For roughly half a century, denial about the dangers of smoking has driven U.S. policy. Thus, it seemed almost sudden, and certainly strange, that both houses of Congress last week passed a law that, for the first time, would allow regulation of tobacco products through the federal Food and Drug Administration. President Obama, a smoker who has struggled to quit, signed the bill on Monday.

Until now, the safety of eyeliner and cream rinse attracted more regulatory zeal than tobacco products. Yet nicotine, their chief ingredient, is one of the most addictive substances known. Smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption kill roughly 400,000 Americans a year. It’s an expensive habit too, annually costing the health-care system about $100 billion. But it also brings in much tax revenue –– another reason why politicians have found it tough to fight.

Over the past decade, the tobacco industry put up a fierce fight against regulation. The turning point may have come when, in congressional hearings, it became clear that company chieftains were blatantly lying to the public about what their own research showed. It is one thing for smokers to deceive themselves about their habits. But it is quite another when the deception comes from a multibillion-dollar industry intent on maintaining profits.

As a practical matter, it helped that the largest U.S. manufacturer, Philip Morris (now owned by Altria Group), said it would not resist FDA regulation. Because of the new law’s emphasis on limiting advertising, rival manufacturers complain that Philip Morris’s strategy is simply to lock in its market share. Yet while that may be true, the act’s restrictions on advertising are bound to draw a court challenge. The future may be less locked in than it looks.

Happily, at least in the short term, manufacturers will not be able to use such deceptive terms as “light” and “low tar” to describe their products. And outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds will end. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act does not let the FDA ban nicotine outright. But the agency will have the power to reduce the amount of it and other chemicals in cigarettes.

Given how deadly tobacco products are known to be, an outright ban on smoking may seem less hypocritical than regulation. But it would have been politically impossible to achieve. And in any case, it would have simply driven smokers into an underground black market.

Though it has taken a long time, social attitudes toward tobacco use in this country have changed. Today, just one American in five smokes. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that, over the next decade, the new law will cut youth smoking by 11 percent and adult smoking by about 2 percent. It may not be perfection, but it certainly sounds like progress.