Big tobacco lawless...

[Larry Gude]

...as ever?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/04/AR2006090400947.html

This is yet one more hit piece on a perfectly legal product. The Post vilifies it yet one more time. Now, it seems, tobacco companies are trying to hook you EVEN MORE by increasing the ADDICTIVENESS of their product.

released data showing that nicotine yields from cigarettes rose about 10 percent between 1998 and 2004 -- dramatically supporting Judge Kessler's contention that manipulations of the highly addictive chemical remain business as usual.

10% more stuff.

Now, what about super size meals? Big SUV's? Larger seats at the movie theater? 30 packs of beer? Bakers dozens?

More grandstanding from the Post;

Most smokers get the dose of nicotine their addictions require by regulating the depth of their inhalation, by covering vents in the cigarettes or simply by adjusting the number of cigarettes they smoke. So why the companies would need to boost the nicotine level is somewhat mysterious. Perhaps, with modern restrictions making it harder to recruit new smokers, increasing the dose helps retain those already hooked. Perhaps, with indoor smoking restrictions becoming so prevalent and smokers able to light up less often, it is a way of letting smokers get their daily fix from fewer cigarettes. But there's no reason to believe the pattern is accidental. It is serving some purpose, and it goes on with no regulatory agency overseeing or even monitoring it.

If you can put 1 and 1 together and come up with 2, it is readily seen that by merely replacing the word 'cigarette' with 'fast food' or 'alcohol' or anything else you can find that, perhaps someone else may find offensive, the exact same argument can be made.

Why is it so important to the Post to tell people want to do and not do?

Why does ANYONE allow it?

Booze goes all the way from non-alcohol beer up to 86 proof, 101 proof, 151 and grain. They offer more.

You can get a salad at the drive through or a triple deck cheeseburger with chili on it. They offer more.

You can sit in front of the TV or become a marathon runner. Or somewhere in between. You can choose more all you want.

People commit crime to get money for crack and heroin. That is not very common for a cup of joe, though many claim 'don't talk to me until I've had my coffee'. We've all head "I'd kill for a cigarette'. Doesn't happen very often.

Alcohol is at the root of far more problems between one citizen and another than smoking.

It is incredible that a major paper can sit there and say these things and not be laughed out of town. They're all for tobacco taxes. Isn't that blood money in their view? They sure don't do too many editorials for outlawing cigarettes which would be the reasonable thing if it is so dangerous. Of course then it may be a bridge too far to argue on the one hand for drug legalization while arguing on the other that tobacco is so horrible.

The typical Post reader is center to left; people who make a huge fuss about things like freedom of speech, freedom of expression and get government out of my bedroom yet seem to have absolute blinders when it comes to smoking.
I bet they'd claim they hate hypocrisy as well. This is becoming Orwellian.

I quit smoking about 5 years ago. There is no such thing as being addicted to cigarettes any more than there is to fast food, drinking coffee in the morning, desserts, TV or surfing the web too much. Or anything else for that matter.

 

[Tonio]

I have a theory, Larry - many educated folks apparently consider themselves to be "above" smoking, seeing it as a "white trash" thing. They have the same mentality about cars. Some of them are almost arrogant about their lack of knowledge about fixing engines, seeing that as beneath their status.