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Opposition to cigarettes has grown appreciably on Capitol Hill since 1965. About the only staunch supporters of the industry left are Congressmen from the big tobacco states, notably the Carolinas, Kentucky and Virginia. Many other Congressmen are worried about the health dangers, and sensitive to the growing movement to protect consumers —a major new trend in American life.
In purely economic terms, the stakes are high. The tobacco industry accounts for 1% of the gross national product, contributes half of its $8 billion annual sales to federal and local taxes and helps to support 85,000 manufacturing workers, 1,200,000 retailers and 700,000 farm families. Still, the question of regulation of cigarettes goes much beyond economics and has, in fact, created a curious liberal-conservative polarity. The conservative Dallas News accuses "the liberals in Washington" of crusading for "censorship, pure and simple." Adds the New York Daily News: "Nuts to you, Big Brother."
The controversy has more than its share of ironies, contradictions and curiosities. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare spends $2,100,000 a year to educate the public against smoking, while the Department of Agriculture annually pays out $1,800,000 in price-support subsidies to tobacco farmers. To enlarge tobacco exports, which contribute about $500 million a year to the U.S. balance of payments, Agriculture also promotes overseas sales. The Public Health Service encourages smokers to use filter cigarettes, but the Federal Trade Commission will not permit cigarette advertising that even faintly suggests that filters are preferable.
A Popular Social Cause
Washington is steadily increasing its efforts to retard the sale of cigarettes in the U.S. with the broadest and most direct campaign ever made against a legally marketable product. The U.S.
Public Health Service releases increasingly damning reports about smoking. U.S. Post Office trucks are covered with anti-cigarette posters (sample: "100,000 Doctors Have Quit Smoking"). The Department of Health, Education and Welfare distributes millions of pamphlets to public schools, warning of the hazards of smoking.
HEW has set up the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health, which turns out anti-smoking tracts for civic groups. Money from the "Smokehouse," as staffers call it, has started several local anti-cigarette projects. In Bakersfield, Calif., teen-agers have been given a $52,000 grant and professional help to prepare commercials, posters and bumper stickers (SMOKE, CHOKE, CROAK). The pilot project there has been so successful that it will be repeated in several other cities this fall. The director of the clearinghouse, Dr. Daniel Horn, a pioneer cancer researcher, urges medical men to deliver anti-smoking appeals while they treat patients in their offices. Horn figures that, in less than a minute, doctors and dentsts can recite enough evidence to frighten a smoker.