Byron Dorgan: “The point here is about trying to prevent children from smoking in this country and trying to prevent the tobacco…”

“The point here is about trying to prevent children from smoking in this country and trying to prevent the tobacco industry from targeting kids with their tobacco products. That is not rocket science. We can do that. The piece of legislation that is before the Senate is a good piece of legislation which has a series of things in it which are very important--smoking cessation programs, counteradvertising programs, prohibitions against advertising in ways that will target children, getting rid of vending machines in areas where children have access to cigarettes--a whole series of things that try to make certain that in the future we will not have the tobacco industry able to target kids to addict them to cigarettes. We know every day 3,000 kids start smoking in this country. We know 1,000 of those 3,000 will die. We know 300,000 to 400,000 people in this country die every year from smoking and smoking-related causes. We also know that smoking cigarettes and the use of tobacco products is legal for adults and will always remain legal.”