More than a decade after being first proposed, and millions of tobacco-related deaths later, FDA regulation of tobacco is close to becoming a reality. Bi-partisan legislation co-sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman and Todd Platts is currently on the floor of the House that, if passed, would give the FDA the authority to oversee and regulate tobacco marketing and sales in the U.S.

Nationally, there are more than 400,000 tobacco-related deaths annually in the U.S. and every day 3,000 teens who try cigarettes and become permanent smokers. That is why members of both parties, the President and, most importantly, the overwhelming majority of the American public believe The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act is a necessary step to reduce smoking among all Americans and prevent a new generation of American from becoming enslaved to the lethal tobacco addiction.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, on the other hand would establish effective FDA regulation of tobacco products would protect children, improve health and save lives in North Carolina and across the nation.

"The Waxman-Platts bill needs to pass and it needs to pass now," said American Thoracic Society President-elect J. Randall Curtis, M.D., M.P.H., who is a professor of medicine and public health at the department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington…