Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 266.0

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 120 (2000)

191

Breyer, J., dissenting

mocracy. And such a review will take place whether it is
the Congress or the Executive Branch that makes the rele-
vant decision.

*

*

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According to the FDA, only 2.5% of smokers successfully
stop smoking each year, even though 70% say they want to
quit and 34% actually make an attempt to do so. See 61
Fed. Reg. 44704 (1996) (citing Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, Cigarette Smoking Among Adults—United
States, 1993; 43 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 929
(Dec. 23, 1994)). The fact that only a handful of those who
try to quit smoking actually succeed illustrates a certain re-
ality—the reality that the nicotine in cigarettes creates a
powerful physiological addiction ﬂowing from chemically in-
duced changes in the brain. The FDA has found that the
makers of cigarettes “intend” these physical effects. Hence,
nicotine is a “drug”; the cigarette that delivers nicotine to
the body is a “device”; and the FDCA’s language, read in
light of its basic purpose, permits the FDA to assert the
disease-preventing jurisdiction that the agency now claims.
The majority ﬁnds that cigarettes are so dangerous that
the FDCA would require them to be banned (a result the
majority believes Congress would not have desired); thus, it
I
concludes that the FDA has no tobacco-related authority.
disagree that the statute would require a cigarette ban.
But even if I am wrong about the ban, the statute would
restrict only the agency’s choice of remedies, not
its
jurisdiction.

The majority also believes that subsequently enacted stat-
utes deprive the FDA of jurisdiction. But the later laws say
next to nothing about the FDA’s tobacco-related authority.
Previous FDA disclaimers of jurisdiction may have helped to
form the legislative atmosphere out of which Congress’ own
tobacco-speciﬁc statutes emerged. But a legislative atmos-
phere is not a law, unless it is embodied in a statutory word
or phrase. And the relevant words and phrases here reveal