Tobacco Documents Online

Page"0' H T ®0033041 NEWS Chicago, Illinois June 26, 1964 Trade Cornmission Oversteps TNE FEDERAL Trade Commission st+rrod up a real bomet's nest with its ruling that cigarets must carry a warning that they "may cause death from cancer and other diseuses." The mulGbillion-dol- 1ar tobacco Industry will fight the ruling tooth and nail. And it should. The issue hete is not whether cigarets ire a hazard to health, but whether the P'I'C has the power to single out cigarets for this kind of action. If it has, its power il too broad for comfort and all of us ought to worry about it. By this tinne, surely no one is about to bb iled into ehiakiaa that ciaaret imok- lft is good for the health. The statistics att lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, aad all the rest have been bandied about at great Icngth, and while the studies do not all come out at the same place they geeerally agree that cigaret smoking is rlslty. Grandpa knew this two generations ago when he called cigarets "coffin nails." Millions of youngsters have heen paddled tof sneaking behind the bant or into the aVq to smoke. Recent studies mainly con- firAt, in frightening detail, the risks that go with the habit. 8ut we are still dealing with risks, not wlth artainty. Not everybody wh.~ smokes a lttt will die of lung cancer, any more fhatl everybody who rides in a car will de In a tratfic mishap. Automobiles kill abdut 45,000 people every year-far more 60 die of lung cancer-so should the FTC aflix a "hazard" warning to every automobile? Obesity is firmly linked to premature death, so must we label candy and desserts-or potatues--as potential killers? The PTC, it seems to us, is charging up a dangerous trail In briaging the maj- rsty of the federal government to bear on this problem. Is 1t prepared to "protect" the American people from all voluntary risks? If not, where can it draw the line? Recent diaclosures about cigaret smok- ing have already hr.ottght drastic revision in tobacco advertising. Public opinion will very likely change the pattern even further as time goes on and the manufactuters see where, their seit interest really lies. This is as It should be, and if the result were to reduce the number of habitual smokers to zero the tobacco companies would just have to bear it. But progress should be made through voluntary action and public persuasion, not bureaucratic compulsion. The limitless ex- pansion of bureaucratic power carries a graver risk to the whole society than all the foolish risks taken by individual cigaret smokers put together. ftEWS Patterson, New Jerspy June 26, 1964 How Far Such Tyranny? The Federal Trade Commission ap- pears to have sounded a high note of lederal bt•reaucracy and tyranny In its order that cigaret package labels by Jan. 1, 1965 must bear the Iegend "cig- aret smokin is dangerous to health and may cause ~eath from cancer and other dfseases." This is like telling cigaret manufac- tu-ers to label their packages with a skull and cross bones Imprinted with a large"Poison" label. All that is needed is the further warning: "Don't buy these, they'll kill you." This is not a dissertation on the merits of the c!aim that cigarets are harmful, a contention which is still wide- ly debated. But nothing could have been more clearly projected to the world than U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry's pro- nouncement last year that cigarets are cancer-induce.rs. Every newspaper Page 1, every radlo and television program broadcast the warning. There was no attempt at concealment, although there was dispute as to the finding. Yet people go right on smoking. If the FTC can get away with such bureaucratic despotism, what is to pre• vent an .order to the auto industr~y that all cars must carry the legend: 'Look out, this machine is a killer." The cigaret manufacturers are plan- nfng an all-out attack on this kind of governmental intrusion and they should find support if only on the principle of falrneac and equity In business.