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Copyright 1993 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., All rights reserved. ' ABC NEWS SHOVIW: 20/20 April 2, 1993 LENGTH: 7973 words HEADLINE: A Killing in Paradise; A Dying Breed; I Want My Baby Back BODY: HUGH DOWNS, ABC News: Good evening. I'm Hugh Downs. BARBARA WALTERS, ABC News: And I'm Barbara Walters, and this is-20/20. ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, around the world and into your home, the stories that touch your life, with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters, this is 20/20. Tonight - there was big trouble in this private paradise. Mrs. FRANCES SCOTT, Widow: He thought that they wanted the land to the point of where they would kill him for this land. ANNOUNCER: One man stood his ground against the government, and lost. Mrs. SCOTT: I just saw all these guns. These men had guns. Capt. LARRY WALDIE, L.A. County Sheriffs Department: They went in to arrest a crook. Unfortunately, a man died. [on phone with deputy] We killed him? Deputy DeWITT, L.A. County Sheriffs Department: Yeah. ANNOUNCER: Tonight, a Lynn Sherr investigation - why did Donald Scott die? LYNN SHERR, ABC News: Do you believe there was marijuana on that property? Capt. WALDIE: Yes, I do. ANNOUNCER: But was that what the government really wanted? TIM RANDA, Friend: They used that as an excuse to take his property. ANNOUNCER: How far will the government go to get what it wants? Mrs. SCOTT: Bang, bang, bang. My husband fell down right in front of me. ANNOUNCER: "A Killing in Paradise." Is this any way to live - rejected by your family, by your coworkers, even by friends?: SUSAN ALSOP: I've gotten threats to burn my house down. ANNOUNCER: What crime have these people committed?

MARTHA PERSKY, Smoker: I'm just a smoker. ANNOUNCER: Smokers - they're pariahs in the office- FRED PHILLIS, President, Connecticut! Smokers Association: Ostracized, discriminated against. ANNOUNCER: -and there's no escape at home. ART LEHNE, Smoker: "God, Grandpa smokes," you know. "We got to keep the kids out of the house." ANNOUNCER: Tonight, smokers come out of hiding to tell Hugh Downs their side of the story, how it feels being one of "A Dying Breed." Plus - we told you the story of this little girl. Her fate was in the hands of the courts. Whose child is she - the mother who gave birth and then gave her away, or the people who've raised her from birth? Now, the stunning court decision- JAN DeBOER, Adoptive Father: You cannot subside the pain of having your heart torn out. ROBERTA DeBOER, Adoptive Mother: This is like a death. ANNOUNCER: -and a last desperate response. ATTORNEY: We will file an appeal. ANNOUNCER: The final stage of this tangled, emotional battle - "I Want My Baby Back." Those stories tonight, April 2nd, 1993, after this brief message. [Commercial break] WALTERS: Well, next, they call themselves the newest minority, and they don't like the way they're being treated one bit. [voice-over] We're talking about people who smoke. They believe non-smokers can be hazardous to their health. Now they're fighting back. Hugh's report in a moment. [Commercial break] A Dying Breed DOWNS: Well, it's banned in the White House, and just about every place else, it seems. And if the inconvenience of finding a place to do it is not enough to discourage smokers, there's also a proposal for higher taxes in cigarettes. Still, with all that going against smokers, the government issued a surprising report yesterday. For the first time in 25 years, the percentage of Americans who smoke leveled`off, instead of dropping. Tens of millions of people are still lighting up on a regular basis, and if you're one of them, this story is for you.[voice-over] Are smokers a dying breed, or as they just regrouping? They're mysteriously vanishing. Once they traveled the country openly and freely. You'd see them on airplanes, ride with them on trains, even mix with them at the office. But now they're being forced underground. There's evidence they're

still among us, but they're increasingly afraid to show themselves in public. SUSAN AL'SOP: I've gotten nasty letters. I've gotten threats. I've gotten threats to b= my house down, and~ I've gotten what some people would consider death threats. And~ it's all because I'm a smoker. DOWNS: Smokers have become outcasts, social pariahs. You might even call them a dying breed. And now there are new reports that suggest their second-hand smoke may be killing off the rest of us, too. As a result, smokers have come too consider themselves the most persecuted minority. They say that their rights are diminishing, and that the attacks on them are increasing, both in number and viciousness. FRED PHILLIS, President, Connecticut Smokers Association: There was a point in the anti-smoking campaign where it became an anti-smoker campaign, where we all started to feel, you know, deliberately ostracized, discriminated against, even some very hateful kinds of things. DOWNS: [voice-over] It's gotten so intense for smokers that several turned us down for interviews, fearing a backlash from employers or family. Others asked if we would not show their faces. Two-pack-a-day smoker "Jane Doe" felt more comfortable with a pseudonym and dark glasses. She's already under attack on both work and social fronts. "JANE DOE." Smoker: I have been invited to parties where I've been told ahead of time that I'm welcome to smoke and the smoking section is outside. And this has been in the dead of winter. DOWNS: [voice-over] Pack-a-day smoker Art Lehne feels if other groups were persecuted as openly as smoke,rs, there'd be an uproar. ART LEHNE, Smoker: I think you'd probably see demonstrations down in Washington that would scare the bejesus out of you. DOWNS: [voice-over] Lehne's day begins early with a long commute to work. Now added to the usual workday stress is a new string of frustrations. Before leaving New Haven, he used to enjoy a cigarette with his morning coffee, but smoking in the station is now a thing of the past. He and his friends used to board a car set aside for smokers. That's gone, too. Mr. LEHNE: You can't smoke on the train, so we usually stand in front of the train door if we want to get that one last cigarette in. DOWNS: [voice-over] They know once the train pulls out it's a 90- minute j ourney, an eternity for addicted smokers. All along the route, you see the same thing - smokers getting in one last drag, often alone and sometimes ashamed. Mr. LEHNE: It forces you into a defensive posture. You're more apt to cup it,, okay, and try to socially hide it. If you're smoking a cigarette, you know, people will go like this in a stairwell. You know, they'll give you all that sort of stuff. And they say, "Oh, my God, he's one of those," you know. That bothers me. It sticks in my craw a little bit. DOWNS: [voice-over) So does the fact that even once he reaches his Wall. Street

office, he still can't light up. Mr. LEHNE: My building is a total non- smoking building. DOWNS: [voice-over] Shut out once again, he and other smokers gather in front of the building. Even in winter, they come down in shirtsleeves, interrupting their work pattern for a quick fix in the cold. It's a sight ever more common. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. companies ban smoking in the workplace. At, workday's end, Art's on the train back home, but even when he reaches the bosom of his family, there is no shelter from harassment. Mr. LEHNE: My son wasn't going to come to see me with his children, because, you know; "God, Grandpa smokes," you know. "We got to keep the kids out of the house."' DOWNS: [voice-over] Does that make him want to quit? No, it just makes him nostalgic for the days his grandparents smoked into their 80's and 90's. Mr. LEHNE: They all smoked, and they all smoked non-filter-type cigarettes, and they all smoked two packs a day. DOWNS: [voice-over] Smokers like to recall happier days when cigarettes danced, when TV stars smoked them and sold them- DICK VAN DYKE: But for filter and taste, Kent satisfies best. MARY TYLER MOORE: I'll accept that. DOWNS: ( voice- over] -days when everyone seemed to be smoking everywhere. Now, instead of coddling from sponsors, TV delivers to smokers bludgeoning blurbss from public health officials. ANNOUNCER: [California Department of Health ad] The cold war is over, yet one of the most threatening devices known to man is still being manufactured right here in America. . DOWNS: [voice-over] California Department of Health ads hammer home the dangers of second-hand smoke. One ad says 14 Californians die each day from other people's smoking. What effect do ads like these have on smokers like Martha Persky? MARTHA PERSKY, Smoker: Oh, it's been devastating, absolutely devastating, because how do you- how do you answer someone who comes up to you and says, "You're killing babies"? I don't know how to- how smokers can defend themselves when it comes to that. DOWNS: [voice-over] Already in retreat, smokers are most likely to come under attack along that invisible border which separates non-smoking from smoking sections in public places like restaurants. Non-smokers have developed strategies to heighten smokers' discomfort. "JANE DOE": There's the unrelenting light cough, a lot of that, a lot of tsking. DOWNS: Tsking, yeah.

"JANE DOE": Tsking and- mostly, though, people really come out and say, "This is disgusting." ' DOWNS: [voice-over] Don't people have a right to be disgusting in their own sections? Anti-smokers say no. Prof. JOHN BANZHAF, Action on Smoking and Health: A non-smoking section? There ain't no such thing. Tobacco smoke drifts, it is recirculated. Would you allow asbestos particles to fall down in one room or in one-half of a room, and let people sit in another room or the other half of the room? The answer obviously is not. DOWNS: [voice-over] Law professor John Banzhaf runs ASH, Action on Smoking and Health. He predicts that by the year 2000, smoking will be outlawed in virtually all public places. Prof. BANZHAF: We're not trying to force smokers not to smoke. We're simply saying, "Don't smoke around me." DOWNS: [voice-over] Powerful political allies agree. From the White House to the big house, smokers are being banned and banished. Still, a half-trillion cigarettes are consumed each year in America, and 25 percent of adult Americans still smoke. But a mushrooming number of state laws are limiting where they can do it. Even in tobacco industry strongholds like Kentucky, smoking is restricted in some state buildings. In Pennsylvania there's a proposal to ban smoking in your own car if there's a child under 15 aboard. Some 50 American cities already ban smoking in any public building, restaurants and even outdoor stadiums included - a nightmare come:true for smokers like Fred Phillis. Mr. PHILLIS: Think of any place where smoking could be banned, and there's somebody finding some way to propose it. DOWNS: [voice-over] It's getting so that the out-of-doors may soon become the only safe haven for smokers, but "Jane"' says she's been admonished even there by both strangers and friends not afraid to be rude. "JANE DOE": Rudeness with a real nasty edge to it, the kind of things- when people do wag their index finger at you and in loud voices,.say, "Don't call me when you have lung cancer in X number of years." And this has happened to me many times. Not just me. And I- that certainly puts a damper on the evening, don't you think? DOWNS: [voice- over] Unwanted elsewhere, smokers are still welcomed with open arms in bars and nightclubs, their last stand against the smoke-stoppers. Bar owners say smokers are the biggest spenders, drinkers, and tippers. That fits the smokers' image of themselves. Psychological studies give smokers a personality profile. They find smokers likely to be risk-taking, impulsive, defiant, extroverted, driven, and depressed. They've got one other trait, too, of course. Prof. BANZHAF: They're addicted. We recognize the problem. But being addicted doesn't give you the right to inflict that risk on an innocent third party. N 0 N GJ CD N C.~ ~ ~

DOWNS: [voice-over] Smokers say they don't want to hurt anyone. They're just looking for peaceful coexistence. But for the moment, they are angry and organizing. Fred~ Philtis heads the Connecticut Smokers Association. They say legislative assaults on smoking raise serious personal-rights issues. Mr. PHILLIS: Where does it stop? I mean, logically, there's no end to it. It's an open-ended transaction, once you start to limit personal behavior to meet someone else's ideal. DOWNS: [voice-over] You might wonder, if it's so tough for smokers these days, why don't they try to quit? Surveys say three out of four smokers want to, but you can't prove it in this room. Ms. PERSKY: If I wanted to quit. I would, but I'm a smoker. I'm 56 years old. I've smoked all my adult life. I'm just a smoker. DOWNS: [v oice-over] How about the other smokers we talked to? Well, "Jane" says the social pressure is getting to her. She'll quit in a year or so. Art Lehne says if cioarette taxes go much higher, he'll kick the habit. If they do stop, there will likely be two more voices in the anti-smoking chorus, two more wet blankets on any happy smoking crowd. As any smoker is fond of telling you, when it comes to abusive intolerance for the habit, there's nothing worse than an ex-smoker. [on camera] I should point out I am an ex-smoker - it's been 35 years since my last cigarette - but I believe smokers have rights that I won't- don't like to see impinged on as long as they don't invade other people's environment and health. WALTERS: What rights? DOWNS: They have a right to ingest whatever chemical into their body they want to. WALTERS: Provided they're doing it walking or- DOWNS: And I'd hate to see a drift toward- toward making it illegal or something. That would be- only create crime and high taxes would create a black market, and I don't like to see that. WALTERS: It's interesting, that report that came out that for the first time in 25 years, smoking is not on the decrease- DOWNS: It s leveled off. WALTERS: -and it seems to be people of lower income levels, it says, who are smoking. ~ DOWNS: I think it's a function of poverty, at least in part, because that's an N escape, to start with a drug, and nicotine's a drug. CD WALTERS: Well, next we're going to talk about the little girl that almost 1~ everyone is talking about. This week the courts have finally decided her fate - ~ the dramatic follow-up to our heart- breaking story, "I Want My Baby Back," ` right after this. ~

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