PARTNERS IN CRIME

Smokers should sue governments for the billions they've taken in tobacco taxes

AS THE legal net closes in around the tobacco companies, there are definite
signs of panic in the air. In the US, smokers are being chased out of
offices and public places with a zeal once reserved for rooting out
communists, while one former smoker seeking damages has called tobacco
companies "the most criminal, disgusting, sadistic, degenerate group of
people on the face of the Earth".

Even in cooler-headed Britain, things have been getting a tad hysterical. A
few weeks ago, fears about tobacco companies dabbling in "mind control"
surfaced when a newspaper disclosed that British American Tobacco planned
to add cannabis to its cigarettes in the event of the drug being legalised.
Needless to say, the fears were groundless: even if cannabis could be used
to control minds (which it can't) no sane government would let the horribly
discredited tobacco industry anywhere near the drug, legalised or not.

And perspective was a definite casualty in the flap about passive smoking a
couple of weeks ago. Depending on the headline, passive smoking was either
a conspiracy invented by health officials or a passport to an early grave.
Neither view is helpful.

To be fair to the critics who claim epidemiological studies exaggerate the
dangers of inhaling other people's smoke, the research is plagued by
variables. People who live with smokers can and do lie about their own
smoking habits, for example, while nonsmoking households are often richer
and eat better than smoking households. Even so, the balance of the
evidence suggests that inhaling the smoke of someone you live with does
increase your risk of lung cancer---by perhaps as much as 20 per cent.

The figure seems shocking but we must remember that active smoking
increases the risk by a staggering 2000 per cent: it would be astonishing
if second-hand smoke didn't cause some medical problems. And while the news
that lung cancers from passive smoking may kill up to 300 people a year in
Britain is clearly nothing to celebrate, the fact is that living with a
smoker is about 70 times less likely to give you cancer than having a bad
diet and about 20 times less likely than regular sunbathing. Even the
much-talked about legal implications of passive smoking turn out to be
mostly hype. Only one in five cases of lung cancer diagnosed among
non-smokers is linked to passive smoking, so it would be virtually
impossible to establish blame and win damages in the courts.

Amnesia rather than hysteria was the problem last week. Antismoking
campaigners in Britain produced a report which claimed that low-tar
cigarettes are no better than higher tar brands. Of course, it's good to
remind smokers that the tar ratings on packets are set by smoking machines,
that the ventilating holes put in filters to reduce tar work perfectly for
the machines but not for human nicotine addicts, and that people smoking
brands low in tar and nicotine "compensate" by taking more and deeper
puffs. And of course it's good to remind people that for years the tobacco
companies have conned the public by implying low-tar cigarettes are a
"healthier" option when they are not. But none of this is new.

In fact, most of it was known in 1983 when New Scientist ran a series of
articles campaigning for changes to the tar rating and labelling system. By
the mid-1980s, it was clear to researchers that low-tar cigarettes
delivered just as much tar as stronger brands---and as many respiratory
problems. Even scientists attached to the tobacco industry were openly
discussing the issue. The problem was that governments failed to grasp the
nettle and scrap the system.

So, yes, the tobacco industry has misled smokers for some twenty years
about the risks of nicotine addiction, and yes, it has fooled them about
the relative benefits of low-tar cigarettes. But it couldn't have done
either without the help of governments who for decades pursued labelling
policies designed to square their interest in public health with their own
addiction to hefty revenues from tobacco taxes. Changing that equation has
taken an epidemic of lung cancers and the prospect of smokers one day
taking governments to court accusing them of negligence. Only now are
health officials in Europe and the US planning big revisions in labelling
policy.

So go ahead: demonise tobacco and all those who have profited from it. But
remember, not even "sadistic, degenerate" dictators can operate in a
vacuum. Behind the scenes, there is invariably a democratic government or
two pulling strings to keep the cigarette barons in power.