ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
THE ASSAULT on cigarettes by President Clinton is driven by opinion polls. It is now not only politically safe to attack tobacco, it is politically profitable. Smokers, now a minority, are too browbeaten to raise more than a feeble protest.
Right here in Virginia, where the economy was first built on tobacco, a recent poll by The Richmond Times-Dispatch/12 News found 55 percent of Virginians in favor of the federal regulation of tobacco as a drug and only 35 percent opposed. In a similar poll last year, 66 percent endorsed more restrictions on cigarette advertising. Can prohibition be far behind? Doubtful. Clinton doesn't want a real fight.
But if tobacco is to be regulated as an addictive and dangerous drug in the same camp with barbiturates and amphetamines, then a ban on ready access is the logical destination. Will doctors then prescribe cigarettes, as they did whisky during Prohibition, for those whose need for it would be harmful to deny?
For now, Clinton would allow the Food and Drug Administration to ponder future regulations. Meanwhile, he would ban cigarette brand-name sponsorship of sporting events and logos on such products as hats and T-shirts. Tobacco ads in magazines read by a "significant number" of teens would have to be black-and-white, text-only, as would billboards. Proof of age by photo ID would be required for all sales and vending machines would be allowed in adults-only locations.
Now, let me pause for a smoke, for I am one of that diminishing and despised breed. Like so many, I know it's a messy and foolish habit, but at times pleasant and a useful anodyne to stress. Contrary to Clintonian logic, I didn't take it up as a teen. No, it was the decision of full adulthood, if a smoker today can ever be thought adult. It didn't take me long to settle on Lucky Strikes, nonfiltered, of course. There will be no problem with advertising driving me to smoke because the brand hasn't been advertised for years, which may be preparing it to join that great graveyard of departed brands, such as Sweet Caporal, Spud, Marvels and Piedmont.
Only a fanatic would deny the disadvantages of smoking. But the same can be said of a great many perfectly legal products. Why is there no similar assault on beer? Well, there was once and it didn't work. On Jan. 19, 1919, Nevada(!) became the 36th state ratifying the 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting "the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors." It was repealed 14 years later.
It is generally agreed that the cultivation of tobacco saved the Virginia colony. It also caused the introduction of slaves because tobacco was and is a labor-intensive crop. In a letter to Gov. Yardley at Jamestown dated May 20, 1627, Charles I said, "Virginia is wholly built upon smoke ...." By the middle of the 1700s, Virginia exported 55 million pounds of tobacco a year.
In the highly diversified Virginia economy of today, tobacco plays a relatively minor role. But it's still the No. 1 cash crop, generating close to $200 million a year for growers that cultivate about 50,000 acres, mainly in 12 counties along the state's southern border.
Jobs directly related to tobacco production and manufacture in Virginia would likely be no more than 35,000, or about 1 percent of all jobs in the state. But some sizable Virginia-based companies have a very large stake in tobacco.
Dimon, the product of a recent merger between Dibrell Bros. of Danville and Monk-Austin, had sales in 1996 of $2.147 billion and employs 11,400 people worldwide. But Dimon has only 175 full-time employees in Virginia and gives work to perhaps another 700 part-time. Universal Corp. in Richmond is larger, with 25,000 employees worldwide and sales in 1996 of $3.6 billion. Regardless of Clinton, the number of Virginia workers in tobacco is likely to decline. The industry now looks overseas for growth.
Nothing succeeds in America until it reaches a stage of critical media mass. In the 1960s, George Romney put seat belts in Nash cars. The legend is that customers regarded them as a nuisance and demanded their removal. It took years of propaganda and legislation to convince a majority to use them.
The day will come when the floodgates of product-liability litigation against tobacco will be opened. There is talk in Washington now of a deal that would protect manufacturers from open-ended liability in return for a cash payment of billions a year. While the various states now seeking compensation for the cost of treating the ravages of smoking under Medicaid could be a willing party to such a settlement, it's hard to see how this would help the industry. By admitting liability in the case of Medicaid, the companies would strengthen the hand of lawyers representing individual claimants.
While the companies in their glory days were undoubtedly guilty of hiding the harm of excessive smoking, even claiming their products could be good for you, there has never been a time when tobacco was without a sizable body of critics on grounds both moral and medical. Virginia's first sovereign, James I, wrote with his own hand "A Counterblast to Tobacco" in 1604. He described it as "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs ...."
But to paraphrase another English writer, as long as smoking is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. We are very close to that now.
I would never urge anyone who didn't smoke to take it up. But smoking is by no means the worst thing in America, and those who don't like it should show a sense of proportion. Those who do should learn moderation. What works for me is laying out a finite number of cigarettes for the day - seven in my case. When the urge strikes, you look at your diminishing pile and ask, "Do I really want this one now and won't I enjoy it more later?"
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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