Tobacco Documents Online

Page 31 11 T®003J0.72 POST & TIMES-STAR Cincirtnati, Ohio Juae 26, 1964 RICHARD STARNES Skull-and-Crossbones on Whisky? (Alfred Segal Is on oaration.) The Federal Trade Commission has ordered the manufacturers of cigarets to amend labels and advertising to warn users that the product is dangerous and may cause cancer or other diseases. FTC stoutly maintains that it is legally entitled to do this. and one must auppose that the courts wiU support its stand. The courts are no more able to resist dabbling in our folkways, mores and vices than any other ten- tacle of government is. LUNG CANCER will probably turn off 50.000 Americans in a good year, although no man alive can tell just how many of these deads can proper~• be laid to tobacco. Some will be tetched by over-indulgence In exhaust fumes, and some due to causes that may forever remain unknown. Certainly a number of virtuous men and women who have never once smoked so much as a solitary coffin nail will succumb to big casino, as well as to bronchiectasis and emphysema, the lattet diatempers also being ones that may be triggered by excessive cigaret smoking. THERE SEEMS TO BE considerable scientific evidence that cigarets may be partly responalble for all these vile agues, and for thP sake of argument Pl us assume they are. But then, in fair• ness, shouldn't the assumptton also be made that demon rum is also ruinous to the health if taken in large doses' It is widely believed In the doctor {rade that excessive use of alcohol will make a chap'a liver start to bang, and this may be true. !t may also be true ti at too much of the lovely tombstone pnhxh will cause slomach ulcers. 11 is ako sup• posrd that liquor can turn men into ravening beasts, and women Into helplces, coltant victims of their wicked will. m1hc question, however. ic this: Since a case can be medd! that overuse of ardent s irits can harm the giblets, w~r lstt't tge FTC entitled to paste a aku]1 and crossbanes on every jug of whisky of• fered for sale? If the state Is obliged to protect the brutish users from killing themselves with cigarets, why isn't it, equally dutybound to take the same step with respect to alcohol? AND NOW THAT that's settled, let us draw attention to the fact that more than 50,000 Americans will be killed in auto accidPnts this year, that perhaps 1.5 million will be injured, and approx4 mately 150.000 permanently disabled. Having established that the auto Is a hazard to public health it seems clear that the government ought to do some. thiag about it. l)ur suggestion here Is a sticker for the dash of every auto put up for sale which would contain something like the following language- "Warning: Improperly used, this ve- hicle mav cause death or injury. AD pas- acngers and operators are cauttoned to avoid use of this contrivance when overly fatigued. when drunk, when angry with wife or children, under conditions of poor visibility, or when roads are slippery." NEST, IT IS my conviction that all bathing attire should contain an em• broidered warning that drowning Is uni• formly faldt to those whom it afflicts. Tennis rackets clearly are dangerous to people with unsuspected heart disease, and should be clearly tabeled as pnten• tially lethal Instruments. Same for golf clubs. Same, indeed, for everythinq. The only logical extension of the FTC order is for the soothsayers in Washington to order every newborn American iniant be indelibly tattooed as follows: "lbung man tor womaai you are alive, which Is the most dangerous enterprise ever discovered by man. The fatality rate, waich Is 100 per cent, makes living an extretnely hazardous occupation, and one which your government hereby warne you e ainst." An~, of ceurse, the tattoo would hte signed "Big Brother."