The Noxious Weed
Tue., February 19, 11:47 PM
We had a telephone call from R.J. Reynolds this morning. This would have been some kind of survey, I imagine, since the caller began by suggesting that "the proposed additional cigarette tax would be hard on poor people" and "higher prices don’t stop people from smoking anyhow." I have a certain sympathy for telemarketers – because I really hate to do that kind of work. But I was on my way out, so I only told her that I disagreed with her opinion.
Short form: I would happily muzzle every person who blows smoke in my face.
You want more? I believe in freedom of the individual, but that freedom must end where it infringes on someone else’s freedom. Thus you may smoke, but you may not pollute my air. Drink all the alcohol you like, but don’t drive on the roads where others have to drive. Indulge in all the self-destructive behaviors you like, but don’t teach them to children. Above all, don’t be so self-centered that you can’t see what you’re doing to other people.
But my prejudice against the tobacco companies goes back a long way. In the early nineteen sixties, there was already a lot of talk about the harmful effects of smoking, even before the Surgeon General’s Report was published. Once they knew they were dealing in a harmful product, the tobacco companies had a several options in front of them: try to produce a harmless cigarette; help tobacco growers by finding them alternate crops so that they wouldn’t be ruined financially; reduce manufacturing jobs by attrition so that there wouldn’t be large scale unemployment. They did none of these.
Instead they continued to push their product. The promotion was very imaginative, even after it became illegal to advertise on radio or television. Ads were aimed at women and at young people. More and more publicity was used to increase the overseas market. And what we didn’t know until years afterward was that the companies’ own findings supported the Surgeon General’s Report, and they suppressed all that. Contemptible!
What else did the cigarette companies do? They began to diversify. Diversification was very popular in the sixties anyhow. Lots of corporations were absorbing other companies; they became conglomerates. They quietly bought food companies and other manufacturers of consumer goods. You could buy ketchup or fruit juice or luggage and never realize you were supporting the tobacco people. For a long time it was very hush-hush. A friend of mind went to a temporary assignment at Kraft Foods and was stopped by the Philip Morris security guard.
Nowadays we all know about Philip Morris. It is trying to build its image as a community-minded company, and it does so by citing the accomplishments of people at Kraft Foods and Anheuser Busch. I find that despicable too.
My husband is a 74-year-old cardiac patient, his lungs sound awful, and the doctors tell him not to smoke - but he still does. My kids, having grown up in the atmosphere, are smokers also. I hate that they're shortening their lives.
I didn't have the time to speak my whole piece, and that caller doesn't know how lucky she was to have missed it.
