Tobacco Documents Online

C company will begin far ahead and run a smooth, slick campaign. But they think that Callaghan, if he plays it right, can close the gap. And they think it's entirely possible that Thatcher, who's not very popular to begin with and comes across a cold "cultured pearl," could blow her lead. In the end, though, most observers think that Thatcher will win a narrow victory, which is about in parallel with what happened in America in November 1968. After that, you will recall, George Mc.Govern made his move. Morton Kondracke In defense of filthy habits. ~ A Smoker's Lament I mean to give up smoking one of these days. It's a filthy habit, and dangerous to my health. Why haven't I already given it up? Lest you forget, it isn't easy to give up. Your chest feels empty. Your head feels light. You can't concentrate: you read a paragraph, and re-read it, and re-read it, and God only knows what it says. Moreover, there is an awful secret about smoking: much of the time it's just a nc.(-ssity, but some of the time it's wonderful! Think of fresh, strong, black coffee with a Cauloise Bleu. Think of a little Dutch cigar with an icy pink gin. I'd rather give up sex. I confess to weakness of will. But why are you so angry? - _ (1) "How ugly it looks." Well, I agree: we smokers do not look as lovely as we once thought we would. We smokers thought, at age 14, that we would look just grand holding a cigarette; and we don't. Our fingers are yellow, and our teeth-the less said about our teeth the better. An ashtray full of cigarette butts (especially an ashtray that was wet to start with) comes fairly far down on my own list of favorite things to look at, and I smoke. But it cannot be this that makes you so angry. (2) "How ugly it smells." Did you ask me if I mind your soap? Or the onions you had for lunch? I cannot remember that you did. (3) "You're killing the rest of us!" Now we've come to something serious. I have my suspicions on this matter, but I wouldn't dream of arguing. It is said that when we smoke in enclosed places, we impose a harm (or at least a risk of harm) on the non-smokers. Let us suppose this is true. Then certainly we ought not smoke in those places-if the non-smokers have to be in those places, and if those enclosed places hare to remain closed. 16 C I do think it important to stress that the fact (supposing it a fact) that if we smoke in enclosed places we impose a harm (or at least a risk of harm) on non- smokers does not settle anything at all by itself. There are distinctions to be made. Elevators? Certainly. People have to use them, and there is no way of ventilating them efficiently, soit was right to make it illegal to smoke in elevators--right even if we cause no harm, but merely annoy. Elevators seem to me an extreme and obvious case, and a useful one: the more an enclosed space is like an elevator, the more reasonable it seems to bar smoking in it. Perhaps (some) grocery stores. Perhaps (some sections of some) libraries. Perhaps classrooms with no windows. Perhaps (some) movie houses, (I say nothing here about fire prevention. Rules against smoking are of course proper in places where there is great risk of harm or damage due to fire.) But there are other cases. I do not merely have in mind private places, like one's own apartment, or one's own private office. I have in mind public places. Public rooms which have windows which can be opened. Public rooms which are efficiently air-conditioned. There is always room for dispute as to whether the air- conditioning in a given space is efficient; but there being room for such a dispute does not settle that it is not efficient. I said it was also relevant to ask whether the non- smokers have to be in thost places. Nobody has to come to my dinner parties. Nobody has to have lunch with me in the little seminar room down the hall from my office. Nobody hws :., -at at such and such a restaurant. There are restaurants that do not permit smoking at all; there are restaurants that permit smoking only in certain areas. Far be it from me to complain about that: I am all in favor of a restaurant owner's being free to make such rules as he pleases. What I do complain about is the self- righteous, militant non-smoker who wants it made illegal to smoke anywhere 'in any restaurant. Is he dense? Does he just fail to notice that what he wants would be a gross infringement of liberty? One more point on this matter of the harm we do. Our attention is often drawn to the fact that there are people whom we harm directly and immediately, not merely by increasing their risk of harm later, but now, by causing the most frightful symptoms in the present-watering eyes, wheezing, coughing, choking and retching. (The reader who has actually seen such an episode is invited to add to the list. I have never seen one, and so can't.) Well, we smokers are not villains; moreover, we are awfully edgy these days, easily moved to guilt. We wouldn't dream of smoking in the presence of such a person. But I do think it worth stressing that those people are of much less interest from a moral point of view,-than is commonly thought. There is a limit; and those people fall beyond it. What I have in mind comes out by way of an analogy. Ocfober 14, 1978

A Suppose a man moves in next door to you, and it turns out he has a frightful ailment: the smell of coffee causes watering eyes, wheezing, coughing, choking, retching. Naturally he never makes coffee himself. But unfor- tunately he is so sensitive that your making it triggers the symptoms. (The smell leaks into his apartment through the ventilating system. Or it leaks into the hall, and from there into his apartment.) Do you have to give up coffee? Do you have to move? Would it make a difference if he were there before you moved in? Suppose he gets a job with the same company you work for; would you all have to give up coffee at work? Suppose he wants to participate in local government; does everybody in town have to give up coffee lest there be a smell of it in the air at town meeting? No and no and no. It would be generous in you and the others to do these things, but supererogatory. That is, it is not morally required of you to do them. He should make the necessary adjustments. There is a limit to the extent to which we are mortgaged to each other. There is a limit to the extent to which we must rearrange our lives so as to avoid doing harm. The question that sets the limit is a fascinating one; it calls for much delicat,- moral thinking. I am sure that answering it would call (among other things) for looking at the various ways in which harm can be done, and what cost to ordinary living would be imposed by requiring harms not to be done in those ways. My point here is only that there is a limit, and that (whatever sets it) these especially peculiarly and susceptible people fall beyond it. (4) "Think of the costs you impose on the rest of us- costs' taken literally. Have you any idea how many medical bills your insurance company will pay when you finally come down with cancer of the lungs?" Very well; but please be consistent. That is, why do you say this only to me? Smokers are not the only people who engage in risky activities. Why don't you send reminders of the costs to mountain climbers? To people who sail small boats? (Have you any idea what it costs when the Coast Guard has to go out on a rescue?) To people who race motorcars? To people who pack the family in the car and drive away for Labor Day weekend. To people who overeat. To people who live in New York. And most of these people don't need to engage in their risky activities. I never met a mountain climber who had to go out at 10 o'clock on a snowy night because he suddenly discovered he'd run out of mountains. While we are on the subject of costs, two further points come to mind. In the first place, the militant non- smoker who wants smoking-related ailments cut from the insurance rolls would be in better faith if he also wanted smokers to get larger pensions. Poor woman smoker! Despite recent legal developments, women are still getting smaller pensions for equal contributions because women on the whole live longer than men; c smokers, however, on the whole live shorter than non- smokers, In the second place, we smokers really mind the heavy tax imposed on cigarettes. (The very thought of that tax tends to cause watering eyes, wheezing, coughing, choking, etc.) Why do you feel free to tax them so heavily? I haven't noticed anyone urging that comparable taxes be imposed on climbing gear, ski poles, small boats, or motorcycles. The answer is probably obvious enough; I11 come back to it in a moment. (5) "Think what you are doing to your body!" There we have it, what I think is the source of most of the anger. What is one to reply? I fancy the mysterious "You don't know the half of what I do to my body," and the cheerful "My body has done some frightful things to me-I'm just getting even with it." Unfortunately, the only right reply is the churlish "None of your business." One of the worst things about being a smoker nowadays is that one is so often fo; ed to bechurlish in just that way. 0 There are so many busybodies! We have a conception of how a person ought to live, and we want to see to it that people live as tt,_~v ought. The fanatic will do whatever is necessary: "You'll lead a healthy life if I have to kill you!" TLe non-fanatic won't kill you; he'll just do his damndest to make the activity he disap- proves of illegal if he can, and anyway expensive if he can't, and in general, a source of guilt. I am not clear just precisely what it is about smoking that makes it seem incompatible with the good life. I thought for a long time that it was simply that the smoker harms himself. But something interesting happened lately which casts doubt on that hypothesis. What I have in mind is the wild public reaction produced by the announcement of one researcher's conclusion that some cigarettes may be safely smoked in moderation after all. "No!"people said. "False! Can't be true!"It may be that this reaction issued from nothing more interesting than intellectual inertia. (Changing your mind is hard work.) But it may be there is something more fundamental, a deeper source of objection, and that the non-smoker would object to smoking even if it hdrmed no one at all. Consider hair dye. Large noise in the press when people discovered it causes cancer; no noise in the press when other people discovered it doesn't, or anyway Next Week: A Non-Smoker's Rebuttal , 7hr Nrm RepubJic 17

. C doesn't in the amounts anyone might reasonably be expected to use. Many people take a dim view of dyeing one's hair. I think they were pleased to hear it was harmful, but they don't mind if it isn't. (Maybe you haven't met any such people. They thrive in damp university towns such as the one I live in.) "It isn't natural," they say. "Gray hair is natural." And: "Why do you put that dirty stuff on your mouth and eyelashes?" And, getting into the swing of it: "How can you let your children eat hot dogs?" I had, myself, hoped that this tiresome echo of the 1960s would have dissipated (like smoke) by now; alas, it hasn't. In any case, whatever the source of your concern for us may be, we smokers thank you for it. And one of these days, we really do mean to be chaste. But not yet! Could you please leave us alone in the meanwhile? Judith Thomson Judith Thom,on teaches philosophy at MIT. Most prices are already controlled but not by the government. The Case for Controls by Robert Lekachman Last month in The Wall Street Journal, Herbert Stein, the conservative economist who reluctantly presided over Nixon price and wage controls in 1971 and afterwards, warned President Carter that he was poised upon the slippery downward path toward the same destination. Stein sketched a strong story line. Jawboning a la Robert Strauss will be a palpable fiasco, leading to "voluntary" guideposts or-in Carter administration newspeak-"standards" for allowable wage and price hikes. As the standards predictably become items of hooting a:nd derision, various politicians eat their previous statements in the national interest and opt for mandatory powers over refractory corporations and unions. All that separates 1978 from 1971, Stein said, is a new control gimmick. This is TIP, short for tax-based incentive schemes which either promise rewards for good behavior (the Arthur Okun model) or impose tax penalties for inflationary conduct (the Henry Wallich- Sidney Weintraub variant). Otherwise, plus ca change, plus c'est la merne chose. As expected, Stein's moral iy: stop right here and turn back before it is too late. I agree with Stein that controls are in our near future. Unlike him, I consider them potentially benign, if they are appropriately designed and judiciously applied. What follows then is a minority case for controls which, the pollsters report, are favored by a majority of the public, but opposed by business, labor, and most of my colleagues. It is well to start with a practical consideration. In the absence of credible executive action against inflation, the Federal Reserve will do its thing by raising interest rates so high and reducing monetary growth so severely that our aging business cycle recovery will sputter to a halt and give way to another recession. Ominous signs are numerous that the Fed has already embarked on just such a course. Although G. William Miller is younger, brisker, and shorter of wind than the canonized Arthur Burns, he is as much imprisoned by the anti-inflation ideology of central banking as any other Federal Reserve chairman. The latest Congressional budget resolution, it is true, can be interpreted as a sign of fiscal restraint and an excuse for the Fed to control its anti-inflationary zeal. The projected 1979 fiscal year deficit, a mere $38.7 billion, is smaller both than the current deficit and the administration's projections for the coming year. Unfortunately today's inflation has more to do with cost-push pressures and external events than with excessive total demands For goods and services. It is simply not true that too many dollars (created by federal profligates) are chasing too few goods and services. Notwithstanding popular mythology about the inevitable connection between federal deficits and inflation, a truly balanced federal budget would moderate inflation only slightly. But it certainly would precipitate a sharp contraction and sickening un- employment rates. 037894'7 Still something must be done about in lation. The omniscient pollsters, once more, report that it is the most pressing of publicissues. Its impact resonates in the defeat of "big-spenders" like Representative Donald Fraser in Minnesota and "big taxers" like 18 Orfober 14, 1978