Imagine selling a product that kills the consumer if they use it as intended.\u00a0 Then imagine convincing our government to allow it to remain legal.\u00a0 It is a one of a kind product, legal and if used appropriately, lethal.\u00a0 It is cigarettes.\u00a0 We have other products available to us that would kill us if we abused them.\u00a0 But cigarettes alone are the only product with government sanctioning to kill.\u00a0 Does it seem a bit absurd something this dangerous is legal?\u00a0 The validity of the medical data is beyond debate, unless you are a tobacco company executive testifying before Congress; then the data are highly questionable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, how does something this dangerous remain on the market?\u00a0 Simple.\u00a0 Money and power.\u00a0 The politicians understand this.\u00a0 The tobacco lobbyists understand this.\u00a0 And the tobacco lobbyists know exactly what to do with their money and their power. \u00a0\u00a0They spend it on the politicians, who have an insatiable need for money and power themselves.\u00a0 An ideal marriage, if not for the inconvenient reality of the millions of people killed every year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
What more proof must Congress have for them to muster the ethic to do what is right?\u00a0 They simply do not have the collective will to eliminate cigarettes, especially the congressional leaders from “tobacco” states.\u00a0 I do understand they are elected to represent their constituents.\u00a0 But, is it morally right to support a product that kills? \u00a0Isn’t there a greater responsibility and ethic we expect of our leaders?\u00a0<\/p>\n
What are our political leaders doing?\u00a0 They are accepting staggering sums of money and favors from tobacco while bartering votes with one another, pursuing their primary goal – remain in congress and get more power.\u00a0 Sadly, they are willing to sacrifice millions of lives each year rather than risk losing their power and status. \u00a0These same politicians spout sanctimonious diatribes on the ills of each other’s party, each other’s candidates, on anything that gives them television time. \u00a0They are always running for office and they always have their hand out, knowing what they must do in return.\u00a0 And so they file into the halls of Congress and do what they were paid to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Are these men and women the men and women our founding fathers foresaw leading our country?\u00a0 They tell us convincingly they can accept favors from tobacco and other lobbyists, without it influencing their vote.\u00a0 Is it reasonable for us to believe them?\u00a0 Would a judge be allowed to rule on a case in which he or she had a financial interest?\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the tobacco executives can make their outrageous claims to congressional panels without consequences, what could they possibly have to fear from Congress? \u00a0Nothing.\u00a0 Congress is not their problem.\u00a0 Their problem is they have perfected the addictive powers of cigarettes, but at the expense of killing the user.\u00a0 If you kill the user, you kill the market.\u00a0 Worldwide, over 3 million smokers die each year.\u00a0 How can tobacco companies maintain profitability if they are killing 8,000 consumers every day?\u00a0 They have only one option.\u00a0 They must recruit 8,000 new smokers everyday to maintain their profits.<\/p>\n
This creates another problem for the tobacco companies because studies confirm that few smokers start as adults, leaving children and teenagers as the only market available to fill the killing fields with new bodies.\u00a0 So, they must constantly recruit new child and teenage smokers.\u00a0 Moreover, more regulation on tobacco advertising in the United States resulted in declining sales in our country, requiring some tobacco companies to look to the third world for their new child smokers.\u00a0 In Albania, Philip Morris pays high school girls to hand out free packs of cigarettes.\u00a0 Although this practice is illegal in many countries, including Albania, it magically seems to continue.\u00a0 Needing to entice more teenagers, British American Tobacco sells cigarettes in the South Pacific laced with sugar and honey, making them more palatable for children.<\/p>\n
According to the British Medical Journal, “The corporate plan of Philip Morris Taiwan repeatedly stressed the need to place business priority on young and new smokers.”\u00a0 The World Health Organization claims “tobacco companies are targeting the half billion young people in the Asia Pacific region by linking smoking to glamorous and attractive lifestyles.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apparently, the tobacco executives we have seen testifying before Congress were not informed their companies were targeting children and teenagers rather than adults.\u00a0 These executives seem to know precious little about their product and what their companies are doing.\u00a0 They claim they have not manipulated cigarettes to make them more addictive.\u00a0 They are unconvinced cigarettes cause the ills attributed to them.\u00a0 And they are oblivious that to maintain profitability they must recruit 8,000 new smokers a day.\u00a0 How can they fail to recognize their job is to recruit children and teenagers to the killing fields?\u00a0 How many are we willing to sacrifice?<\/p>\n
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