This was my first college essay, not knowing at the time who was
responsible for the huge tobacco subsidies going to many of our tobacco
farmers. The culprit turned out to be John Boehner and the US government.
Special thanks to The Young Turks for the enlightenment.
Ideas are like seeds scattered on the ground in the hope they
will take root, grow and eventually blossom into actual solutions. Some begin to grow and flourish in our hearts and minds,
while others may never take root at all.
I took what I considered to be a few possible strategies for
dealing with the problem of smoking, coupled with factual data that was
available to me at the time, and added a few personal insights of my own.
This essay was not intended to be an exhaustive answer to the
problem of cigarette smoking but served its purpose at the time. As many
are aware, we now heavily tax cigarettes in the United States. If any of these
ideas prove useful to someone then this paper has more than served its purpose.
For those who might read this article from 2006 in regard to the
tobacco industry, entitled Tobacco Wars, my current position is that we should
be targeting huge tobacco companies and divesting from them, not targeting
individual citizens with pressure campaigns and moralizing judgmentalism.
Smokers should not construe my arguments against the profiteering
of gigantic corporations at their expense as an attack on their freedom to
choose what they put into their bodies at all times or an attempt to cast their
behavior as immoral. This is a moral issue for an industry of death, not
its victims. It could well be seen as a moral issue for smokers themselves who
are harming their own health with tobacco products but should not be used by
others to moralize the behavior of smokers.
It is a moral issue because harm is involved, self-harm, but it is
not for any one of us to judge. Second-hand smoke is, indeed, a factor but
should not be capitalized on by knee-jerk moralists and used to sit in moral
condemnation of people's character. Education is key, here, not
judgmentalism. Either we believe people, once armed with the right information,
will make the right decisions or we have no faith in humanity and, thus, no
faith in ourselves.
This is also a matter of personal freedom, the sovereign use
of one's body as we see fit should be, I believe, a universal right that should
be protected at all costs. Our lives belong to us as individuals, no one else. This freedom
must be fully understood and respected by everyone if we are to live in a
healthy, fully democratic society someday. This theme should be the subject of another article.
Citizens should be well-informed about all the dangers of
cigarette smoking and given the room to make their own decisions. Smokers need support and
understanding, as they have fallen victim to the lies of an industry of death.
The campaigns that have been waged against smokers are a
travesty. Raising prices of cigarettes and diverting those dollars to fund other progams, even deserving ones, is disgraceful and should be discontinued. No one should seize an
opportunity to make money off of the victims of powerful corporations and their
advertising campaigns designed to hook them. Go straight to the top, and that means taking on those at the top, not the guy at the bottom. This was economic opportunism from
the start by the government that should be seen for what it is. Economic exploitation.
I would, however, strongly encourage every smoker to quit as soon as possible for health and economic reasons. Your community is also less likely to be burdened by the high costs of health care related to smoking. As a former
smoker for 21 years, it pains me to see others make the same mistakes I made for
so long. Out of concern, I would add that I feel so much better for
having done so and that it was not easy, but I did it.
One final thing is that sometimes opinions do change.
People are not confined to the same attitudes, beliefs, and opinions from
cradle to grave. A willingness to look at one’s own ideas and scrutinize for veracity is, for me, the most distinguishable mark of a scientific mind and a freethinker. There are many
scientists who lack this foundation for right thinking. We shouldn’t leave
home without it. Changing our beliefs is so often seen as a sign of weakness in an American society that doesn’t really understand that, in fact, it is a sign of
strength, that ability to look at ourselves honestly. This is called
integrity.
In fact, I’m angry at myself and ashamed for having
ever supported such a bad idea as heavy taxation of tobacco products, and I feel smokers rightfully deserve their own version of the Boston Tea Party for being exploited in such a manner.
Thank you.
The Tobacco Wars
"The U.S.Centers for
Disease Control and prevention has estimated that 400,000 Americans die each
year from lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other diseases
attributable to smoking--making it the leading cause of premature, preventable
deaths in the United States" (Dudley 285). In 1993, treating illnesses
related to cigarette smoking cost the United States around $50 billion. What
makes cigarette smoking such a tragedy is that these deaths and other related
problems are completely preventable.
Joseph L. Andrews Jr., an
internist and chest specialist in Concord, Massachusetts, like many Americans,
concerned about the loss of countless lives each year, has decided to do
something about it. He wrote a twelve-step plan to help solve the problem of
tobacco use. In the following text, this writer will support a multi-step
approach to ending tobacco abuse, which includes changes in the laws and
policies toward corporations and tobacco farmers, respectively, and includes
making tobacco producers list ingredients on all cigarette packages.
Some people say that the
problem should be corrected by teaching our children to be more responsible.
This is an excellent point, but one must remember that we adults make our
share of mistakes and children are no less entitled to making their own.
For sure, as parents, we must teach our children well, and it stands to
reason that parents want to teach their children how to make good, sound
decisions.
Yet, there is more we can do
to protect them. For one, we should not allow them to be virtually
bombarded by billions of dollars worth of tobacco advertising each
year. According to the Non-Smokers' Movement of Australia, children smoke
more of the brands that are most heavily advertised; and, "a major
scientific analysis of all the literature on the effects of cigarette
advertising concluded that a preponderance of quantitative studies of
cigarette advertising suggest a causal relationship
with consumption."
One author wrote, "The
time has come, then for public policy toward tobacco to return to its roots.
The only effective way of combating the harmful effects of smoking in the long
run is to encourage an enduring sense of personal responsibility--among
smokers, their families, and physicians" (Calfee 306). John E. Calfee is a
resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This author agrees with
his assessment, but would argue there is much more that needs to be done in the
here and now to protect children and adults alike.
For example, since tobacco
companies have a long history of concealing the adverse effects of smoking
along with the addictive nature of nicotine, they should be penalized for
not showing all of the ingredients of cigarettes on each package
(Andrews 296). In effect, "...Laws would require tobacco companies to
make public their scientific studies and list all chemical ingredients on
packaging, as is done with most other consumer products" (296). Jean
Kilbourne, PhD, asserts that, "Cigarettes are the only product advertised
which are lethal when used as intended." Cigarettes, in fact have scores
of ingredients which are harmful to humans, including carbon monoxide.
Second, tobacco companies' ads
and promotions should be discouraged more strongly than is presently the case.
According to Andrews, cigarette companies spend billions of dollars each year
in advertising and promotions (297). He went on to say, "This includes
their sponsorship of sporting events, such as Winston Cup Racing, and their use
of billboards in baseball and football stadiums and basketball and hockey
arenas (297)." These billboards are seen by millions of people through the
miracle of television. Laws could be enforced which require the stoppage of
this form of advertising. Even if these laws are proven to be unconstitutional,
pressure could be brought to bear on advertising media to refuse to air key
types of advertising (Andrews 297). One example of this type of pressure is the
fact that condom ads are rarely seen in the advertising media these days. While
this writer does not have an informed opinion as to whether condom ads are good
or bad, the pressure against these ads has been effective and can be applied to
the advertising media when it comes to smoking, also.
Third, there should be
incentives for farmers to switch from tobacco to food crops. According to the
Worldwatch Institute's 1997 report, there is so much hunger in the world that
government would be serving their citizens well if they encouraged tobacco
farmers to switch over to crops like wheat and corn (Andrews 293). The report
says that fifteen million tons of grain could be produced each year for humans
to consume, instead of going hungry. Andrews explains, "Right now, about
124,000 tobacco farmers in the United States depend on a federal system that
parcels out shares of the total tobacco production." He adds, "This
restriction of cultivated tobacco acreage has the paradoxical effect of
artificially making the crop highly profitable" (293). What could our
government be thinking?
In conclusion, in
today's world it is not uncommon to hear people say the only thing people need
to give their children is the ability to make good, sound decisions.
Unfortunately, this question, along with many others, has been pondered,
unsuccessfully, on the earth for thousands of years, and societies are no
closer to an answer, today, than we were way back then, as evidenced by the fact
that the survival of our entire species is now threatened by our own actions.
What is known is that
smoking has caused the premature deaths of more people in the last century than
all of the senseless deaths caused by warfare. That is, smoking has caused more
deaths than the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and countless others,
combined. This is a truly astounding fact. It isn't hard to find countless
pages of information in our history books devoted to chronicling the ravages of
warfare. Yet, how many Americans and, especially, those unsuspecting citizens
of underdeveloped nations around the globe, are aware of the fact that we are
fighting another battle that is proving to be just as costly to us all?
It was Andrews who put
it best, "After I wheeled the bodies of dead lung cancer victims to the
morgue and watched as the pathologist sliced white golf ball- or melon-sized
tumors out of blackened lungs, I reviewed the patients' charts" (289). He
states the following, and I quote, "The conclusion was crystal clear even
then {in the fifties}: all the lung cancer victims had a previous history of
heavy smoking for many years" (Ibid).
Clearly stated, the idea
of leaving intact an industry whose product is fatal when used as intended--an industry
that would just as soon make every human on earth dependent on that product
makes no sense at all.
Works Cited
Andrews, Joseph L. Jr. “Public Health Policy Should Emphasize Corporate Responsibility.”
Opposing Viewpoints in Social Issues.
Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven 2000.
Calfee, John E. “Public Health Policy Should Emphasize Individual Responsibility.” Opposing Viewpoints in Social Issues. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven 2000.
Dudley, William, ed. “Chapter Preface.” Opposing Viewpoints in Social Issues.
Kilbourne, Jean, PhD. “Targets of Cigarette Advertising.” Health Ministries Department General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventist. 16 June 2006
http://www.health20-20.org/kilbourne.htm.
Non-Smokers’ Movement of Australia. “Fact Sheet-Tobacco Advertising” 16 June 2006
http://www.nsma.org.au/adverts.htm.
The End of Tobacco Wars
Additional Food For Thought
(The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur on John Boehner's Crying and Tobacco Subsidies)
(Noam Chomsky - Why Marijuana is Illegal and Tobacco Is Legal)
(Noam Chomsky - On Social Cleansing and the War on Drugs)
“All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”
--Abraham Lincoln
