also disclose fully the ingredients in their products to the FDA, in addition to the nicotine content of cigarettes and the health effects of smoking.

Those who championed the legislation have an admirable goal in mind, one that Obama addressed directly as he signed the bill: keeping tobacco companies from targeting kids. They’ve criticized (and demonized) Big Tobacco so heavily that the rest of us can’t help but be mildly supportive of the bill, imagining that the tobacco industry is the real monster under the bed waiting to devour our children at night.

For any smoker or anyone considering smoking, the part of the bill that requires reporting of cigarette ingredients is a great victory—one that should have happened a long time ago. If tobacco companies want cigarettes to remain a legal avenue of recreation, it’s about time people should completely know and understand what they’re choosing to put into their bodies.

But banning flavored cigarettes puts the righteousness of the bill on shaky ground.

At this point, anyone could say, “But tasty flavors encourage young people to smoke! Do you want our children to be fooled by Big Tobacco?”

It’s possible that the availability of products like Swisher Sweets catch the eye of kids not yet smoking. But the same could be said of alcoholic beverages like Bacardi Razz, Smirnoff Ice, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade, all of which are legal. Of course there’s an age restriction on alcohol, but there’s one on tobacco as well. Both are ineffective. If underage people want to drink, it’s easy for them to do it. In the same vein, if those underage choose to smoke, they can and will easily acquire cigarettes, flavored or not. Eliminating the variety of cigarette flavors will not change that fact.

From here, the million-dollar questions become: where does the FDA’s new authority end, and how do they expect to enforce legislation on flavored cigarettes (aside from the obvious removal from store shelves)? When—because it’s only a matter of when, not if—does the FDA decide to take on all flavored tobacco instead of just cigarettes?

My thoughts here extend to people who purchase loose tobacco for pipes and or rolling their own cigarettes. Because of its potential use in cigarettes, will flavored tobacco also face relegation to a “black market” of sorts?

If flavored tobacco generally becomes the target of the FDA’s newly-acquired regulatory powers, hookah smokers are also in murky waters. And if flavors can be phased out, why not tobacco itself? At the very least, the FDA will restrict the tobacco industry so greatly that public tobacco usage cannot help but be impacted, with or without their consent.

As for enforcement, I don’t expect police training to include a controlled burn of a strawberry-flavored cigarette come October, or to see someone getting patted down for cloves on Green Street because she smells suspiciously like a Christmas ham.

No, I only expect the obvious: if people want flavored cigarettes, they’ll find them, end of story. And if the majority of Champaign-Urbana will drink Keystone Light for the sake of getting trashed, then I don’t imagine teens wanting to smoke will mind Marlboros over kreteks.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Palin’s plotting

Originally published November 6, 2008.

A few hotly-contested races have yet to be resolved following Election Day, including, perhaps surprisingly, Alaska’s Senate showdown between Ted Stevens and Mark Begich. This may not sound like a big deal to some, but if you were waiting with baited breath for Sarah Palin to crawl back under the rock of obscurity from whence she came, listen up. Don’t sigh in relief just yet.

Despite all statements to the contrary prior to her selection as McCain’s VP, Sarah Palin may not be interested in just serving as the governor of Alaska anymore. The GOP found exactly what it wanted in Palin: a devout social conservative with an externally female appearance (I cannot believe that Palin represents or fights for women in this country). Though her handlers in this campaign found her perhaps a little too outwardly caustic or unwilling to stick to campaign rhetoric, there is plenty of time to reprogram her before she is put back into action in a presidential race. Now that they have her, the Republicans are not going to let her go.

In a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh, Palin said in response to a statement about her heavy open criticism of the Obama campaign, “I’ve got nothing to lose in this.” And she’s right. She has been catapulted onto the national stage even though McCain lost, and after giving her a taste of fame, the party seems comfortable with continuing to entertain her delusions of grandeur. Tina Fey’s “Palin 2012″ jokes may not be so far from the truth.

But you have to learn to walk before you can run, right? Well, that’s where Palin’s friend Ted Stevens comes in.

Stevens, who just barely led Alaska’s polls Wednesday, is in a little bit of legal trouble. In October, the senator was convicted of seven federal corruption charges because he filed false statements on Senate ethics reforms. If he wins, he would be the first convicted felon to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already quashed this would-be first, saying that it would never be allowed to begin with, but also pressing the reality of Stevens’s having to face an ethics committee investigation followed by expulsion, regardless of his ability to appeal.

So, should he retain his Senate seat, one of two things will happen: Senator Stevens can step down from his position, or he will be expelled from it. And it’s a realistic possibility that Sarah Palin will be waiting in the wings to appoint herself in his place. After all, ethics are not an obstacle for her, as she has already demonstrated. Maybe she and Gov. Rod Blagojevich can appoint themselves together, in solidarity.

Even if she’s not willing to weather the legal storm that would surely follow a self-selection to the Senate, Palin could easily use her newfound popularity and $150,000 wardrobe to campaign her way into the spot during a special election. I wonder if she would get taxpayers to foot the bill for flying her kids back and forth to D.C. with her.

And besides, now that she’s taken the time to publicly shame her pregnant daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law by pushing them into the spotlight with her, who could possibly want to hear the end of it (hint: every discerning person in the United States)?

So, are we looking at an extended stay in the national political scene for Governor Palin? You betcha, and likely not just for 2012, despite what SNL has to say about it. Assuming Obama runs for re-election in four years, Palin stands a better chance if she decides to run in eight, especially if she “mavericks” her way into Congress. By 2016, voters will probably consider Hillary Clinton too old for the Oval Office in the same way they responded to John McCain’s substantial age. Can we count on some up-and-coming, liberal-minded female titan to stand up and truly represent not only women, but the entirety of our nation? If so, she better start now.

Chelsea is a senior in English and Creative Writing and hates that every step equality moves forward, it gets shoved four steps back: four states passed anti-gay and -lesbian legislation.