THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606150007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 95 lines
Tobacco remains the No. 1 preventable cause of premature death and disease in the United States. More Columbians die from American cigarettes than Americans die from Columbian cocaine. Tobacco is deadly, in a slow way.
The three largest voluntary health organizations - the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association - united in 1982 to form the Coalition on Smoking OR Health.
The coalition has campaigned against tobacco ever since, with notable successes: It helped to ban smoking on domestic airline flights and to toughen warning labels on cigarette packages and advertising. Still, it has mountains of work left to do, for roughly 3,000 American children are hooked on smoking every day. Nice work, Joe Camel.
A natural ally in the war against tobacco might appear to be religious conservatives. Many conservative ministers were railing against the evils of tobacco long before the first surgeon general's report warned of smoking's dangers. What minister hasn't stood by the bed of a dying smoker?
Most religious conservatives are pro-life, and the unborn suffer when pregnant women smoke. An April 1995 article in the Journal of Family Practice said the ``best estimate'' of the number of ``spontaneous abortions'' or miscarriages, caused by smoking, is about 115,000 a year.
Surely an addiction that kills fetuses and causes the early deaths of family members, often family breadwinners, is a family issue of concern to religious conservatives.
Not necessarily.
The June issue of Mother Jones reports:
``Liberal and moderate religious denominations . . . have begun to speak out against tobacco, as have the conservative National Association of Evangelicals and a handful of Mormons and pro-life Catholics in Congress. But the vast majority of the religious right is AWOL in the war against tobacco.''
The most famous and powerful religious conservative in this area, if not anywhere, is Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of CBN. He has spoken against smoking on his TV show, ``The 700 Club.'' The 900 CBN employees are prohibited from smoking at work or anywhere else.
But the Chesapeake-based pro-family lobbying group The Christian Coalition, which Robertson founded and heads, officially has no position on smoking.
Scott Ballin, vice president of public affairs for the American Heart Association and former chairman of the Coalition on Smoking OR Health, has worked to recruit the Christian Coalition to his cause, with no luck at all.
``They can and should be doing more,'' he said this week. ``This is a major issue, an ethical and moral issue as well as a significant public-health issue that goes right to the core of issues related to family values. The tobacco industry's products kill adults and grandparents and disrupt family structures. Also, the industry is aggressively targeting kids with the products, getting them hooked on a drug that will potentially eventually take their lives. Many church organizations and religious groups have weighed in. To this point, Pat Robertson has weighed in very actively in support of our efforts, but so far the Christian Coalition has not.''
If the Christian Coalition took on tobacco, it would anger its supporters from tobacco country and also conservative allies in Congress, who are receiving huge amounts of tobacco money, as that industry attempts to be rid of its most dangerous critic, FDA Commissioner David Kessler. He seeks to regulate nicotine as a drug. Probably the only way to be rid of Kessler is to be rid of his boss, President Clinton, also no friend of tobacco. Last August, Clinton spoke of the four ``deadly sins'' affecting children: smoking, drugs, violence and teen pregnancy.
Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed, day-to-day head of the Christian Coalition, were unavailable for comment on tobacco.
Mike Russell, the coalition's communications director, confirmed that the organization, which claims 1.7 million members and supporters, has no position on tobacco, but he said it also has no position on mental health or alcoholism.
The coalition is concerned with many pro-family issues, he said. It's a pro-life organization opposing tax-funded abortion. It favors a religious-freedom amendment and local control of education. It is active in many areas, Russell said, but cannot do everything. ``Other groups have established momentum in that arena (tobacco),'' he said. ``We do not want to supplant . . . efforts by other organizations.''
Still, other organizations are doing many of the things the Christian Coalition does, such as opposing abortions.
It would be helpful if more religious conservatives weighed in against smoking. Liberals have claimed the fight against tobacco as their own, but that's ridiculous. With lives and health at stake, it's everybody's fight. by CNB