Richard Thomas in Washington
IT looks as if the game is finally up for=20 the tobacco industry. The anti-smoking=20 lobby is anticipating a spell of success=20 after decades of disappointment in the=20 courtrooms. For 1997 is the year when=20 government bodies finally square up to a=20 corporate lobby whose wealth and power=20 seemed to guarantee permanent immunity.=20
This week the United States tobacco=20 industry locked horns with the Food and=20 Drug Administration (FDA) in Greenboro,=20 North Carolina, over plans to stop=20 cigarette advertising anywhere near=20 schools. In the current climate, the FDA is=20 favourite to win. Encouraged by new cracks=20 in the legal armour of the industry and by=20 President Bill Clinton’s war of words=20 against smoking, 18 US states are suing the=20 industry for the cost of providing health=20 care to citizens with smoking-related=20 illnesses. Texas alone is going for $16- billion.
Even in France a lawsuit has been launched=20 by a cancer-stricken former hearse driver.
The tobacco industry is sufficiently=20 worried that negotiations on a one-off,=20 global settlement are being discreetly=20 conducted. But such a victory over the=20 smoking lobby is not a cause for=20 celebration, especially not for those on=20 the left. The renewed war against tobacco=20 firms is symptomatic of a society without=20 responsibility, of a politics driven by=20 opportunism and cowardice – and of a legal=20 philosophy built on greed and hypocrisy.
For years, lawsuits against cigarette firms=20 floundered in the face of one overwhelming=20 and persuasive argument: the people whose=20 health was affected by cigarettes choose to=20 smoke, and so should accept the=20 consequences, which were widely known. No=20 jury could deny the force of the=20 individual-responsibility argument.
And rightly so. People have the right to=20 drink too much alcohol, eat too much salt,=20 or not to do any exercise. If that means=20 the right to die early, so be it. Of=20 course, the health lobbies should also be=20 at liberty to try to persuade us to jog=20 more and puff less.=20
Recognising this, the smart lawyers that=20 only the US seems able to generate have hit=20 on a new strategy. Instead of suing on=20 behalf of individuals, they act on behalf=20 of state governments which pick up the tab=20 for lung cancer and other smoking-related=20 ailments.
Where does it stop? How about taking a few=20 bucks off Ford for making all those cars=20 that keep running people over and belching=20 out asthma-generating gases? And if we get=20 military hardware into the mix, the lawyers=20 could have a field day: land-mine=20 manufacturers, in particular, have done a=20 great deal to push up hospital costs.
We may not like these firms, we may not=20 like the results – but retrospectively to=20 make them pay for the effects of their=20 products, well known in advance, is=20 intellectual fraud of breathtaking=20 proportions. However, fiscal opportunism=20 has elbowed out such high-brow concerns.=20 With smokers conveniently vilified as=20 social pariahs – and nowhere more so than=20 in the Land of the Free – the tobacco=20 companies look like a juicy target for=20 cash-strapped legislatures.=20
In many countries, politicians of all=20 shades pretend to voters that they can have=20 the services they want without having to=20 pay higher taxes – a blatant fiction. But=20 no one can criticise the tax gatherer for=20 taking money from those nasty-smelling=20 smokers or tobacco executives, now can=20 they?=20
Even worse than the political double-think=20 is the blind eye turned to what is=20 happening in the Third World. The tobacco=20 industry knows that Western markets are=20 saturated and the profits so enviously eyed=20 by politicans are increasingly made in the=20 fast-growing markets of Asia.
So the tobacco giants make vast profits=20 from unsophisticated consumers in the=20 poorer parts of the world; rich governments=20 then appropriate as much as possible to=20 fund their public services, without having=20 to ask their own voters to pay more.=20 Meanwhile, well-heeled lawyers buy a couple=20 more Lear jets and act as progressive=20 champions of the people. Now that is enough=20 to make you choke.