Tobacco Deal Is An Exercise in Political Hysteria
By James K. Glassman
WASHINGTON Faced with the most massive array of firepower
since the Gulf War, tobacco companies surrendered last week and
agreed to pay an astounding $368 billion as punishment for selling a
perfectly legal, heavily taxed product to millions of Americans. But
instead of lighting victory cigars, the beadles of the antismoking
religionRalph Nader, Joe Califano and former FDA commissioner
David Kesslerare grousing that the bargain is too good for merchants
of death.
In truth, the dealan exercise in political hysteriais a disaster
for anyone who believes in preserving the prime values in American
society: personal responsibility and freedom.
The agreement is also a frightening illustration of what can
happen when the legal authority of fanatical federal regulators and
politicians lusting for higher of five becomes allied with a
nearunanimous press and a pack of venal plaintiffs' lawyers who include
(incredibly) the brothersinlaw of both the president and the Senate
majority leader.
The guiding theory of the deal is that helpless individuals were
duped into smoking by tobacco companies. So, it's the companies,
rather than the smokers themselves, who will pay the price. This denial
of personal responsibility is part of a distressing trend (in the courts, it's
called the "abuse excuse") that is degrading both human worth and
civilized society.
It's based on a view of people lacking free will and good
judgment, being hopelessly manipulated by outside forcesin this case,
greedy corporations armed with advertising and chemicals.
In a novel approach, the tobacco settlement extends the abuse
excuse to governments. States, for example, claimed in lawsuits that
the tobacco industry should pay their Medicaid costs for making
smokers sick. But were the states themselves so helpless all these years?
If smoking is so terrible, ban itor tax it heavily.
Instead, a passion for hypocrisy, pomposity and the main
chance has won the limelightand perhaps, ultimately, higher office
for attorneys general such as
Mike Moore of Mississippi and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
The irony is that individual Americans understand perfectly
well that the decision to smoke is an informed personal choice. For that
reason, juries for decades have denied claims by smokers and their
families for compensation.
In May, for example, a Jacksonville, Florida, jury found R. J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co. not liable in the death of Jean Connor, a
smoker. The forewoman in the case, Laura T. Barrow, wrote in The
Washington Post about reaching her verdict. First, she said, it was clear
smokers knew that cigarettes were dangerous: "As one juror put it,
'Even if there were no warnings at all on packages, how can you take
smoke into your body and not know it's bad for you?' "
Next, the question of addiction. "I believe cigarettes are
addictive," Ms. Barrow wrote. "But exactly how addictive are they? We
were instructed by the judge not to set aside our common sense.
Those of us who had smoked analyzed our own situations. I quit
smoking the first time I tried. So did the other exsmokers on the jury.
The social smokers said they didn't find it too difficult not to smoke
every day. And, most importantly, Connor was able to quit smoking on
her first try."
Antismoking hysterics try to present a model of children being
lured into addiction by cartoon characters. Certainly kids shouldn't
smoke; parents, taxes and laws should deter them. But children puffed
behind barns long before Joe Camel's phallic snout nosed onto the
scene. And smokers aren't hooked for life. A survey at my 25th
reunion found that fewer than 5 percent of my classmates smoked. But
I'd estimate that back in college at least half did. That means 90
percent kicked whatever habit they may have had.
The vast majority of smokers make a free choice, a Faustian
bargain: Knowing they may live a halfdozen years fewer, they opt for
cig arettes, which in addition to pain, offer pleasure, solace and wisdom
(as Sartre and Mallarme can attest).
As long as smokers don't hurt others, they should be al lowed
that choice. Cigarettes don't make us crash our cars or rob convenience
stores or beat our spouses. Yes, they can cause lung cancer and heart
disease, and sorrie of those medical costs are paid thanks to collectivist
Medi care and Medicaid, by the public as a whole. If smokers paid for
their own health care they'd have a greater incentive to quit. Barring
that, govern ments are free to use cigarette taxes to recover the
expenses.
Instead, we have an insane tobacco deal that sends pre cisely
the wrong message to both adults, and children: You're not responsible
for your own health. Or anything else for that matter. For the tobacco
companies themselves, I have no sym pathy. They believed that
quantifying an openended li ability would boost the price of their
stock. I hope they're wrong; it would be a joy to see their shares
plummet. In their cowardice and disregard for principle, they're just as
vil lainous as the rest of the ac tors in this sordid drama.
The Washington Post.