The media are deeply sensitive to the rights of “minorities”: the poor, the disabled, blacks, gays and immigrants, among others. But there is one minority much larger than any of these (at least 25 percent of the population) whose rights we deny or ignore: smokers. The debate over cigarettes has been framed as if smokers are the unwitting victims of the tobacco industry. They lack free will and, therefore, their apparent desires and interests don’t count. They are to be pitied and saved, not respected.
This is pack journalism run amok. We media types fancy ourselves independent thinkers. Just the opposite is often true: We’re patsies for the latest crusade or fad. In this case, the major media have adopted the view of the public health community, which sees smoking as a scourge to be eradicated. The “story” is the crusade; the villain is the tobacco industry. Lost are issues that ought to inform this debate.
The simplest is whether, in trying to make Americans better off, the anti-smoking crusade would make many Americans worse off. Smokers would clearly suffer from huge price and tax increases. The cost of the $368.5 billion agreement between the tobacco industry and the state attorneys general is estimated at 62 cents a pack. President Clinton suggests raising that to $1.50 a pack–about six times today’s federal tax (24 cents). The cost would hit the poor hardest. They smoke more than the rich.
Consider. About half (53 percent) of today’s cigarette tax is paid by taxpayers with incomes of less than $30,000, estimates the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Higher prices will deter some people from smoking. But for the rest, would siphoning billions away from poorer people be good policy? Or fair?
The anti-smoking crusaders try to seem fair by arguing three things: 1) There’s growing smoking among teenagers who, once they try cigarettes, may become addicted for life; 2) tobacco ads cause much teen smoking–teens are, therefore, victims; and 3) passive smoking (the inhaling of smoke by non-smokers) in public places is a serious health threat, justifying action against smokers. These assumptions also permeate media coverage, but the first two are open to question and the third is untrue.
Start with teen smoking. One survey from the University of Michigan does show a rise. In 1996, 34 percent of 12th-graders reported smoking in the past month–the highest since 1979 (34.4 percent). But the government’s survey on drug abuse reports the opposite: In 1996, only 18.3 percent of teens between 12 and 17 had smoked in the past month, the lowest since 1985 (29 percent). It’s hard to know which survey to believe, but neither depicts runaway teen smoking.
As for ads, teens do a lot of dangerous things (drugs, early sex) that aren’t advertised and are often illegal. The tobacco industry no doubt targets teens; but the ads may affect brand choices more than the decision to smoke. A new, comprehensive study–financed by the National Institutes of Health–suggests that teens’ home environment is more important in determining who smokes.
“Children who report feeling connected to a parent are protected against many different kinds of health risks including . . . cigarette, alcohol and marijuana use,” it says.
And even teens who smoke do not necessarily become lifetime smokers. Among 12th-graders, about twice as many (63 percent) once smoked as currently smoke. The “addiction” isn’t so great that millions haven’t broken it.
Finally, passive smoking isn’t a big public health risk, as many stories imply. The latest example of misreporting involved a study from the Harvard Medical School. It purported to show that passive smoking doubled the risk of heart attacks, indicating a huge public health problem. That’s how both The New York Times and Washington Post reported it. In fact, the study–at most–showed that passive smoking doubles a very tiny risk.
Here’s why. The study followed 32,046 non-smoking nurses between 1982 and 1992. Of these, four-fifths said they were exposed to passive smoking. But there were only 152 heart attacks (127 non-fatal) among all the nurses: a small number. Many heart attacks would have occurred even if no one were exposed to smoke. And most exposure to passive smoke is now private or voluntary, because public smoking has been barred in so many places. Will we outlaw husbands smoking in front of their wives–or vice versa?
You don’t hear much of this, because the press has an anti-smoking bias. The crusaders do have a case. Smoking is highly risky for smokers. But lots of things are risky, and do smokers have a right to engage in behavior whose pleasures and pains are mainly theirs without being punished by the rest of society?
There is almost no one to make smokers’ case. They have been abandoned by the tobacco industry, politicians and the press. Do smokers have rights? Apparently not.
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