Word: tobacco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cigarette manufacturers, of course, applauded the secretary's decision. Walker Merryman, a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute, a lobbying group, said: "We support the secretary's decision.... We hope the [educational] campaign will be factual and provide a rational basis for a free and informed choice, which all adults should make...
Weinberger's decision--and the military associations' support of it--are short-sighted. And the tobacco industry's defense of their myopia is specious...
There is no inalienable right to smoke cigarettes. Governments routinely prohibit certain behaviors, simply because they are self-injurious. Yet lurking behind the tobacco industry's defense--that people should make a "free and informed choice"--is the notion that cigarette smoking is a right...
Weinberger's token anti-smoking campaign is bound to fail. Obviously, it's the governmental equivalent of the parental maxim, "Do as I say, not as I do." On one hand, Uncle Sam tells his soldiers to eschew the evil tobacco leaf, while on the other, he provides them discounts on cigarettes...
...SECRETARY'S POLICY, however illogical, is not anomalous. It reflects the federal government's contradictory position on smoking. For 20 years now, the surgeon general has been telling us that cigarettes are hazardous to our health. And for the same period, the federal government has continued to subsidize tobacco farmers. The cooptation of the Congress by the tobacco industry is shamefully apparent...