What is the Tobacco Control Act?
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) became law on June 22, 2009. It gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health. For more information about the Tobacco Control Act, visit the FDA Center for Tobacco Products site:
Overview of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Frequently Asked Questions on the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA), updated October 2010
Public Health Objectives of the Tobacco Control Act
To help make tobacco-related death and disease a part of America’s past, not its future, CTP is committed to educating the public–especially young people–about the harms of tobacco products, keeping tobacco products out of the hands of America’s youth, and dramatically reducing the appeal of these deadly products. Everything CTP does is designed to reduce the impact of tobacco on public health, including our top three goals to:
- Prevent Americans–especially youth–from starting to use tobacco
- Encourage current users to quit
- Decrease the harms of tobacco product use
Timeframe to Enact Law
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) is an important piece of legislation with many requirements. FDA has prepared a scrolling timeline to help you identify some of the key milestones.
HTML version of scrolling timeline
Disclaimer
This timeline is not a complete summary of the law. It is very important to note that in order to understand the full context of each section described below, you must read the actual section of the Tobacco Control Act. To help you do that, for each section described, we provide the section number of the Act.
Please note: For an action that has already happened, we show the actual date it was completed. For an action that will happen in the future, we show the upcoming date. Some of the dates shown below are different from the dates contained in the Tobacco Control Act. This is because the dates in these sections were changed in accordance with section 6 of the Tobacco Control Act.
FDA Center for Tobacco Products
The Center for Tobacco Products (the Center) oversees the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Some of the Center’s responsibilities under the law include setting performance standards, reviewing premarket applications for new and modified risk tobacco products, requiring new warning labels, and establishing and enforcing advertising and promotion restrictions.
For more information about the Center, visit the Center’s website or view the fact sheet.