RALEIGH — Amid the federal government’s efforts to extend its reach — in health care, the environment, and financial services — you might be forgiven for not noticing that in June President Obama signed “The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” into law.
The bill allows the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of tobacco — essentially banning most flavored cigarettes, prohibiting the use of terms like “light,” restricting advertising, and forcing the use of larger and more dramatic health warning labels. It represents the culmination of a decades-long effort by liberals to control the tobacco industry.
There was, of course, opposition from the North Carolina congressional delegation. Republican Sen. Richard Burr was a particularly vocal opponent. From Winston-Salem, the home of R.J. Reynolds, Burr has worked hard for more than a decade to improve the FDA’s regulation of food and medical products and accelerate the rate at which it allows drugs to be made available to the public. Burr contends the new law will erode the agency’s ability to perform these critical tasks.
Burr’s colleague in the Senate, Democrat Kay Hagan, was a less-prominent opponent, but joined with him to sponsor alternative legislation. Together they pushed a bill that would have allowed regulation of tobacco by a new agency in the Department of Health and Human Services.
All the state’s House Republicans voted against the bill, as did three Democrats: Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, and Heath Shuler. But the five other House Democrats from our state voted in favor, including Bob Etheridge, a former tobacco farmer and the representative of Harnett, Johnston, Nash, and much of Sampson counties — four of the biggest producers of the crop in the state.
I’m also quite confident Hagan would have toed the Democrats’ line if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., really had needed her support. Instead, she was allowed by her party to cast a vote that might provide useful cover the next time she faces the electorate.
The bill’s passage and the emerging cleavage among North Carolina federal lawmakers is part of a bad summer for tobacco in this state. In May, Gov. Beverly Perdue signed into law a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants that will take effect next year. Democrats in the General Assembly just enacted a 10-cent-per-pack increase in the state’s cigarette tax — Perdue herself suggested an increase as large as $1 a pack in the spring.
This is all very revealing. Tobacco once had significant influence in the state’s politics. In 1964, it accounted for two-thirds of the state’s total farm revenue, and its growing and manufacturing generated 11.3 percent of gross state product. It had friends and supporters in both parties and in all offices. The state’s delegation fought in unison against mandatory health warning labels and the ban on television and radio advertising signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969.
Today, tobacco’s political sway has diminished dramatically. Clearly it no longer can count on support from the state’s Democrats. The big-time lobbyists at the General Assembly now represent government employees, lawyers, banks, utilities, pork producers, developers, and hospitals. The media and most politicians now frame the issue as one of protecting public health, rather than supporting agriculture and the economy. Tobacco can only play defense, engaging in a strategy to stave off regulation and more taxation.
Much of tobacco’s political decline is attributable to economic issues. It now generates only 15 percent of the state’s farm revenue and about 3 percent of gross state product. It employs roughly 34,000 people, a loss of 10,000 from 1996 alone. Only about 3,000 farms retain licenses to grow flue-cured tobacco after the 2004 federal buyout legislation; there were 26,000 before.
Where does North Carolina tobacco go from here? It’s in retreat, to be sure. But it is not dead, at least not as an economic force. Nearly half of U.S. tobacco was grown here in 2008, and Reynolds, Lorillard, and Philip Morris continue their contribution to the state’s development.
Tobacco will survive, as all businesses must in today’s global economy, by broadening its horizons. In 2007, $573 million of North Carolina tobacco was shipped abroad. The number is growing. There is stiff competition, especially from the Chinese, but so long as the dollar does not get too strong and foreigners maintain their taste for the golden leaf, Tar Heel tobacco will survive.
Andy Taylor is Professor and Chair of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs at N.C. State University.