BIG TOBACCO IS RIGHT TO CALL CONGRESS'S BLUFF

To the Editor:

By withdrawing from working with Congress on the tobacco bill, the tobacco
manufacturers have put an end to Senator John McCain's and Congress's
dishonest legislation (front page, April 9). The manufacturers have called
Congress's bluff.

The Congressional tobacco proposal is a tax measure to finance the Federal
budget under the disguise of protecting children from smoking. Forcing
tobacco companies to pay huge penalties and raising the price of cigarettes
will not stop children from smoking.

If Congress is serious about stopping children from smoking, why doesn't it
pass a law or encourage the states to do so, making smoking illegal until
age 18 or 21 as for alcohol? This would sharply reduce childhood smoking
just as it has done for childhood drinking.

JOHN R. BYERS
Scarsdale, N.Y., April 9, 1998

A Political Frenzy

To the Editor:

Re "The Tobacco Industry's Defiance" (editorial, April 9): Your scathing
editorial is corroborating evidence of national discrimination against
smokers. A simple movement to ban smoking in certain places has escalated
to political frenzy, branding a class of people, holding them up to public
hatred and ridicule, and punishing them with outrageous taxation.

Taxing smokers to offset self-inflicted health care costs may be acceptable.

But to discriminate against tens of millions of people because of their
habit is not.

Rather, it is nearly as unacceptable as discriminating against people
because of their race, sex or religion.

DANIEL B. JEFFS
Apple Valley, Calif., April 9, 1998

No Special Rights

To the Editor:

Jonathan Rauch (Op-Ed, April 10) misses an important point in his appeal
for fairness toward the tobacco industry.

This is not a negotiation.

The Government often taxes products in order to control consumption and
raise revenues to offset the consequences of that consumption.

Taxes are levied on gasoline in order to conserve energy and pay for roads
and bridges.

New taxes on cigarettes would reduce consumption and raise revenues to pay
for the health care costs related directly to smoking.

I see no reason why the Government needs the permission of the tobacco
industry to do this.

Nor do I see any reason why an industry that has marketed to children,
spent millions to increase the addictive nature of cigarettes, committed
perjury and engaged in cover-ups should be granted any special rights like
immunity from class-action lawsuits.

ROBERT NOLAN
Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., April 10, 1998

Spreading the Blame

To the Editor:

Re "The Tobacco Industry's Defiance" (editorial, April 9): If it's cost
savings you want, try focusing on the sugar industry, certainly as
blameworthy in the scourge of diabetes as cigarettes are in cancer. If it's
the saving of lives you want, try focusing on the liquor industry. Drunks
get into cars and kill innocent people. Cigarette smokers don't.

I gave up cigarettes in 1963 when the first Surgeon General's report on
smoking was issued.

But I have always disliked bullies, which is what the anti-cigarette lobby
has become. Except for a few curbs -- nonsmoking public areas for one -- we
should assume that smokers are entitled to make their own mistakes, without
class-action payments based on spurious arguments about hopeless
addictions.

LORRAINE HOPKINS
Providence, R.I., April 9, 1998

Make Tobacco Illegal

To the Editor:

Re "The Tobacco Industry's Defiance" (editorial, April 9):

If tobacco is such a horrible product, why don't you advocate outlawing it?

Firearms kill far fewer people each year than tobacco, but you would outlaw
guns in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose.

The only logical conclusion is that you are disingenuous when you say that
the purpose of the tobacco extortion negotiations is "to protect public
health and curb smoking among youths." What you are really after is the
tobacco company loot with which to finance a long, expensive agenda of
liberal pet projects that the taxpayers are no
longer willing to subsidize.

STAN KULP
Sugar Land, Tex., April 9, 1998