Emerald
Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas
Perspectives
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Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
On-line edition: www.dailyemerald.com
Even as tobacco companies begin to
acknowledge that cigarettes are addictive, there
is still much that they won’t admit
CLEARING THE
uff, puff. Wheeze, wheeze. Oh whadda
•deceit it is.
■ Philip Morris, the company that last
-A- year manufactured one out every six
cigarettes sold worldwide, finally acknowledged
two weeks ago that cigarettes are dangerous and
addictive. Can you sleep easier? Heck yeah, I
know I can.
i ne admission now, when the dangers of
smoking have been documented for 30
years, is insulting. It insults me as a
biology major and as a pre-med.
More importantly, it insults me
as someone who has any contact
with reality.
But to get a bigger picture of
modern smoking issues, I wan
dered about two places: first, the
Philip Morris Web site, and second,
campus, looking for some smokers’
opinions.
Morris’ Web site is a cornucopia of
mixed signals about smoking. True
enough, there are admissions that smok
ing is a dangerous habit and that ciga
rettes are addictive. There are links to
Surgeon General’s reports and health
advice. The site, however, also strong
ly expresses views on the company’s
responsibility for smokers’ health and
the concept of “adult choice.”
It is fine that the company wishes
to sell to adults. Gooooo Freedom! If
these companies only want adult
smokers, however, it must be
something new. The Surgeon
General reported in a 1994 re
port that 90 percent of all
smokers started by age 19.
Tobacco companies be
lieve strongly in “adult
choice” because, in the face
of extreme governmental and
legal pressure, it is the only
position that has substantive
philosophical support. I would
hardly call it a matter of princi
ple, when more than half of all
smokers started before age 14. If
adult choice had been at the fore
front of tobacco companies’ con
sciences in recent decades, we might
have different results by now.
I hiked around campus to get the opinion
Bryan Dixon Emerald of smokers. To what degree should tobacco com
panies be held responsible for the hazards posed
by their product? Carey Risch, a senior biology
major, said that the companies’ responsibility
should be “zero. We all know it. We’re taught it
in third grade.”
I have to agree that we all know about smoking
being dangerous. Nicotine is addictive; smoke
contains carcinogens. As citizens, we can do
only one thing with this information: choose
whether or not to smoke.
Tobacco companies had more options. Theo
retically speaking, they could have manipulated
their cigarettes to make them more addictive and
thus more profitable.
Should we depart from the moral high
ground? As if the fact that tobacco companies
were in denial so long releases them from re
sponsibilities of listening to science. If we allow
them any credit for “realizing” those facts now,
then there’s no way that they could be proven to
be intentionally endangering the public. Any for
mula changes to their cigarettes could be nothing
but coincidence unless the public takes a stand
that cigarette companies ignored their obligation
to be-as familiar with their own products as pos
sible.
It seems to me that the tobacco controversy
needs a strong dose of reality. There’s a few sus
picious things that no company really has ac
knowledged but that we all know anyway.
Someone needs to clear the air.
So to speak.
Cigarettes are addictive. Cigarettes are danger
ous to smokers. Second-hand smoke is danger
ous to non-smokers. As a result, smokers are gen
erally restricted from smoking in places where
nons have to be. Tobacco companies sell a dan
gerous product—which is theoretically OK. But
they have not been willing to accommodate the
restrictions that makers of other dangerous prod
ucts live with.
New smokers are generally kid smokers. Re
gardless of whether or not certain ad campaigns
are directed at children, they work on children.
When children are hooked on cigarettes, it harms
adult choice. If you are addicted to smoking on
your 18th birthday, you never really had an adult
choice, did you?
What about those commercials telling kids to
make their own decisions and not smoke? (Kid
choice?) Hanso Kang, a junior biochemistry ma
jor who is also a smoker, said, “It seems weird be
cause they are a cigarette company and they’re
telling people to not smoke.”
Weird, indeed. I think that every time those
companies make a “don’t smoke” ad that has
their name at the back end, it takes away from the
efficacy of the message.
According to many analysts, tobacco compa
nies are becoming more honest in an attempt to
reduce their liability in lawsuits. While each suit
must obviously be judged on its own merit, the
smokescreen will not work. OK, so they accept
reality. No one should believe that the last three
decades were filled with honest mistakes.
Jonathan Gruber is a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emerald. His views
donotnecessarilyrepresentthoseoftheEmerald.Hecanbereachedvia
e-mail jgruber@gladstone. uoregon. edu.
Letters to the editor
Help inform students
The ASUO and the Office of Student Life have been
working in conjunction to better inform students and the
community about current events. Students and adminis
trators will be distributing packets of information in order
to educate the general student population and the West
University community about upcoming programs and
events during Homecoming/Halloween weekend. Includ
ed in the packets will be a calendar of events, tips on
throwing a safe party, as well as students’ basic legal rights.
If you would like to join other students and staff in the
distribution of these materials either contact Marian
Fowler at asuocod@gladstone.uoregon.edu and/or come to
189 PLC at 5:30 p.m. today. The event should last until ap
proximately 7:30 p.m. Pizza and refreshments will be pro
vided for those who participate.
Ty Prichard
Senior
Marian Fowler
ASUO Community Outreach Director
Column disappointing
I was disappointed with the recent ODE column (ODE,
Oct. 14) that advocated the mandatory use of student fees
to foster free speech. I strongly support our right to fully ex
ercise free speech and to participate in our communities
marketplace of ideas. Yet, die current mandatory use of stu
dent fees to fund the marketplace of ideas is not really free
speech at all. Instead, it artificially bolsters speech at the
expense of our wallets and quite possibly our consciences.
The Wisconsin students who are challenging the use of
their student fees in the U.S. Supreme Court object to fund
ing groups that actively work against their beliefs. For
them, free speech comes at a steep cost: They must surren
der their values and convictions. Their mandatory contri
bution to free speech is working against them.
This does not need to be so. Students should be allowed
to opt out of funding particular student groups that they
feel do not represent their voice. As a result, student groups
will truly speak for those who support their ideas. Groups
with important ideas and activities will continue to con
tribute to the marketplace of ideas. They will be lean, mean
and free to impact our community with speech that is truly
free.
Jason Spies
History
Protect your paychecks
The best con artists I know are my own children and my
elected representatives. When my children were unem
ployed teenagers they never came to me and asked for
money to buy cigarettes. They always had some story about
needing extra money for lunch or for a friend’s birthday
gift.
Our city councilors and country commissioners know
that if they proposed a ballot measure that would provide
health insurance benefits for the unmarried heterosexual
partners of city and county employees at a cost of almost
$400 per month per employee it would have snowball’s
chance in hell of passing. It sounds much better if they tell
us that they want $22 million for law enforcement so that
they can provide us with safer neighborhoods.
The Tanner court case that ordered state and local gov
ernments to provide health benefits to homosexual couples
specifically excluded unmarried heterosexual couples
from its definition of “domestic partners” because they are
“free to marry.” Both our city councilors and county com
missioners have betrayed the public trust by pretending
that they have the unlimited authority to require taxpayers
to provide health insurance benefits to whomever they
choose to define as a “domestic partner.”
Vote no on Measure 20-25 and protect your paychecks
and pocketbooks from the politicians in city hall and the
county building. Every dime wasted by our elected offi
cials in an effort to curry favor with our public employees
and their unions is a dime that would be better spent by
those who actually earned it..
Nicholas J. Urhausen
Eugene citizen