Tobacco, congress and hypocrisy
By A. M. Greeley (8/7/95)

In the bitter cold of winter or the sizzling heat of summer, groups of men and women stand outside the building in which I work, furtively getting their "smoke."

They know it's an addiction without the FDA having to tell them. They know there's a good chance they will die from it. Yet they're hooked, trapped when they were impressionable kids by the evil machinations of the tobacco industry.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich calls for a referendum on drugs: Either legalize them, he says, or impose the death penalty for those who sell them.

But will he include nicotine on his drug list - an addictive and deadly substance that is actually subsidized by the government?

To be consistent, Gingrich should say that all drugs should be as legal as nicotine or that all should be illegal, including nicotine.

If he wants to impose the death penalty on those who push drugs, should he not logically and consistently impose it also on those who grow tobacco, those who manufacture and market cigarettes, those who advertise it so that it will appeal especially to the young, those who sell it in the marketplace, and those congressmen who vote to subsidize this production?

A war on drugs that doesn't include a war on nicotine, one of the great health hazards of our time, is a phony war.

The FDA decided recently that nicotine is, indeed, an addictive drug. But the agency's proposals for coping with this deadly substance were mild indeed -- more prominent warnings on cigarette packages for example.

The FDA's caution was understandable. The tobacco industry owns the Republican Congress. If the FDA is not careful it could find its budget slashed to pieces.

The American Medical Association, another Republican favorite, may warn repeatedly about the dangers of cigarettes, but in any combat between the AMA and the tobacco companies, Republicans know which side provides sour cream for their caviar.

All of this is profoundly evil. One simply cannot believe the rationalizations the tobacco industry provides for its deadly business or the excuses congressional Republicans offer for their support of that industry. You'd almost think that lung cancer and heart disease are good for you.

While the making and selling of cigarettes is sinful, no useful purpose will be served by outlawing them. Banning the sale of cigarettes would simply create a black market and another opportunity for organized crime. Better that the cost be made prohibitive by imposing draconian taxes, the money from which could be used to fund research on the cure of the diseases which cigarettes cause.

If adolescents who think smoking cigarettes is "neat" had to pay $20 a pack of them, they might think twice about jumping on that fashionable bandwagon.

Since I don't believe in the death penalty, I really don't think those that sell cigarettes to teenagers should be sent to the gas chamber. But, considering the harm they are doing to young people, those who sell cigarettes to kids should face at stiff prison sentence. That would make them much more cautious about accepting phony IDs.

I can think of no greater evidence of immorality and hypocrisy in American society than that manifested by the tobacco industry, the tobacco lobby and its supporters in Congress, on both sides of the aisle.

(Andrew Greeley is a Catholic priest & an author. Distributed by NY Times Special Features)