THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508220008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
The Virginian-Pilot article ``Clinton to let FDA regulate nicotine,'' as well as your editorial, ``A bad congressional joke'' (Aug. 10) are indications that the president is about to take the high moral ground in the issue of the grave public danger inherent in cigarette smoking, especially for teenagers.
In this matter, as he did in the case of the health-care issue, Mr. Clinton is opposing powerful and influential special-interest groups who will undoubtedly impute devious political motives to his actions.
The only group worthy of our sympathy here is the tobacco farmers themselves, and for this reason the president went into North Carolina to explain his intentions, only to be ridiculed and threatened by pedestrian politicians.
Ever since the American Indian introduced us to tobacco, the leaf has been a lucrative crop for the South. But just as slavery shifted from an economic to a humanitarian dispute in the 19th century, so too tobacco is widely recognized as a medical danger and cannot be redeemed on the basis of economics alone.
Tobacco growers will one day be relegated to the same fate as the spittoon makers and the buggy-whip manufacturers. But compassion should dictate that the federal and state governments ease this transition from a dangerous crop to a healthy agricultural substitute.
Furthermore, cigarette smoking is just plain dumb in adults and it is downright pathetic in minors. The columnist Michael Gartner has said: ``There's no question cigarettes ruin our health. They kill more than 400,000 Americans each year.''
If a memorial were erected to those who died from smoking last year, it would be seven times as long as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If four loaded DC-10s crashed and burned every day for a year, they would kill fewer people than die each year from cigarette smoking.
As a rational American, I cannot understand how any politician can honestly endorse the use of tax dollars for our government's price support and a production-control program that guarantees farmers a minimum price for their tobacco.
We are supporting a crop that is slowly threatening our youth and adding horrendously to our medical-insurance premiums.
A. P. PIRRONE
Virginia Beach, Aug. 10, 1995 by CNB