BIGGER ISSUES THAN AWOL DEVICE

In the Feb. 5 story about the "pro-active" ban on the inhalable AWOL
(alcohol without liquid) device, state Rep. "Smitty" Pignatelli
explained his support of the ban because the machine "create(s) a
quicker way to get drunk" by allowing the alcohol to get directly
into the bloodstream through the lungs.

Yet according to the reporter's description of the device, the
machine takes 20 minutes to deliver an alcohol mist equivalent to one
shot of liquor.

Anyone seen college students drinking lately? Know how quickly they
down shots? My brother recently confided that he had 21 shots, plus
beer chasers, to celebrate his 21st birthday. He could have died.
(Had I been near enough to do it, I would have strangled him
myself.) Had he tried to consume the equivalent through the AWOL, it
would have taken him about seven hours - not counting the chasers. It
almost seems like someone should be promoting the AWOL and sponsoring
a ban on shot glasses.

When asked why he doesn't support a ban on cigarettes, Pignatelli
said, "There is just too much money involved, I mean in society, not
just politically."

OK. We get that he's downplaying the benefits the tobacco
lobby bestows on lawmakers. But money "in society"? R.J. Reynolds
reported that Massachusetts reaped $494 million in excise and sales
tax revenue from cigarette sales in 2004. Nice chunk of change.

And on the other side of the ledger? According to the Centers for
Disease Control (CDC), smoking attributable medical and productivity
costs in Massachusetts were $14.05 per pack in 2002. Multiply that by
the approximately 300 million packs sold to get $5 billion in total
direct costs to society. That's 10 times more than the state reaped
in revenues. Medicaid ("the taxpayer") covers 20 percent of the
medical costs; the remainder simply jacks up our health insurance premiums.

Then there's the misery. According to the CDC, 9,016 Massachusetts
deaths were attributed to smoking in 2002. Of youths now in 9th-12th
grade, 114,164 are projected to die from smoking. Surely that price
is too high just to keep North Carolina and Virginia tobacco farmers
- - or Massachusetts convenience store owners - in business.

The proposed AWOL ban, which faces no political opposition, is an
easy win. It's much more difficult to take on the tobacco and alcohol
lobbies. While the AWOL's potential to harm is still hypothetical,
smoking and binge drinking are already causing well-documented
destruction across the commonwealth. Isn't that where our
politicians should be exerting their political energy and media capital?