Cigarette Makers Are Just Using Smokers
An editorial in the DALLAS MORNING NEWS points out that the tobacco
companies that recently raised the price of cigarettes 40-50 cents a
pack to pay for the multi-state settlement are the same people who
balked at the federal legislation that included a cigarette excise tax
because it would be a "tax on smokers."
"The fact that the tobacco companies are unwilling to allow their shareholders to bear the cost of
the settlement, but, rather, insist on passing those costs on to smokers
proves the tobacco companies were never truly concerned about smokers'
pocketbooks..."
"I believe that their real opposition to the
legislation was regulation. The industry realized that having its
product nicotine regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a drug
(as the legislation would have done) was just too big a risk to their
long-term financial interests..."
Now smokers are learning the
truth: cigarette makers never really cared about the price smokers paid
for cigarettes nor did they intend to spare smokers the costs of the states'
lawsuits. In fact, cigarette makers were just USING smokers. Of course, they
have been doing this all along!
Source: Kortney Kloppe-Orton, "Cigarette Makers' Duplicity," DALLAS
MORNING NEWS (on-line), December 15, 1998, p. A24.