Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 200.0

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Unit: $U36

[09-26-01 08:36:38] PAGES PGT: OPIN

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

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Opinion of the Court

Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves one of the most troubling public health
problems facing our Nation today: the thousands of prema-
ture deaths that occur each year because of tobacco use.
In
1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), after having
expressly disavowed any such authority since its inception,
asserted jurisdiction to regulate tobacco products. See 61
Fed. Reg. 44619–45318. The FDA concluded that nicotine is
a “drug” within the meaning of the Food, Drug, and Cos-
metic Act (FDCA or Act), 52 Stat. 1040, as amended, 21
U. S. C. § 301 et seq., and that cigarettes and smokeless to-
bacco are “combination products” that deliver nicotine to the
61 Fed. Reg. 44397 (1996). Pursuant to this author-
body.
ity, it promulgated regulations intended to reduce tobacco
consumption among children and adolescents.
Id., at 44615–
44618. The agency believed that, because most tobacco
consumers begin their use before reaching the age of 18,
curbing tobacco use by minors could substantially reduce
the prevalence of addiction in future generations and thus
the incidence of tobacco-related death and disease.
Id., at
44398–44399.

Regardless of how serious the problem an administrative
agency seeks to address, however, it may not exercise its
authority “in a manner that is inconsistent with the adminis-
trative structure that Congress enacted into law.” ETSI
Pipeline Project v. Missouri, 484 U. S. 495, 517 (1988). And
although agencies are generally entitled to deference in the
interpretation of statutes that they administer, a reviewing
“court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unam-

College of Chest Physicians by Raymond D. Cotton; and for Public Citizen,
Inc., et al. by Allison M. Zieve, Alan B. Morrison, and David C. Vladeck.
Briefs of amici curiae urging afﬁrmance were ﬁled for the Paciﬁc Legal
Foundation by Anne M. Hayes and M. Reed Hopper; for the Product Lia-
bility Advisory Council, Inc., by Kenneth S. Geller; and for the Washington
Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp.