Angie Craig: “why have we spent the last 3 days on the floor talking about tobacco? Nearly everyone who has come to the floor to talk…”

“why have we spent the last 3 days on the floor talking about tobacco? Nearly everyone who has come to the floor to talk about tobacco has said we have to get it out of the hands of teenagers. There are two reasons we are on the floor talking about tobacco. First of all, it is darn good politics, and, secondly, we are mad at the tobacco companies and we are going to act in a very punitive fashion because they lied to us. They withheld information as to the addictiveness of nicotine, and we are angry as a public, angry as a governing body. We are going to inflict upon them a very punitive action, and we are going to do it in the name of teenagers--thousands of young people every day picking up a cigarette. I am not belittling it, I am recognizing it. We need to try to get tobacco and the substance within it, nicotine, out of the hands of our teenagers. But thousands of teenagers today who start smoking today will not die tomorrow. Let me repeat that. The thousands of teenagers that we are all talking about--and, boy, have we heard it on the floor in the last few days--who pick up a cigarette today will not die tomorrow. Mr. President, young people who engage in the use of drugs can die tomorrow. As my colleague from Georgia said, thousands are dying each year in violent actions and crimes related to drug use and drug associations. Yet, we stand silently by.…”