THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9407290022
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
``Blowing smoke'' (editorial, July 21) was correctly named. You must be in great debt to the big tobacco companies to drag that issue into the U.S. Senate race. Although I do not know Sen. Charles Robb nor any of his aides, it could well be that he has analyzed that issue a lot more than you have as far as the voting populace is concerned.
If you can get out of the editorial room long enough to look around this area, you will see that the major shopping malls have become smoke-free zones, as have most public businesses. And if you try to park near one of the malls, it appears that the public is not deterred by not being permitted to smoke inside them. Many forward-looking corporations have declared their places of business off-limits to smoke.
More and more indisputable facts are being produced as to the awful effects of tobacco. This is not just happening to ``them up there'' or elsewhere; it is happening every day right here in Hampton Roads.
Check with any of the ear, nose and throat surgeons in this area and you will determine that smoking cigarettes brings on devastating results.
I was puffing away before you were born, and no one in those days would tell you that smoking was harmful. In the North African campaign, the Army issued cigarettes right along with C rations. I ended up with a long-term, two-pack-a-day habit.
I was fortunate in that my cancer was detected in the early stages. After seven hours of surgery, I ended up with no vocal chords. Having learned to talk with an electronic device, I do my best to carry the message to school students who have not yet become addicted and to let them know what the consequences of smoking are.
The Tidewater Lost Chord Club meets every Monday. You are welcome to attend at 1 p.m. at the American Cancer Society. You would no doubt consider us ``non-smoking militants,'' according to your writings.
You spoke of the ``browbeating'' of the tobacco executives that followed their sworn testimony when each claimed that tobacco/nicotine is not addictive. That claim is as absurd as saying that whiskey is not intoxicating. Ask almost any smoker to give you his cigarettes and quit. Certainly, he or she has the absolute right to sit there and smoke his or her way into oblivion. Others rightly worry where and on whom they blow their smoke.
On the same day of your editorial, a national magazine carried news of interest about chewing tobacco and the death of R. J. Reynolds III. According to the American Dental Association, more than half of the 91 National League players who chew tobacco have precancerous lesions in their mouths. Mr. Reynolds, 60, died of emphysema and congestive heart failure after a lifetime of smoking.
As to your concern for the workers involved, your position on ``workplace fairness'' is already known, based on your corporate-pleasing writings; and the Bakery, Confectionary and Tobacco Workers will do just as well without your type of support. There are strong indications that it's not smoke in your eyes; it is dollar signs.
J. W. ``BILL'' WEBB
Virginia Beach, July 24, 1994 by CNB