SMOKE-OFF!

The fact that Philip Morris has concluded that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers is perhaps a benefit to everyone. However, the greatest benefit is probably the benefit to Philip Morris itself. It is unlikely that the company would have publicly admitted, what everyone else had always said was true, was in fact true unless they saw a personal corporate benefit. It is quite possible that we will never know their real motivation. It is not bad that they did it. Is it good? That remains to be seen. This latest tobacco headliner announcement and the others in recent years-- including major victories in tobacco lawsuits, announcements of new tobacco lawsuits, passage of stronger legislation against tobacco use are positive and perhaps necessary progress in the war against the deadliest consumer product known to man.

Unfortunately, the frightening statistics remain relatively stagnant–over 400,000 deaths from tobacco related illnesses annually and worst of all teenage smoking continues to rise. Not too many years ago the warning labels on cigarettes were changed and made stronger and more specific. These new warnings are rotated and all of them continue to appear on cigarette packs. These warnings seem to have had little impact on keeping people from starting to smoke or influencing them to give it up. Basically, lawsuits have allowed money to change hands but the health consequences remain unresolved with perhaps, a few small exceptions. One of those exceptions is that white males over the age of 45 have met with some measurable success in giving up smoking.

At the turn of the last century, laws were on the books in many states to prohibit tobacco sales to persons under the age of eighteen. Enforcement of those laws during most of the twentieth century was nonexistent. In the last years of this century more laws were passed to prohibit teenagers from purchasing tobacco products but enforcement remains minimal and teens continue to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products. ( approximately 3,000 teenagers begin smoking every day in the United States) Will the twenty first century produce another generation of prematurely dead adults?

James C. Benerofe

Editorial #19

October 19, 1999