Regulatory Strategy Project

The Regulatory Strategy Project is an internal Philip Morris project that started circa 1999 to enact U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on the company's own terms.

Philip Morris traditionally has strongly opposed regulation of cigarettes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until 1997, after which time PM completely reversed itself and started aggressively seeking FDA regulation on its own terms. PM called the effort its Regulatory Strategy Project. PM's Core Principles of regulation (what it would accept and what it would not) were laid out in 1999 and included preventing FDA from requiring unpalatable modifications to cigarettes, preventing FDA from banning cigarettes, keeping FDA from regulating marketing and sales by using the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement as a shield, attempting to include an element of state preemption in the regulations and appearing to regulators and the public to want to "Focus on dialogue rather than present specific proposals." Despite wanting to appear as though it was not presenting specific proposals, Mark Berlind of PM commissioned the industry law firm of Arnold & Porter to draft PM's favored proposed FDA legislation. The Arnold and Porter draft contained all of PM's core principles

Related Sourcewatch resources

 * The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
 * Matt Myers
 * Project Sunrise
 * Anti-Tobacco Industry Plan
 * Mark Berlind

External resources

 * Senator Reveals Philip Morris Co-Authored FDA Tobacco Bill
 * Fact Sheet on the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
 * Enzi: Peace Treaty with Philip Morris No Way to Win War on Tobacco TradingMarkets.com, May 21, 2009 (says Philip Morris was a co-author of FDA tobacco legislation)
 * Richard Craver Deep Look: Author's book delves into 'unholy alliance' between Philip Morris, FDA, JournalNow.com, June 7, 2009