Amid a campus climate that works tirelessly to banish epidemic diseases like AIDS both at home and abroad, it’s easy to lose perspective on health problems considered less preventable, such as cancer. But since November is National Lung Cancer Awareness Month, it’s worthwhile to think about a product that’s estimated to cause not only 30 percent of total cancers in the United States, but also heart disease, emphysema and other attendant respiratory ailments: tobacco.

From tobacco cultivators at Jamestown, to the iconic Marlboro Man, to 2006’s tongue-in-cheek film “Thank You for Smoking,” tobacco has always played a part in American history and mythology. For some time, tobacco use was viewed as evidence of adulthood. Smoking, in addition to being a pleasurable pastime, was sometimes even medicinal: Camel ads from the 1940s and ‘50s assured readers that more doctors smoked Camels than any other brand for their taste and throat-soothing properties. By the time research began to tie smoking to lung cancer and other systemic ailments, tobacco already had a chokehold on American society. Although the general public believes that smoking in America has decreased since its heyday of the 1940s and 1950s, this view is largely mistaken.

While tobacco education and awareness has come a long way — today, most drug education in schools includes information on tobacco and its effects — statistics released by the American Cancer Society show that even though smoking has decreased since 1950, one in five Americans still smokes on a regular basis today. And while much of tobacco education aims to prevent youth from picking up the habit, youth-centric statistics are even more shocking. The CDC estimates approximately 23 percent of current high school students in the United States are regular tobacco users; furthermore, approximately 4,000 others between the ages of 12 and 17 begin smoking every day.

Therefore, while education and public health initiatives have aided in curbing the negative effects of tobacco, there is more to be done. Decisive policy is needed to bridge the personal and the political in the battle against Big Tobacco.

Currently, the Food and Drug Administration has very little power to regulate the tobacco industry in either production or marketing, resulting in reduced consumer protection, particularly when it comes to targeting children and youth. Congressional representatives from both parties have agreed on the need for policy enabling the FDA to monitor the tobacco industry more closely. Exactly such a bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, was introduced in 2000 and has been revived at each Congressional session since then. Attempts to enact the bill have narrowly failed on several occasions, mostly languishing in committee without coming to the floor.

If enacted, the act would allow the FDA to place more stringent regulations and checks on the tobacco industry. The act would curtail adulteration of tobacco during production, as well as provide for the establishment of a base quality standard similar to the standards applied to food production or the drug industry. Additionally, the bill would limit where and how tobacco products could be advertised and allow for the creation of a Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.

However, supporters of free choice can rest easy. The bill would not ban tobacco, nor would it raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products. Rather, the bill approaches the issue of tobacco from a harm reduction standpoint, trying to protect the interests of those who choose to smoke while also looking out for the health of America’s youth. Reintroduced to the current Congressional session in both chambers, the bill was currently in committee as of late October and will likely not emerge during this session. Discussion of the act, then, takes on a more symbolic than functionary role. The bill’s existence and persistence demonstrates the timeliness of the issue; without regulation, the impact of tobacco on American public health will only be seen more strongly as time goes on. Whether it be via the persistent Tobacco Control Act or some as-yet-unwritten legislation, Congress needs to enable the FDA to regulate, restrict and rein in the tobacco industry — if only so we can all breathe a little easier.

Meghan McCurdy ‘09 is a Health Policy Fellow with the Roosevelt Institution at Stanford and is majoring in history.