Comment-20157-Gary Valasek

Further interest to the general public (and to propel such rulemaking to a more transparent, accountable, and expeditious conclusion) would be to disclose how close an association is this Cannabis smoke compared to the smoke generated by regular tobacco (e.g. the combustion of such plants in the Nicotiana genus and the Solanaceae family). Even a chart comparing the two in a line-item-by-characteristic-line-item fashion would prove overwhelming to the common bystander. Also consider “The Health Consequences of Smoking - 50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General” a 1081-page document at
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK179276/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK179276.pdf ;
Wherein, the following admonition was given by then the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius:
“Fifty years after the release of the first Surgeon General’s report warning of the health hazards of smoking, we have learned how to end the tobacco epidemic. Over the past five decades, scientists, researchers and policy makers have determined what works, and what steps must be taken if we truly want to bring to a close one of our nation’s most tragic battles—one that has killed ten times the number of Americans who died in all of our nation’s wars combined. In the United States, successes in tobacco control have more than halved smoking rates since the 1964 landmark Surgeon General’s report came out. Americans’ collective view of smoking has been transformed from an accepted national pastime to a discouraged threat to individual and public health. Strong policies have largely driven cigarette smoking out of public view and public air space. Thanks to smokefree laws, no longer is smoking allowed on airplanes or in a growing number of restaurants, bars, college campuses and government buildings. Evidence in this new report shows tobacco’s continued, immense burden to our nation—and how essential ending the tobacco epidemic is to our work to increase the life expectancy and quality of life of all Americans. This year alone, nearly one-half million adults will still die prematurely because of smoking. Annually, the total economic costs due to tobacco are now over $289 billion. And if we continue on our current trajectory, 5.6 million children alive today who are younger than 18 years of age will die prematurely as a result of smoking. I believe that we can make the next generation tobacco-free. And I am extremely proud of the Obama Administration’s tobacco-control record. For example, the 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act included an unprecedented $0.62 tax increase that raised the federal excise tax to $1.01 per pack of cigarettes; we know that increasing the cost of cigarettes is one of the most powerful interventions we can make to prevent smoking and reduce prevalence. Building on this knowledge, the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget includes a $0.94 per pack Federal tobacco tax increase. For the first time in history, the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comprehensive authority to regulate tobacco products, which will play a critical role in reducing the harm caused by these products. The Tobacco Control Act also provided for user fees to be paid by tobacco manufacturers that can support sustained public education media campaigns targeting youth prevention and cessation. The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) expands access to smoking cessation services and now requires most insurance companies to cover cessation treatments. The Affordable Care Act’s Public Health and Prevention Fund is supporting innovative and effective community-based programs as well as public education campaigns promoting prevention and helping people to quit. All of these tobacco control interventions are known to reduce tobacco use and, as a result, tobacco’s extraordinary toll of death and disease. But in order to free the next generation from these burdens, we must redouble our tobacco control efforts and enlist nongovernmental partners—and society as a whole—to share in this responsibility. Ending the devastation of tobacco-related illness and death is not in the jurisdiction of any one entity. We must all share in this most worthwhile effort to end the tobacco epidemic.”