The proposed tobacco deal has provoked a vigorous debate between those who think cigarette companies should be flogged without mercy and those who think that, once the flogging is over, they should be drawn and quartered as well. There has been endless discussion over whether the deal goes far enough to punish Big Tobacco, compensate for the costs of smokers’ illness, expand federal control over cigarettes and generally curtail tobacco consumption. Hardly anyone has thought to question the use of government power for any of these objectives.
Smoking, which used to be regarded as a matter of individual choice and responsibility, is now being treated as if it were a fatal, contagious disease unleashed on the populace by mad scientists in the employ of Philip Morris. This public-health model is popular among anti-smoking activists because it obscures the fact that the consumption of cigarettes is a voluntary activity. No one is infected with a smoking habit against his will, and anyone who acquires one is free to abandon it. A flu epidemic is a public health problem. Smoking is a private health problem.
The centerpiece of the settlement, whatever its final details may be, is the principle that tobacco companies should have to pay for the health damage caused by the use of their products. But why? All they have done is provide willing customers with a legal commodity whose hazards have been known since time immemorial.
Financial liability makes sense when a product is defective or its risks are hidden. If a lawn mower explodes or a can of soup contains toxic bacteria, the manufacturer is, and should be, required to compensate the victims. But lung cancer doesn’t come from smoking defective cigarettes–it comes from smoking ordinary cigarettes.
That risk is not a recent revelation but one every smoker has knowingly assumed. The war movie “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” made in 1944, features dialogue referring to cigarettes as “coffin nails.” You would have trouble finding a smoker who took up the habit in the expectation that it would build strong bones and sound teeth. Becoming a smoker and blaming cigarette-makers when you get lung cancer is like playing professional football and suing the NFL when you tear up your knees.
Never mind if cigarette companies have lied about the health effects of tobacco. If you sell me a supposed Rolex watch that I know is a fake, I can’t sue you, because I didn’t rely on your deception. Anyone with operational gray matter would not conclude that cigarettes were safe merely because some tobacco executive expressed doubt about the link between smoking and cancer.
State government officials who lament the impact of smoking on their budgets are blessed with conveniently short memories. For decades, they have profited handsomely from taxes on cigarettes, and under this deal, they will continue to do so. If they didn’t want to bear the costs of smokers’ illnesses, they could have barred Medicaid payment in those cases–compelling smokers to compensate for their own unhealthy habits. Or the states could have banned cigarettes entirely instead of serving as well-paid accomplices in the sale of tobacco.
One component of the settlement is a large dose of censorship. It would outlaw all cigarette advertising on billboards and the Internet, while forbidding product placement in films and television programs. Ads would still be permitted in magazines and newspapers, but they couldn’t show human beings or cartoon characters. (The Budweiser frogs and Miller Lite’s bikini-clad lasses can expect to be the next targets.) If you want a Marlboro jacket, better get it now: Big Brother plans to stamp out all items decorated with cigarette logos.
The Food and Drug Administration and other alleged custodians of our well-being are disturbed because the agreement may not grant the agency unlimited power to regulate nicotine as a drug and cigarettes as drug-delivery devices. But there is no reason it should have any such power.
The FDA’s proper role is to police medicines for safety and effectiveness. If cigarettes were being marketed as a remedy for arthritis or high blood pressure, they would certainly warrant its attention. But they are not offered or purchased as a remedy for anything except the desire to smoke. Tobacco no more warrants FDA regulation than beer, which also contains a dangerous, addictive drug that is not a medicine. The only reason to concede the agency authority over cigarettes is to let it enact slow-motion Prohibition.
Those who want to bleed Big Tobacco say they are defending us from the death and destruction caused by smoking. The protection is no favor to adults who would like to preserve some latitude to live their own lives, of which America still has a few.
