There are other less obvious villains in tobacco debate

By MATT DEES

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 2, 2000

Long before I gave the Marlboro Man a second thought, I thought it might be fun to give the ol' cancer sticks a try.

I was 12, and my daily regimen of Nintendo and backyard basketball was beginning to get old. My friends and I would raid the change coffers in our homes, searching for quarters to feed the cigarette machines located within bike-riding distance of our neighborhood.

We practiced blowing smoke rings (a skill none of us quite mastered) and boasted, with as much machismo as we could muster, about who got the best buzzes without turning green.

But the main reason for this experimentation was that we knew full well we were breaking the rules. As bad as it sounds, the biggest rush came from engaging in a forbidden activity. And whether it was smoking or making out in the basement, most teenagers have done foolish things for this very reason.

I share this childhood flashback as a reminder about human and adolescent nature as our nation continues its assault on tobacco companies and the role they play in addicting young people to cigarettes. While a group of Florida attorneys with dollar signs flashing in their eyes take aim at the tobacco executives and their advertising campaigns, any realistic person has to acknowledge there are many more important factors (for me, it was a classic case of adolescent rebellion) that lead kids down Tobacco Road.

Truth be told, Hollywood's glamorization of cigarettes in films such as Pulp Fiction and Reality Bites has made smoking look cooler, sexier and more alluring than Joe Camel ever did. The youth-oriented Rolling Stone even published a cover photo recently of heartthrob Brad Pitt smoking seductively. Aren't these media just as liable for spreading the "smoking is cool" message? Apparently not. These media aren't on the hit list because, unlike the tobacco industry, they have not been on the losing end of such successful and lucrative litigation. They simply don't make as good a villain.

It is true that tobacco companies knowingly lied about the addictiveness and damaging effects of their products, and they should be held accountable for such deceptions. But let's not pretend that consumers were in the dark. We've known for decades that cigarettes are addictive and harmful. Did anyone actually believe that slimy tobacco exec on 60 Minutes when he compared a smoking habit to his love for jelly beans? Did we really need him to admit it?

What's more, it's not as if the companies haven't already paid handsomely for their misconduct. They are currently indebted to most of the states in the nation to the tune of $254-billion, thanks to a 1998 settlement. This money is going to health-care and anti-smoking programs in more than 40 states and will be paid out over the next 25 years.

But a group of Florida lawyers is dead-set on going for the jugular. This class-action lawsuit, if even remotely successful, would put the tobacco companies in dire financial straits. The lawsuit is not, as lawyers and state politicians would tell you, an effort to seek justice for the hapless "victims" of a product they chose to use. The state of Florida and the lawyers themselves stand to profit significantly from the lawsuit. Aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars in the annual state budget that comes from the 1998 settlement, not even most of which is going to health care, the University of Florida law school has received $20-million in tax revenue benefits, according to Fletcher Baldwin, a professor at the school. "The Florida attorney general and Florida juries are aggressively going after the companies," he says. "Quite frankly, it's an alternative source of revenue for the state and attorneys."

This offers a telling insight into the motives behind the class-action suit. Even anti-tobacco lobbyists say the suits are getting out of hand.

"Litigation is out of control," says Jeff Greene, director of the North Carolina chapter of the American Lung Association. "It's become a political issue and profit margin. It needs to be focused on health issues."

When the people who stand to benefit politically and financially from the lawsuits begin to decry them, we should all begin to wonder where this road will lead us. The lawyers are telling us, yet again, that they are pursuing justice in the face of an evil industry. They are saying the tobacco companies misled us and coaxed us, through targeted advertising, to use their product. In their chase for another big-money verdict, the lawyers want us to view this as a classic fight between good and evil.

But the jurors who sit in judgment on Florida's closely watched class-action lawsuit were once kids, which should help them see through this simplistic argument. I'd wager most of them have walked in my teenage shoes at one point and know that we sometimes made rebellious choices. In the ongoing debate over tobacco use, there are many villains. This time, the lawyers are the most deplorable among them.

Matt Dees, the 2000 Pittman Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and editor of the Daily Tar Heel, is an intern at the Times.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.