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Using the Law to Protect Health: The Frustrating Case of Smoking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Tom Christoffel  and
Sandra Stein
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Extract

It is Recommended … That it be recognized by all organizations and associations concerned with smoking and health that the campaign against smoking is political and economic in character and requires decisions based on political and economic factors.

Government and Social Action Conclusions of the Third World Conference on Smoking and Health, 1975

The only way we know today to stop cancer is to stop smoking. …

Dr. David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the Public Forum on The Future of Cancer Research and Cancer Care, Boston University School of Medicine's Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center dedication, Faneuil Hall, Boston. Mass., October 12, 1979.

Type
Article
Information
Medicolegal News , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , Winter 1979 , pp. 5 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1979

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References

See Schuman, L.M., The Benefits of the Cessation of Smoking, Chest 59:421–27 (1971) (lost life expectancy is primarily a function of the number of years an individual smokes); Holcomb, H.S., Wilmeigs, J., Medical Absenteeism Among Cigarette and Cigar and Pipe Smokers, Archives of Environmental Health 25:295–300 (1972).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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15 U.S.C. § 1331–39.Google Scholar
15 U.S.C. § 1334.Google Scholar
The hearings were conducted by the Legal and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee and reviewed the authority of the Federal Trade Commission regarding advertising claims being made for filter cigarettes. See generally, Fritschler, A.L., Smoking and Politics: Policymaking and the Federal Bureaucracy, at 27, (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ) (1975) [hereinafter referred to as Smoking and Politics].Google Scholar
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Little Cigar Act of 1973, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1332(7), § 1335.Google Scholar
A similar tar and nicotine price differential tax was imposed by the City of New York and was upheld in People v. Cook, 34 N.Y. 2d 100, 312 N.E.2d 452 (1974).Google Scholar
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Prior to March, 1978, the HEW Office on Smoking and Health was called the National Clearinghouse on Smoking and Health. Its “clearinghouse” function remains limited to bibliographical information and educational materials.Google Scholar