International trade challenges to effective tobacco regulation

State policymakers have been on the cutting edge of tobacco regulation, and continue to be the first line of defense addressing evolving tobacco threats including marketing tactics, electronic cigarettes, and hookahs. States have a long history of forward-looking tobacco policies; indeed, 46 states and 5 territories sued the tobacco industry and entered into the global settlement that provides ongoing funding to state tobacco cessation and prevention efforts, and provides the regulatory framework for FDA's regulation of tobacco. Yet state regulators and policymakers are the last to be consulted by U.S trade negotiators intent on “opening up markets” for the tobacco industry. The United States is currently negotiating two sweeping free trade agreements, one with Pacific Rim nations (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the other with the European Union (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). These treaties will create the two largest trading blocs in the world, and US negotiators are seeking provisions that lower tobacco tariffs and provide opportunities for tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers and purveyors to challenge state, local and federal tobacco control regulations in private arbitration panels on the grounds that these regulations restrict trade and expropriate property.  This presentation will explain the threat to tobacco control posed by trade policy, and identify ways that state and local health advocates, regulators and providers can influence the federal trade negotiation process to insure that tobacco regulation is carved out of these trade agreements and protected from trade-based corporate challenges.