President Barack Obama on Monday signed into law legislation that gives the U.S. government broad regulatory power for the first time over cigarettes and other tobacco products. Obama said the law would limit the ability of tobacco companies to market their products to children. “It will force these companies to more clearly and publicly acknowledge the harmful and deadly effects of the products they sell,” he said at the White House. The law was the culmination of a decade-long battle by anti-tobacco forces in Congress to put cigarettes under the control of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The legislation allows the FDA to put strict new limits on the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products but does not ban cigarettes or their addictive ingredient, nicotine. Nearly 20 percent of Americans smoke, and tobacco use kills about 440,000 people annually due to cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other illnesses.
