Chapter 35 Economic issues

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The tobacco industry is using its enormous public relations and lobbying resources to

try to convince Congress and the American public that a health tax on tobacco would

do such a good job of reducing smoking that tobacco farmers would be devastated.

This implies that Americans must keep smoking and dying in vast numbers to

preserve tobacco industry jobs and the economic health of tobacco-producing states.

This argument is both immoral and factually wrong. Even if the debate were about

industry jobs vs. human lives, only the tobacco processors would support the sacrifice

of hundreds of thousands of lives to protect a much smaller number of jobs. But the

debate is not about jobs vs. lives. The tobacco industry has distorted the facts about

jobs, just as it has manipulated the government and the tobacco farmers for so many

years. One recent industry publication projected that the tax would cost 270,000 jobs

even though there are only 256,616 jobs involved in the entire industry, including

farming, warehousing, manufacturing and wholesaling.

Washington Post, February 9, 1994, p. A23 (Jimmy Carter)

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Monday, July 24, 2000

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