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Perhaps I'm the only one baffled by the logic of the settlement recently reached between the attorneys general of 39 states and the three largest American tobacco companies.
Smokers, in general, have had a hard time recovering money from tobacco companies, since juries have believed that people make decisions and need to abide by the consequences thereof. In other words, don't blame Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man if you're wheezing.
So the purity lobby came up with a new hustle. The states could argue that they faced increased Medicaid copayments on account of smokers in their populations. Since states don't decide whether to smoke or not, the jury can blame the tobacco industry for the increased costs.
Thus the settlement of $368.5 billion to be paid out by the industry over 25 years.
This financial logic is curious. For one thing, the companies won't really pay it -- they'll just raise prices and pass it on to customers. So the states will be in the curious position of being opposed to smoking, but hoping that enough people remain addicted so as to insure this revenue stream.
For another, let us assume that smoking cuts seven years off a lifetime. According to the most recent Statistical Abstract of the United States, the average annual medical bill for an American over 65 is $2,600.
If that person dies seven years earlier on account of tobacco, that's $18,200 . About 45 million adult Americans smoke, thereby reducing medical costs by $819 billion.
Not all those costs are borne by the public treasury, but about 44 percent of medical bills are paid by government at some level. Take that percentage of the $819 billion, and there's $360 billion -- just about the amount the tobacco industry is supposed to pay.
So perhaps we'll see a countersuit by the industry, asking the government to refund the $360 billion that smoking saved in medical costs not paid out for smokers who died early.
The economic rationale for this preposterous lawsuit is exactly the same as for the highly touted settlement, which leads me to suspect that there are deeper forces at work here -- most probably, continued employment for snoops, harassers, meddlers and the like.
Consider the Noble Experiment
underway 75 years
ago -- Prohibition, which was in effect from 1920 to 1933,
and banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of
intoxicating liquors,
as well as their import or
export, in the United States.
Of course it accomplished no such thing. Mainly, it drove up prices of beer, wine and whiskey, thus making the industry attractive to unsavory types after quick money.
America came to its senses and repealed Prohibition in 1933. But repeal put thousands of former prohibition agents out of work, among them one Harry Anslinger, who fabricated a new threat -- the Terrible Mexican Hemp Weed, Assassin of Youth -- and got himself put in charge of eradicating it.
Somehow the Republic had survived 150 years without laws against hemp, just as it had muddled through those years when presidents swilled cocaine tonics and opium was kept in every pantry for household medical use.
But Anslinger and his unnecessary colleagues were put out of work by Prohibition, and Congress came to their rescue.
Now note that the War on Drugs is about to run its
course. After 15 years and $290 billion in federal spending
alone, controlled substances are as cheap and abundant as
ever. America, the land of the free,
now has more
people in prison than any other nation in the world, and 60
percent of the federal prisoners, and 25 percent of state
prisoners, are there on drug charges -- that is, for things
that weren't even crimes when my grandparents were
young.
America will come to its senses here one of these days. And what to do with the army of snoops, thugs, enforcers, meddlers, and informants that we've recruited and trained?
Simple, just make tobacco illegal. The settlement is a start, and within the decade, new and improved restrictions will doubtless become law.
The law will have to be enforced, and soon the agents will be taking blood tests of people with suspicious breath aromas. They'll be standing in alleys, waiting for someone to offer a smoke, and offering rewards to children who spot their parents lighting up. They'll have helicopters and satellite surveillance, checking American private property for illegal plants, and low-flying American planes will remain a familiar sight over Caribbean nations, looking for fields to burn.
I confess to a grudging admiration for the assorted enforcers of this land who want to remain on a government payroll with good benefits and all that, but that doesn't mean I'll be cheering on the day when President J. Danforth Quayle announces the formation of the Tobacco Enforcement Administration and calls for an all-out assault against yet another threat to the youth and moral fiber of this nation.
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