Tuesday, April 14, 1998

Big tobacco's loud corporate villainy

By Ellen Goodman

BOSTON - My, how I had missed them. Their sheer nerve, their unabridged bluster, their unparalleled corporate villainy.

There was a tobacco mogul once again on the podium, whining about how Congress had betrayed him, declaring the deal they struck last June was dead. And all I could think of was: YESSSSS, THEY'RE BACK!

Steven Goldstone of RJR Nabisco, a man in a nicotine-induced state of self-righteousness, complained the tobacco industry was being unfairly discriminated against. Then someone from Brown & Williamson, a fellow traveler in the smoking section, huffed and puffed, "Congress wants us to sign a suicide note."

I mean, don't you love it when they talk like that?

Imagine the very folks who produce the "nicotine delivery system" that accounts for some 434,000 deaths a year, whimpering about suicide notes. Imagine them complaining about discrimination.

They even managed to poor-mouth an industry whose profits rose 9 percent last year. As Goldstone said, "We are not like a Brinks truck overturned in the middle of a highway." True, true. They are like a Mack truck running through the respiratory system.

Here we go again. The gang that once swore cigarettes don't cause cancer, nicotine isn't addictive and Joe Camel is a cartoon for adults hasn't lost the touch after all!

Before I get too nostalgic, shall we return to those wonderful days last year when the deal between the state attorneys general, the health community and the tobacco companies was first brokered.

The tobacco folks were in as rough a shape as any three-pack smoker. They were caught lying to Congress. They were hemmed in by whistle-blowers and FDA regulators. They were sued by smokers and by states seeking Medicaid reimbursement for health costs.

The tobacco companies cut a deal that would keep them on life supports. In return for a limit on their liability and a ban on future class action suits, they would cough up $368 billion over 25 years, agree to a 62 cents a pack increase over the life of the agreement and restrict marketing to youths.

In some ways, the tobacco moguls are right. The bill in the Senate is tougher than the deal they worked out with the state attorneys general. The bill voted out of committee would cost $516 billion over 25 years, raise the cost of cigarettes $1.10 in five years, raise the liability cap and allow class action suits.

But before we cry for Camels, let us remember a lot of folks thought the first deal was pretty soft. Moreover, Congress wasn't at the original bargaining table and has every right to add some calcium to the mixture.

The companies' threat is simple. Without their agreement, it may be hard to get rid of advertising to kids. When Clinton heard they were walking, he asked disparagingly, "What are they going to do? Say, we're going to go back to advertising to children?" Well, bless their malevolent hearts, yes.

Now, as someone who has inhaled this debate over many years, I must say the flaw in the current anti-smoking campaign is that it's based so specifically on kids.

It's true that long-range success will be judged by how many fewer kids get hooked. But the campaign plays into the hands of tobacco pushers who piously tell children smoking is an adult choice like "voting, driving a car, drinking alcoholic beverages, marriage, having children."

This linkage of cigarettes, sex, drinking and driving has resulted in a rebellious rise in teen smoking of 9 percent since 1991.

I would love tobacco companies to stop advertising to kids. But the most important tools against smoking may be raising the price of tobacco and promoting counter-ads to show kids they are being manipulated, not liberated, by CEOs in suits. In Massachusetts such a combined tax hike and anti-smoking campaign produced the nation's steepest declines in smoking among adults and held the line among teens.

Congress doesn't need the consent of Big Tobacco to pass a $1.10 tax or an aggressive anti-smoking campaign. RJR and friends know it.

Goldstone expressed something akin to surprise, if not downright pain, to discover the public's "mistrust and anger." That's touching, I'm sure. But they've become a rogue industry even in congressional chambers decorated in tobacco leaves.

Much as I love to see a real good villain back up on the stage, their safest place is at the table. Somewhere in all that familiar bluster, I hear the tinny sound of a bluff.

The Boston Globe Newspaper Company