Political Quotes

“a number of my colleagues came to the floor yesterday to speak about the FDA's failure to release the tobacco deeming rule and the delays that have occurred with respect to that rule. As difficult as the American people may find it to understand why there are these delays in issuing a rule that protects our citizens against tobacco use--most particularly our children--we should all understand that these rules have real-life consequences. Tobacco, in fact, is the leading cause of preventable death. In this Nation, tobacco use kills more than half a million people every year. Most smokers and tobacco users begin as children, many under the age of 10. Each day, more than 3,200 people younger than 18 years old smoke their first cigarette, and the consequences are inevitable. Thousands of them will die early in life. Cigarettes are the only product in the world that, when used as the manufacturer intends it, kills the customer. If smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youth, 5.6 million of them are expected to die prematurely from smoking-related illness. Tobacco use is a path to addiction and disease, and it is a public health epidemic. Yet laws that protect the public, laws that forbid marketing to children, laws that are designed to uphold the public trust have been unimplemented. My fight against Big Tobacco began in the 1990s, when I was attorney general of the State of Connecticut.…”