The strategy behind the proposed federal regulations is to stop young people before they get hooked. According to the Food and Drug Administration, the average teen smoker picks up the habit at about age 14. Public health officials believe the habit causes more than 400,000 deaths in the United States alone every year.
Many doctors treating patients hooked on cigarettes agree.
However, conservative critics suggest the Clinton Administration's approach may put tobacco on the slipper slope towards a new Prohibition. The FDA might not decide to absolutely prohibit cigarette manufacture and sales under that rule, but lawsuits might force them to do so. Some scientists have suggested that it's possible to make a safer cigarette, or that nicotine levels could be reduced over a period of time, making tobacco less addictive. Instead, the FDA has chosen what amounts to a preventive strategy. The FDA hopes to reduce the number of young smokers by half in seven years.