The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) just released a document titled “Enforcement Action Plan for Promotion & Advertising Restrictions” that details the agency’s strategy to gain compliance with tobacco promotional and advertising regulations and the prohibition on the sale of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to underage youth, reported the NATO E-News Bulletin. It affects manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The action plan will use “tobacco marketing surveillance” on a routine basis to monitor and evaluate promotional and advertising materials in print media and retail point-of-sale (POS) displays. It will also conduct compliance checks with an underage minor to attempt to purchase cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products. A state agency under contract with the FDA will conduct the compliance checks either in addition to other state mandated retail compliance checks or in place of … Read entire article »

The watchdog group Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) today launched an initiative to bring sunlight and transparency to the Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco advisory committee examining the potential regulatory efforts surrounding menthol cigarettes, dissolvable tobacco products and other issues.  As to the broader issue of governance, the tobacco advisory committee is an operating arm of FDA, not an ad hoc committee of experts who render advice on select issues assigned by a regulatory agency and as such should be transparent and accountable to the public. Through the launch of a new Web-based Interactive Public Docket (IPD), members of the public will now be able to voice their support or concern about the work of a government panel that is currently looking into the regulation of tobacco products. The IPD will … Read entire article »