MAKE "WAR ON DRUGS" A WAR ON TOBACCO

The president and the Congress have allocated over a billion dollars
more to beef up our war on the drug dealers and growers in Colombia.
These unconscionable people are growing and distributing cocaine and
heroin to the world. This is killing several thousand people every
year in our country, who die quick-but-painful overdose deaths. We
must stamp out this scourge!

This same Congress provides price supports for tobacco growers in our
own country, who grow a product that kills over 400,000 Americans each
year - who die slow, painful deaths from cancer, emphysema and heart
disease. My sister and brother were two of these people.

The tobacco industry, from farmer to retailer, [is] moaning and
groaning over the harsh action of the Florida jury in awarding $145
billion in punitive damages against the major tobacco companies. They
say that amount could put them out of business! That would be
terrible, right? If there were no cigarettes, 400,000 Americans might
live lives of normal duration.

The tobacco companies knew they were in trouble several years ago.
That's when they stepped up their export advertising campaigns to the
Third World, the Far East and South America. They didn't want to go
out of business, just because many of us are beginning to get smart.
So what if they kill a couple of million foreigners; it's good
business, right?

Tobacco has killed more people than died in World War II, and we
thought that Hitler was a very bad guy. Talk about crimes of genocide
in Bosnia, Kosovo or Iraq - hey, these guys were pikers. Our tobacco
CEOs kill more people in one month than died in all three of those
conflicts put together, and they are pillars in the cathedral of Free
Enterprise. They know they are killing people - not for religion or
patriotism or some misguided political ethnic-cleansing reason, but
for money!

Now they have smart legal advisors who have promised to pay the states
and others compensation over a 25-year period. That makes the states
partners to the continuation of this extermination. The state
treasurers are salivating at this annual windfall. The states very
much want the tobacco companies to stay in their killing business, but
- with higher-priced cigarettes - get the addicted and the young to
pay the tab. If we could remove illness and hospital care for these
dying smokers, we could save more than the blood money offered by the
purveyors of this deadly plague. We could cut down on hospital beds,
nursing homes and medical care. But mostly, we could reduce the
suffering of the sick and dying, and the anguish of the people who
love them and will miss them.

We and our government get all riled up over the Colombian drug farmers
who grow their product to eke out an existence. Some of them have
little or no choice. By our refusal to take the obvious action to
strongly regulate this deadly product, we - and our government - are
complicit in the suffering and painful death of our own citizens, our
children, grandchildren, and millions around the world. Is this
correct ethical behavior for a God-fearing, Christian democracy?

While our democracy and our affluence [are] envied, our placing money
and materialism above principle is correctly criticized by most other
countries. Let's not castigate the villainous Colombian drug dealers
until we erase this stain from our own souls.

Robert Bonadonna
Asheville