Abstract

In 2009, amidst much fanfare, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was given the authority to regulate tobacco products when Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Ostensibly, the Act provided the FDA with the legal authority to regulate the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products. There was a frisson of hope in some circles that at last, the process begun in the 1990s when David Kessler first attempted to regulate tobacco and was legally stymied by an industry lawsuit would finally come to fruition—and the makers of the world's most deadly consumer products would be brought to heel in the interest of consumer protection. In practice, however, …