Why the Anti-smoking Industry Uses "Children" to Further Their Political Agenda

by Raymond Sasso

There are a number of public officials who seem to have a vendetta against the tobacco companies and they are fighting their battle with our tax dollars. As abhorrent as the tobacco industry may be to the anti-smoker, the government funded "anti-smoking industry" is equally abhorrent to smokers and nonsmoking supporters on the choice to smoke.

It does not appear to matter to President Clinton that approximately 50 million people smoke in this country. He is, in effect, slapping 50 million in the face solely on the smoking issue.

After President Clinton took office, he did not take long to attack the smoking issue, with the full support and instigation by Hillary Clinton. The Clinton's, almost immediately after taking occupancy in the White House, proceeded to make it smoke-free. It was not important at all that many foreign and distinguished dignitaries came to visit our country that smoked, who could have been accommodated. The word to them was, go outside! This attitude is not only wrong, but self righteously pompous as well.

Many smoking issues have presented themselves to our President while in office and he did not hesitate to take a stand against choice on every one of them. Not only was the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) conclusion on secondhand smoke rigorously promoted (whose "findings" have been questioned), but then came the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) proposed regulation of nicotine as a drug, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) proposed indoor smoking ban amongst various tax increase proposal's that have reared their ugly head. All this done in the name of "protecting our health" with the new government attitude of "nannyism."

When smokers and nonsmoking allies began fighting back and interfering with anti-tobacco goals, anti-smokers then turned their attention to "the children." Anti-smoking lobbyists began using the words"children" and "kids", instead of minors in their slogans as propaganda ploys to further their cause. When it comes to the press reporting on any new efforts of smoking control groups, the words "children" and "kids" are effectively used. The appropriate term that should be used is minors. In legislative bills, the word used in stopping access to youth is "minors."

This kind of controlling tactic has been initiated many times in the past to push forward a particular agenda. Sometimes the word epidemic has been used. David Kessler, Head of the FDA, has erroneously used the expession "a pediatric disease" in regards to minors smoking. Pediatric is pushing the envelope since that usually refers to very young children. Even though modern use of the words disease and epidemic have been used for non-infectious maladies, it appears that they are stretching the meaning of those words in regards to tobacco use. Somehow the expessions "tobacco disease" or "pediatric epidemic" does not seem to work relative to tobacco.

For instance, in an article published 2/13/96 in the LA Times, titled: "New Group Goes After Teen Smoking" states, "A new combatant entered the tobacco wars yesterday: the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids." Notice the word used is "kids." A flagrant misuse of the word even though that may mean someone who is 17, married and have children of their own. The real purpose, again, is furthering the agendathey have put forth on eventually eliminating tobacco use in this country, even by adults.

One should pay attention also to the use of the phrase "tobacco wars." Whose wars are we talking about? It does not seem to be a war fought by most Americans, nor by most of the 50 million people who choose to smoke. Don't even bother to worry that choice is at stake on a legal product. Forget all about how utterly biased the media is in reporting only the anti-smoking side of the issue in almost all of it's articles. It is the anti-smokers "holy health war" against disease and tobacco.

The article continues, "The group, created with startup funds of $30 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Cancer Society, also is supported by the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association and other organizations that have long fought the tobacco industry."

Now what the above paragraph tries to deceive you with is that these "nonprofit" organizations are donating from charitable reserves and that they are doing this with private monies. That is totally incorrect and misleading. The fact is all of these groups get, or have gotten many millions of dollars in grants and tax money siphons from state and federal sources. These "charitable" groups are donating American tax dollars to promote the anti-smoking agenda, with governmental blessing. In their "holy health war" what you or I as private, free thinking individuals and citizens feel about the issue is not important. They will go through all legal routes to promote their cause, all at the expense of our choices.

The American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society have received many millions of dollars from California's 1988 Proposition 99 (Tobacco Tax Initiative) to further that cause. Money that smokers are forced to pay to support anti-smoking efforts. Not to mention countless millions in federal tax dollars that were (and are) given to these groups to propagate this message. The intended use of this money for education has been warped and twisted beyond its supposed use into political lobbying toward an anti-smoking agenda.

It further states, "It's goal is to find ways to keep children from smoking. It plans to create and place advertisements intended to sway public opinion toward the tobacco control effort and to help draw together disparate anti-smoking efforts around the country."

One point that is astounding is the fact that they seem to feel impunity, on a high moral ground, to use propaganda to promote hate and intolerance, aimed at smokers, even when accommodations for both sides can effectively be reached. Again, it is all done with tax dollars. They may deny this, but the fact that these groups spend less of their private reserves on an anti-smoking crusade, while getting government grants, is in itself immoral.

Now, if some of our most anti-smoking elected officials were concerned about the "children," why are they making the access to tobacco by minors seem like the only, if not the most critical issue, our children face in our country today? They do it to promote a specific agenda. They do it to receive hundreds of millions of dollars. They most certainly do it to make big, fat salaries and gather campaign contributions in the process. Children are really secondary to the main goal of their agenda.

Then there is the question of protecting "the children" from the scourge of tobacco. It seems hypocritical that so much precious resources are spent on the tobacco issue. The fact that many more urgent issues regarding children are completely ignored is beyond reasonable comprehension.

Take for instance 2 studies that came out "State of America's Children Report" and "Housing America's Future: Children at Risk," both published in 1996, as reported in the Miami Herald, 2/13/96. According to the studies, "Everyday in America, three children die from abuse and neglect." It also concludes, "Some 10 million American Children had no health insurance in 1994."

Another point the article makes is, "Nearly 300,000 babies, or 7.2 percent of all births in 1993 had a low birthweight, the highest rate since 1976." Strange, the smoking rate had dropped dramatically since the 70's, yet the rate low birthweight rate was higher in a now larger nonsmoking population, than it was in a higher smoking population in the 70's.

Another important fact the article states is, "Nearly 35,000 babies died before their first birthday in 1992; a rate of 8.5 per 1000. For every 1000 babies born to black mothers that year, 16.8 died before their first birthday. This compares to nine per thousand in Cuba, 12 per 1,000 in Malaysia and 15 per thousand in Sri Lanka." Sad commentary on the state of American children, especially black children, and it does not seem to be caused by tobacco.

The kicker was the misery guide. According to the study of selected countries, around 21.6% of our children live below the poverty line in the U.S. The second country in line was Canada with 13.5%. Odd, the two most anti-smoking countries had the highest poverty statistics among "children." The next was Britain with 9.9%. At the bottom of the list was Sweden, with 2.7%, a far less rabid anti-smoking country and much less tobacco control than either the United States or Canada. It further states, "While America is the richest, most powerful country in the world, its child-poverty and infant mortality rates are highest among 18 industrialized nations. Rates for teen pregnancy and homicide are triple those in other industrialized countries". (italics added)

The question one should ask here is, where is the real concern for "our children?" Answers as to why are billions of dollars going out to control youth access to tobacco, while the well-being of our "children" continues to drastically plummet. One wonders how much of those billions of dollars could be used not only for better living conditions and education, but for health services that are desperately needed. It would appear that the problem of eliminating poverty in the lives of our children has taken a far backseat to the perceived problem of tobacco access to minors.

It is not only scandalous, but downright immoral that this much money, with the blessing of our President and some of our politicians, be spent on such a futile and controlling an issue. As Americans, we must look at the issues they are touting to be the top priority and see what is really behind the anti-smoking agenda, one that they continue to try and push relentlessly forward.