Editorials & Opinion : Wednesday, July 11, 2001

By Froma Harrop
Syndicated columnist

People who did not smoke breathed clean air. People who wanted to smoke went outside to do it. What was wrong with that?

Nothing, except that the chase was too amusing to stop. There's too much money in it and too many jobs at stake.

Consider. Any state that wants to ban cigarettes can do so. The states don't because taxes on cigarettes fill their treasuries. So while states let sales of cigarettes stay legal, they harass the people who use and make them.

Every now and then, the U.S. Supreme Court steps in to keep the game clean. For example, the justices threw out a proposed Massachusetts ban on tobacco advertising near schools and playgrounds. There's that little matter of the First Amendment, the one guaranteeing free speech.

Again, Massachusetts could outlaw cigarette sales within its borders if it chose to. But the commonwealth collects 76 cents on every pack sold. Why spoil a good thing?

The hunting horns sound at the federal level, as well. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson has said he wants the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes. That's been tried. Former FDA commissioner David Kessler attempted to regulate cigarettes, and the Supreme Court last year said no dice.

You wonder whether the government's resources might be better spent funding research on cat dandruff or outlawing the color "mustard." In his recent book "A Question of Intent," Kessler describes the enormous time, effort and money spent to prove that the tobacco industry was manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.

Prior to that, the FDA staff had been on the important mission of getting Unilever to remove the words "means fresh taste" from the jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce. It seems that the sauce was made from tomato concentrate and so the word "fresh" was misleading. Some consumers might think that Mama had been peeling tomatoes in the sink before stuffing them in the Ragu jars.

The tobacco industry was truly big game. According to Kessler's account, the FDA had dozens of people milking informers (one named Deep Cough), rummaging around the Philip Morris facilities and finding moral fault with anyone who ever made or wrote an advertisement for cigarettes.

The most revealing comment, however, appears on page 64. Kessler tells of a conversation he had with an assistant secretary for health in which he vowed not to actually push for a cigarette ban. "I said explicitly that the FDA would not head down the mine-laden road of prohibition," he wrote.

At that point, time-pressed readers could save themselves the next 329 pages. What was his mission really? Was it to make half the people in Virginia feel guilty? Was it to shock us with the news that people in the business of making cigarettes want to sell their product?

Now your writer harbors no illusions about cigarettes and health. They can shorten one's life and bring about any number of awful ailments. She doesn't smoke and doesn't like being around the smoke of others. But she doesn't ask any state to tell restaurants whether or not they may allow smoking in their bars. If the place is too smoky, she'll go elsewhere.

At various points in "A Question of Intent," Kessler recounts the brutal amount of work involved in hunting down Big Tobacco. He didn't see his family enough and suffered severe back pain from the stress.

I certainly hope Kessler wasn't sacrificing quality family time for my benefit. If someone wants to make or use this legal product, that's his or her business. Only a decision by the authorities to make cigarettes illegal can warrant further conversation.

Froma Harrop can be contacted via e-mail at mailto:%20fharrop@projo.com.

Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company

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