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Excerpts from: Politics & People Going Into the Tank For Tobacco

By ALBERT R. HUNT  Wall Street Journal .com [08/02/01]

The merchants of death are alive and flourishing.

Big Tobacco, on the ropes politically and legally only two years ago,
today faces an acquiescent administration, a Congress intent on honoring
the investment tobacco made in them, and a friendlier bunch of regulators
 -- some of whom are more like wholly owned subsidiaries. The crackdowns
domestically have subsided and this administration is determined to help
American tobacco spread its virulence around the world.
      Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) is sending a letter to the White House
today that exposes some of the more indefensible government
capitulations.  Read the letter
 The California Democrat obtained the minutes and other documents from the
World Health Organization's convention on tobacco control this spring.
The U.S. has gone from a leader in a global fight against tobacco to an
 industry toady.
 Some of the most egregious examples:
 *     The U.S. delegation objected to a simple requirement that cigarette
 warning labels be written in the "principal language or languages" of the
 country where the product is sold. Such a proposal might not "work best
 for its own population," U.S. delegates argued. In other words, perhaps
it  might be better to publish warnings in Swahili for cigarettes sold in
 Italy.
 *     The U.S. opposed licensing of retailers, a provision designed to
 curb smuggling. The delegation argued it wasn't practical and "the
 resources required to enforce licensing regimes might prove to be
 astronomical."
 "While the richest country in the world complained of the cost of
 licensing," Rep. Waxman observed in his letter to President Bush,
 "delegates from Belarus, Central African Republic, Kenya, Malaysia, Papua
 New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Togo,
 Trinidad and Tobago, and Uzbekistan -- among others -- all supported
 licensing."
 The U.S. delegates in Geneva, reflecting the Bush administration's
wishes, also backtracked on crackdowns on advertising aimed at children and on
 mandating tobacco taxes (which undoubtedly reduce tobacco consumption).
 And again, in opposition to most other countries, the delegation reversed
 this country's position on curbing the effects of passive smoking.
 The unsurpassed arrogance and immorality of cigarette makers surfaced
most recently when this newspaper reported that Philip Morris distributed, in
 the Czech Republic, an analysis of why cigarettes weren't a drag on that
 country's budget. A key argument: Cigarettes kill people and, if they're
 dead, the government doesn't have to spend money on health care, housing
 and pensions.
 By that logic, why don't we just give kids cyanide capsules instead of
 vitamins; just think of all the educational expenditures we would save.
(After a furor, Philip Morris apologized. Sure.)
 In recent years, the American tobacco industry's major thrust has been to
expand its international markets. But the Clinton administration was an
 impediment. While it promoted trade expansion, it drew a line at tobacco;
 it didn't want to export death. (That's an indisputable effect. This
week, Laura Bush told CNN she quit smoking for health reasons.)
 Reversing this, the Bush trade office complained this year when the
 Koreans imposed tariffs on cigarette imports. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick
 insists this was just to make sure American products were treated fairly,
 a policy he contends that "most Americans will agree with." Certainly
 those in the boardrooms of Philip Morris and RJR will.

    With the Supreme Court decision last year stating that the FDA lacks the
 authority to regulate tobacco, the first line of defense should be
 Congress. But tobacco contributions -- more than $25 million over the
past six years, chiefly to Republicans but also to selected Democrats,
 including Black Caucus members -- has bought inaction from the
legislative branch.
 And tobacco has never had a better friend in the attorney general's chair
 than John Ashcroft. For months the department higher-ups have been trying
 to sandbag the government's lawsuit against the tobacco companies, which
 seeks some $100 billion for the damages they have wrought with their
 "false and deceptive" statements and practices over the years.
 First, the Bush budget basically tried to shortchange the budget for this
 lawsuit. Then came the leaks about what a weak case it is. (That is
 debatable; even some top anti-tobacco advocates in the Clinton
 administration were skeptical. But to advertise its weakness is a
 purposeful effort to hurt the case.)
     At the same time the Justice Department is pursuing a possible deal. It's
 widely suspected this will be a sweetheart arrangement for companies if
 they can just figure out how to camouflage it.
 Don't count on the independent regulatory agency to pick up the slack.
    Two appointments at the Federal Trade Commission, under new Chairman Timothy
Muris, tell all. Howard Beales is the head of the consumer-protection
 bureau. He was a George Washington professor and consultant to RJR when
he wrote a piece insisting that the old Joe Camel ads certainly weren't
 designed to encourage teenagers to smoke. (Of course, Howard, they were
 aimed at the GW faculty.) David Scheffman, the head of the FTC's economic
 bureau, testified that the tobacco companies never schemed to suppress
 research on safer cigarettes because, being such good citizens, they
 surely would have wanted healthier products.

    This stuff would be comical if it weren't so depressing. As Rep. Waxman
 notes, in less than two decades, health experts believe that one in three
 adult deaths world-wide will be caused by smoking or from other tobacco
 use, and by 2030 there will be 10 million such deaths annually -- more
 than malaria and tuberculosis combined.
And where is our country's leader? "On the No. 1 cause of preventable
 death in America, President Bush is providing absolutely no leadership,"
 laments Bill Corr, executive vice president of the Campaign for
 Tobacco-Free Kids. "He acts as if the problem doesn't exist. It is a
complete abdication."