Jump to full article: Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star, 2009-06-19
Author: Paul Metzger
Intro: A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs. --James I
IT TOOK only 305 years, but Congress has finally gotten around to acknowledging that the English king had it exactly right. A new law at long last puts tobacco under the Food and Drug Administration. Despite the industry's past denials that nicotine makes their products intensely addictive, tobacco is now going to be regulated as what it is--an exceptionally dangerous drug.
It's certainly the most lethal addictive substance known . . .
Why the sudden about-face in the United States after decades of stubborn resistance to overwhelming evidence? As usual, the answer is: money.
The push for universal health coverage drew a legislative bull's-eye on tobacco. With the number of smokers way down, Big Tobacco no longer had the clout it could previously count on in Congress and state legislatures. . . .
What history shows is that when industries begin to pollute the environment, they can get away with it for decades, but not forever: They provoke their own regulation.
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