FDA Orders Tobacco Companies to Disclose Cigarette Ingredients

The FDA has told cigarette companies they must provide detailed information on their products by June. The FDA will then begin studying the composition in detail. They also must give the FDA any research they have conducted on the effects of cigarette ingredients. It is time to regulate this industry, we know that cigarettes are deadly but it is time to learn what additives increase the risk of smoking tobacco.

I recently spoke to a group of cigarette smokers and most of them were unaware of the ingredients of cigarettes. I gave a list of ingredients often found in cigarettes and they were surprised and sickened about what they were bringing into their lungs. They asked why the government wasn't looking our for smokers, wasn't it important for them to smoke cigarettes that were as safe as possible. They also wondered what all of the additives were put there for. The tobacco companies want cigarettes, and other tobacco products to be as addictive as possible, they also want them to burn evenly and have a pleasing flavor. They have spent millions of dollars researching ways to make cigarettes more addictive, and to manipulate the end product in ways that will make them more marketable and will sell more cigarettes. It is time for the government to act as a watchdog on these companies so that the ingredients aren't making these products even more deadly. I agree with these smokers, it is time that the government take responsibility in finding out what is in cigarettes and as they learn what ingredients or combination of ingredients make cigarettes more deadly that they limit or eliminate ingredients that add even more harm than just the burning tobacco does. This group of smokers had just assumed that this was being done, it is time for it to happen and I am glad that the FDA has taken on the challenge. Lawrence R Deyton, the director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, as been quoted as saying, "Tobacco products today are really the only human-consumed product that we don't know what's in them." It is time to study what is being consumed, the ingredients that we do know about are deadly and I hope that many of these additives will be eliminated.