WASHINGTON, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The Toxic-Tobacco Law Coalition announced today that the current issue of the Journal of Public Health Policy (Winter 1999;20(4):394-407) contains an article entitled ``The Toxic-Tobacco Law: 'Appropriate Remedial Actio

The article describes for the first time the Toxic-Tobacco Law (the Law), proposed federal legislation, that would ban corporations in the U.S. from making, marketing, and importing all toxic-tobacco products such as cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. The Law would go into effect 20 years after passage, giving all stakeholders, for instance, farmers, consumers and excise tax recipients (e.g., state governments) time to adjust. Adult consumers would be ``free'' to obtain toxic-tobacco from their usual sources during the 20-year adjustment period. After that, adults would be ``free'' to use products they import or have stored. Also under consideration as part of the proposed Law are ``federal stores'' from which adults could buy products. The Toxic-Tobacco Law will end the massive presence of toxic-tobacco in American society, thus reducing the addiction of children and its subsequent devastating health consequences such as lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema. The purpose of the journal article is to expand the debate on how to reduce the enormous negative health consequence of toxic-tobacco by presenting (a) arguments for passing the Law, (b) pros and cons of the 20-year adjustment period, (c) differences between the Law and Prohibition and (d) alternative legal remedies for ending the massive presence of toxic-tobacco products in American society. This article is the first to describe the Toxic-Tobacco Law in a mainstream public health or medical journal. The ``after the colon clause'' in the title of the article comes from the classic 1964 Surgeon General's Report that concluded, ``cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action.'' Terence A. Gerace, Ph.D., National Coordinator of the Toxic-Tobacco Law Coalition and Adjunct Research Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Miami School of Medicine (FL) authored the article. The Toxic-Tobacco Law Coalition, headquartered in Washington, DC as of November 21, 1999, is a national grass-roots movement aimed at urging the Congress and President to pass the Toxic-Tobacco Law. The Coalition is open to all persons or organizations that support this aim.

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