-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, if you look at the marketing plan of Big Tobacco in America over the last half-century, it is very obvious: Tobacco companies sell an addictive product. There is a chemical included in the tobacco--nicotine--which is highly addictive. To be successful, they have to convince people to take up smoking, even though it is dangerous to their health and is a product that is difficult to quit. How do they achieve that goal? They prey on children, and they always have. Kids start smoking at an early age, and if the tobacco companies have their way, it leads to an addiction for a lifetime--a compromise on a person's health and even their death.

Over the years, I have done battle with Big Tobacco. The first, I guess, exchange was over banning smoking on airplanes. It seems so long ago, but we were successful, and we really changed the national conversation on tobacco. More and more people became sensitive to the fact that tobacco companies were, in fact, exploiting our children, addicting them to their product, and steps were taken at every level-- local, State, and Federal--to stop that from happening, and it worked. The number of children in America who are addicted to tobacco-related products began to decline precipitously.

Big Tobacco was in a panic. They were losing their market share. Kids weren't taking up tobacco smoking the way they had in the past, and so they devised and invented new products. The most obvious one, I want to address this morning: e-cigarettes, vaping.

The nicotine inside these vaping devices is the same nicotine as in the tobacco cigarette, and it is just as addictive. Where have these companies directed their marketing? To children. Once again, to children.

We believe that 2 million or more children in America are currently using vaping products and e-cigarettes. Many of them believe that they are harmless, that they cause no damage to you from a health viewpoint. These children are wrong.

The Agency that is responsible for regulating this product--vaping products, e-cigarettes--is the Food and Drug Administration. They have written a sad and sorry record when it comes to regulation of this deadly product.

Over the years, we have begged them, pleaded with them, argued with them over why they didn't show more leadership in banning this product from the shelves across America because so many children were becoming addicted. It reached the point where a Federal court--after years of delay by the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ordered the Food and Drug Administration to finally begin regulating these addictive, kid-friendly vaping products, giving a deadline of September 9, 2021, to finalize review of e- cigarette applications.

You see, the law requires the company to prove that the product is not dangerous to the public health before it can be marketed. The FDA really dropped its guard and allowed them to sell the product without that proof, and it took a Federal court setting a deadline to get the FDA back into the business of regulating this deadly product that was addicting millions of children across America.

I have had my ups and downs with the Food and Drug Administration over this issue. I think they could have been much more aggressive. They could have protected more children. But, unfortunately, they did not. During the entire Trump administration, we backpedaled, came up with excuses, did nothing, and so vaping products became more prolific across America, and more children became addicted.

Now we have a new head of the FDA, Dr. Califf. We had our back-and- forth exchanges over this issue, and I made it very clear to him that there was no possible explanation or justification for not regulating this product when the lives and health of so many children were at stake. As I said, we had our good days and bad days in that exchange.

I am happy to report that the Food and Drug Administration has announced this morning a dramatic, historic step forward to protect the children across America from e-cigarette and vaping products. They are finally--finally, the FDA is starting actions to remove from the shelves products produced by the JUUL company--J-U-U-L, JUUL company-- that, in fact, endanger our children. This is long overdue.

You won't be surprised to learn that Big Tobacco has a major investment in these companies. They believe this is the future, their new product that they can addict children with--the nicotine--and hook them, perhaps for life, on their products.

The Food and Drug Administration has taken a bold step today. It is going to be a battle royal in court--you can just bet on it--but finally they have stood up and said they are ready and prepared for the battle. I want to join them in that effort.

I also want to say that taking these products off the shelves across America will invite the possibility of contraband or black market sales. We are calling on all those entities which could supply those black market products, including internet sources, to stand up for children across America and join the FDA in stopping the sale of these products.

We estimated that if the Food and Drug Administration did not take action to do this today, did not initiate this effort to stop the sale of this product, we know more children would be addicted. As many as 750,000 to a million children have started since the FDA defied a court deadline in September. That just gives you an idea of the reach of this product and how serious it is.

If you don't know the story behind e-cigarettes and vaping, ask a high school student in America. If that doesn't work, ask their parents when they discover that their kids are addicted to these products. They are innocuous-looking little delivery systems that look like they belong in a computer, while they end up damaging the health of children and people across the United States.

When I spoke to Dr. Califf this morning and he told me about this historic announcement by the Food and Drug Administration, he made it clear that tobacco and smoking and nicotine products were a major threat to the health of children across this country and to Americans. Tobacco regulation, as he noted, is a major step forward in reducing the number of cancer deaths in America and heart disease. It is still a problem. It is still a challenge. And Big Tobacco and their new Big Vaping allies are determined to once again get their hooks in our kids at an early age.

I am heartened by this decision by the Food and Drug Administration. They are in for a legal battle, for sure, but it is worth the effort.

In the end, make sure that you come down on the side of children when we are talking about tobacco and nicotine. It is an issue that I have been involved in for years. I see the Senator from Oregon on the floor, and I know that he was involved in the House of Representatives and in the Senate in the same battle. But our efforts against vaping and e- cigarettes are going to mean that children have a healthier life and better future.

I commend the Food and Drug Administration for this decision removing JUUL products from the shelves of America, and I hope we can do more.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. this morning.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source