Senator Dodd Praises HELP Committee Passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

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May 20, 2009 -- Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, praised the Committee’s passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Dodd chaired the mark-up of the legislation over the last two days. The bill passed out of the Committee by a vote of 15 to 8.

“For far too long the tobacco companies have been targeting our children. This bill will put an end to that. It represents an historic and long overdue victory for our nation’s children. This Congress has a moral obligation to act and the moment is now.”

More than 6 million children who are alive today will die from smoking, including 76,000 in Connecticut. This legislation provides the Food and Drug Administration with the authority to prevent the sale and marketing of tobacco to children, to require changes to cigarettes to make them less harmful and protect the public health, and to prevent tobacco companies from using misleading marketing practices to encourage tobacco use.

Source: Senator Chris Dodd