Blake Brown
He is an agricultural economist at North Carolina State University and provides economic analysis and educational programming for tobacco and peanut producers. Brown has worked with the tobacco industry and health advocates to understand factors that affect the demand for tobacco products.
"It's very hard to quantify the impact of regulations on the demand for tobacco. But I would think there would be two effects as a result of this legislation. One is, over time, we will see a substantial decline in cigarette consumption. I think the other potential impact is that these regulations call for modified-risk tobacco products. That will change the technology of the way cigarettes are made. These technology changes would likely lead to less tobacco per cigarette.
"So if you have a decline in the number of cigarettes smoked, and you have a decline in the amount of tobacco used per cigarette, I think that will have a substantial impact on demand for U.S. tobacco. . . . The U.S. tobacco industry has been downsizing for many years, and continued downsizing would be no surprise.
"But the big question is how stringent these regulations will be. There is a lot of leeway on what can be required. We won't really know the impact until the regulatory agencies start to work on this."
-- Shari Roan
Stanton Glantz
He is a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UC San Francisco. A longtime tobacco control researcher and activist, he is the recipient of the American Cancer Society's 2009 Luther L. Terry Award for Exemplary Leadership in Tobacco Control.
Because the legislation allows the Food and Drug Administration to appoint a scientific advisory committee that will include representatives from the tobacco industry, Glantz says he feels the FDA will be unable to accomplish far-reaching measures to control tobacco and reduce smoking rates. Moreover, he says, the bill minimizes the adverse economic effect on the tobacco industry, when the goal, in his opinion, should be to drive such companies out of business.
"I was speaking at [a national tobacco-prevention conference] in Phoenix two weeks ago when someone passed me a note that said the Senate passed the bill. When I announced it, about half the audience applauded somewhat. Most people in the field are not enthused about the bill. They have real problems with the bill.
