http://www.aegil.com/smoking.html

As the Anti-Smoking Lobby continues to intensify its insatiable agenda for a cigarette-free world, tobacco share prices on Wall Street keep on rising. It is November 1998, and negotiators for tobacco companies and eight states have just announced a massive anti-smoking settlement initiative that could cost the industry $206 billion over 25 years. "It’s a great day for attorneys general," says Christine Gregoire, attorney general for the state of Washington and the leader of the state negotiators. "Joe Camel and his ilk are in intensive care and will be gone by April." That same week, studies are released showing no significant decrease in the number of cigarette smokers in America.

"Our policies are working," insists Gregoire. On the outside, it sure seems like the Anti-Smoking Lobby is winning. In exchange for payments over 25 years, the states are dropping suits that posed an enormous legal and financial threat to the tobacco industry. In addition to paying the states, the tobacco companies will spend $1.7 billion to study youth smoking, finance antismoking advertising, and accept curbs on marketing practices. The Anti-Smoking Lobby wanted even more; their initial drive was for a Federal bill that would have cost the tobacco industry $516 billion in total. And they have made a promise to continue until cigarettes are a thing of the past.

But the Anti-Smoking Lobby has forgotten something very important. And that is, simply, that many people actually like to smoke cigarettes. In spite of the cost. In spite of the Surgeon General's warning. In spite of ads promoting or demoting the act. What Gregoire and others fail to realize is that they cannot force salvation on smokers, no matter how many legal victories they achieve against Big Tobacco. It is true that subverting the efforts of major corporations like Philip-Morris is difficult, but doing so is hardly a cause for celebration. That would assume that tobacco companies are responsible for the desire to smoke. But as America learned during the Prohibition Era, demand fuels supply, not the other way around.

Sins Should be Taxed: Such lessons are easily forgotten. Also in November Californian voters approved a ballot initiative that hits the tobacco industry with a stiff new tax. And Rob Reiner, the film director who organised the California ballot initiative, has suggested that other states may copy his initiative. Increase the costs, and people will just throw up their hands and stop, right? Well, it depends on how high you push them. Eventually, prices will be so steep that nobody can afford a smoking habit anymore. Until, of course, a black market develops. Right now, the cost of selling marjiuana in the open is a little higher than Philip Morris is willing to shoulder, so others do the deed. But if the Anti-Smoking Lobby succeeds, the same thing will happen to cigarettes. That gives Rob Riener and his crusaders a choice. He can either a) keep prices just below the breaking point, where people can afford cigarettes but at great personal expense, or b) push the market underground, so that nobody knows how much is really spent, or by whom. But the third option that he envisions is imaginary, much like his films. Nobody is going to stop smoking just because he wants them to.

Reality is Unacceptable: The past decade has shown that reality is not acceptable to the Anti-Smoking Lobby. Recently, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported what they termed an "alarming rise" in cigarette smoking among U.S. college students, despite the barrage of anti-tobacco data to which young people have been exposed. The findings were unsettling to the Anti-Smoking lobby because college students have traditionally smoked less than those less educated. But now, it is apparent that no matter how much social conditioning is administered, people will continue to choose according to their own preferences. According to the study, cigarette smoking has increased 28 percent among college students in four years.

The Anti-Smoking Lobby will not allow for this. After all, they have decided that they do not like cigarettes; so, nobody is going to like cigarettes. Even after the settlement victory, Bill Clinton joined others in urging Congress to pass national tobacco legislation that would give the government authority to regulate tobacco even further. "It is still up to Congress to act, to rise to its responsibility to pass national tobacco legislation", Clinton said. The Anti-Smoking Lobby and the Clinton Administration looked at the Harvard report and became even angrier -- not at their own failure, but at cigarette companies. They concluded that the large increase is attributable to youth-appeal cigarette advertising. The way they see it, cigarette companies keep winning because they use Joe Camel, which college-bound students clearly find more persuasive than education. And since education doesn't work, the only recourse is new prohibitions, regulations, taxes and more government spending.

Ah, government spending. As a result of the findings, Vice President Al Gore recently announced a series of steps to "help reduce" youth smoking, including $142 million in new federal research funds over five years. "Today’s steps will help us turn the tide on the tobacco epidemic," Gore said. By "turning the tide", he could not possibly mean reducing overall smoking, because the more government has spent, the larger Big Tobacco has become. More likely, "turning the tide" refers to the intensity of efforts, not results. The way Gore sees it, victory is achieved when spending rises, regardless of its impact. "Hey, at least we're trying", voices Rob Reiner, referring to his proposed increases in government taxation.

A Disturbing Trend: Unfortunately, these futile efforts come at an enormous social cost. Up until now, the most effective tool that the Anti-Smoking Lobby has used against the Tobacco Industry is the state lawsuit. Most of the "successful" lawsuits aimed at Big Tobacco have been brought by state attorneys general, not individual smokers. The Economist recently reported on the dangerous effects of these tactics: "American public officials have usurped democratic debate on both tobacco and handguns by launching a wave of lawsuits designed to win through legal threats what they have been unable to win in Congress and state legislatures -- stricter regulation and heavier taxation. This unjustified recourse to the courts, unique in the world, now poses a bigger threat to Americans than both tobacco and guns."

The Economist continues, "...using the courts to bully industries in this way is an abuse of the legal process and an evasion of democratic accountability. It promises to inflict on consumers, as well as companies, punitive levels of taxation and regulation which are not supported by most voters. Worse, if the tobacco and gun suits succeed, public officials eager to swell their budgets with huge legal payments will look for new targets. Alcohol, junk food, fast cars -- the list of potential victims is a long one. If legal extortion comes to replace the democratic process, everyone will suffer. A legal system which, despite its occasional excesses, enjoys the support of most Americans will be brought into disrepute. Any rational debate about balancing choice with risk will be abandoned as irrelevant. Legislation will be replaced by litigation, deliberation by legal threats."

Defiance in the Face of Truth: The tactics of the Anti-Smoking Lobby are not the only cause for concern. Even worse is the bogus nature of the lawsuits, which are filled with claims that Big Tobacco has cost the states money because of increased Medicare and Medicaid expenditures. This argument is riddled with flaws, and the Anti-Smoking Lobby is aware of them all. Most significant is the fact that because smokers die younger, they cost the public less than non-smokers, not more. If anything, cigarette companies should be demanding reimbursement for the savings. There are logical problems with the claims as well; for instance, why are cigarette companies held accountable for the consequence-free attitude of smokers, when it is the state that guarantees medical coverage for future health problems? If you give your daughter a credit card with no credit limit, and then she runs up a $5000 debt at the shopping mall, does it make sense to sue the department stores?

The tobacco companies are aware of the weak position of the state attorneys general. And for years, tobacco companies have defeated nearly all suits brought against them by private plaintiffs because juries took the reasonable view that the risks of cigarettes were well known. As unpopular as tobacco firms now are, they might also win the lawsuits being brought against them by the states. But with so many states arrayed against them, and with state attorneys-general threatening legal trench-warfare, each armed with a blank check backed by millions of taxpayers, cigarette makers have capitulated.

Perhaps worst of all, their settlement will be paid largely by smokers, not the companies’ shareholders. The public at large does not seem overly concerned, because most people do not smoke. But these tactics are now being applied to other industries, and sooner or later, the price of many products will reflect the settlements paid by companies over state lawsuits. If cigarettes are vulnerable, so are Twinkies and soda pop. If you think sin taxes have not been proposed on something you may have a use for, think again. Already, in direct imitation of the states’ anti-tobacco litigation, big-city mayors are now planning to use lawsuits to bring the gun industry to its knees. At a glitzy press conference on November 12th, Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, announced that his city had filed a $433 million suit against gun shops, manufacturers and distributors. Two weeks earlier, New Orleans filed a suit against gun manufacturers. Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco are expected to follow in the next few months. A group of mayors is discussing an even more ambitious plan for as many as 60 cities to file suits against the industry on the same day next year.

Villanizing Cartoons: Lawsuit settlements are only one aspect of the misguided, trend-setting Anti-Smoking Lobby agenda. They also want to limit advertising, but this has proven equally futile, and again, at great cost. This time, the price includes Freedom of Speech. The November tobacco settlement also includes prohibitions on advertising; specifically, tobacco companies may not use billboards, merchandise or cartoon characters as marketing vehicles. The idea is to protect the eyes and ears of vulnerable children.

But within days of news of the settlement, the media was already explaining the futility of the new prohibitions. The Street.com reported, "In an industry already adept at boosting its product, the ad bans are likely to spark a surge in promotional creativity." ABC News went further, "The United States need only look to other countries, which have paved the way in creative loopholes around cigarette advertising restrictions. After Canada’s 1989 ban, the industry sponsored jazz festivals, tennis and golf tournaments, car races, comedy shows, even fireworks displays. In European nations that ban tobacco ads, the companies have gone so far as entering other businesses so they can keep their brand names before the public, selling Marlboro and Camel watches and opening "Marlboro Country" travel agencies." According to former cigarette company ad agent Ken Harris, "Unless you make tobacco usage illegal," controlling cigarette advertising "is like grabbing ahold of a puddle of water."

All About Money: Individual lawsuits are yet another tactic. America's lawsuit industry has been overcome with excitement of late with the successful case of Patricia Henley, 52, a former smoker with inoperable lung cancer who sought $15 million in punitive damages from Philip Morris. The jury, however, awarded $50 million, plus $1.5 million in compensatory damages. Jury foreman George Loudis said some jurors wanted to go even higher. "I accused a lot of them toward the end of losing touch with reality," he said. "One woman said she contemplated $1 billion ... I mean the numbers just flowed out of their mouths." Analysts say other smokers may be quick to head to court, seeking outragous sums of money, especially in tobacco-conscious California.

All over the nation, law firms and smokers are tripping over themselves in an absolute frenzy to team up, in order to feast on the spoils of potential victim awards. Lawyers in the more than 850 pending suits against tobacco companies now have warehouses full of industry documents at their disposal, thanks to state attorneys general who provide the evidence they gathered over the years for free. This guarantees more settlements and lawsuit victories, a major cause for concern for Big Tobacco, especially given that America's legal system is notorious for its excesses. To make matters worse, these excesses have, over time, become all but institutionalized. Rather than recognize a public backlash against the epidemic, America's Congress has defeated all recent proposals to place limits on settlement awards. The lawmakers who criticized unreasonable lawsuits against corporations were seen as defending the rich, a social faux pas, and certainly politically incorrect. Today, the nation's best Law Schools go so far as to teach the operating principle of excess: that the entity with the deepest pockets is to blame, not the actual perpetrator.

The Henley ruling, delivered in a San Francisco courtroom, came just three months after the industry reached a multibillion-dollar settlement with dozens of states in November. But the climate for tobacco lawsuits may be most favorable in California, which was among the first states to ban smoking in some public areas and has run an extensive campaign of public service ads warning of smoking dangers. "That's the irony of this jury's verdict," says Bill Ohlemeyer, an attorney for Philip Morris. "California, even before other states and the federal government, back in the 1950s, had anti-smoking programs. It's hard to believe that ordinary people weren't aware of the risks of smoking."

It All Boils Down to This: Together with recent policy changes, the Anti-Smoking Lobby has now managed to achieve four major victories: a) Show people that they can punish others for their own lack of foresight, and best of all, get rich quick in the process; b) Initiate a policy of forcing companies to agressively advertise the drawbacks of using their own products; c) Show that freedom of speech means the freedom to say what society approves and only where it sees fit; and d) Spend billions of public money on an education campaign, thus transforming the unimpressive cigarette into the Forbidden Fruit. And then look at what the Anti-Smoking Lobby has not achieved. It has done nothing to reduce the number of people who choose to smoke in our society. In fact the numbers are increasing. Meanwhile, the lessons learned during the Prohibition Era ring faintly in the distance.

Yet the Anti-Smoking Lobby persists. In fact, with each sequential failure comes a "wake-up call" to invest even more public resources into the failure effort. It is analogous to a dog, chasing its tail; the faster the tail escapes, the faster the dog spins. The previously cited Harvard report went on to make suggestions: "The national debate on smoking policies, which has focused mainly on youth younger than 18 years, should be expanded to include the college-aged population, whose future health should be a national priority". In other words, let's treat adults like children too.

The message of the Anti-Smoking Lobby is clear: If we cannot persuade you to stop, we will make you stop. At all costs. Perhaps it would be instructive to look at it from their perspective. What is the first step that needs to be taken? After all, they way they see it, cigarettes are objectively bad. They cause lung cancer. Of course, the over-consumption of anything can lead to health problems, but unlike sodium, caffeine, carbonated beverages, sugar, saturated fat, artficial sweeteners and cholesterol, the Anti-Smoking Lobby does not have a personal stake in the freedom to consume nicotine, so it becomes evil. Those who "enjoy" it are clearly delusional victims of a massive Philip-Morris marketing campaign. Smoking is just plain wrong, and since most people do not like cigarettes, our democratic government can officially *make* them wrong.

The Anti-Smoking Lobby is not dissuaded by the notion that if you treat people like children, then they will become children. They probably know that if you make enough decisions for people, the people will soon become incapable of making decisions for themselves. Indeed, that is exactly what they want. A society where the masses are led by an elite society of academics and enlightened government bodies. Ultimately, the preferences of the Anti-Smoking Lobby will be imposed at all costs. Few will benefit, but Al Gore, Rob Reiner and Christine Gregoire are determined to be heralded as victors for victory's sake. Maybe they can add another public recognition award to their plaque collection and a piece of legislation to their resume. But if you think that the Anti-Smoking Lobby will reduce smoking in America, look at the War on Drugs, and remember the Prohibition Era.

Demand fuels supply, not the other way around.