JERRY HEASTER: Tobacco's reaction to ruling on second-hand smoke

BUSINESS

JERRY HEASTER: Tobacco's reaction to ruling on second-hand smoke JERRY HEASTER:
Tobacco's reaction to ruling on second-hand smoke

• Send e-mail to JERRY HEASTER

By JERRY HEASTER - Columnist
Date: 07/31/98 22:15

Tobacco industry advocates and smoker's rights activists have greeted the latest challenge to the second-hand smoke threat as an important breakthrough, but they shouldn't get their hopes too high.

It will take more than a judicial ruling to neutralize the effect of the Environmental Protection Agency claim of a link between ambient smoke and cancer. Since it was unveiled a few years back the EPA study has been used to exile tobacco companies and their customers to the margins of American society.

Those who take their science seriously never were impressed with the EPA's claim than environmental tobacco smoke was a major carcinogen. A federal judge said as much when ruling that the EPA "committed to a conclusion before the research had begun" and made hash of the process to get the answers it wanted.

Nevertheless, many who understood this initially chose to ignore the weakness of the EPA claim because they believed the means justifies the end.

Earlier this year, for instance, a story surfaced in the British media claiming the World Health Organization was withholding from publication a study disproving the second-hand smoke theory. The study allegedly even found a protective effect that helped those exposed to second-hand smoke develop a resistance to cancer.

If even partly valid, the story would have been a blockbuster. Beyond its shock value, there was the irony of WHO having been a leading advocate of eradicating tobacco use. The U.S. media, however, didn't show any interest in the development.

Moreover, when the federal judge in North Carolina challenged the EPA's second-hand smoke claim, tobacco's foes responded by saying the ruling wasn't worth taking seriously because it happened where tobacco is king in response to an industry legal challenge.

Sour grapes? Perhaps, but the lack of concern by smoking's foes would seem to have merit given the ho-hum public response to the judge's finding. I happened to be vacationing in North Carolina at the time and it really wasn't that big a deal along Tobacco Road. It was undoubtedly a bigger deal than it was in places where tobacco isn't important to the local economy, but the lack of spirited reaction in North Carolina was as remarkably surprising as it was significant.

This can be nothing less than heartening to the antismoking forces. On the other hand, it also tells the industry and tobacco consumers that what happened was something less than earthshaking. Some speculate that the finding, if upheld on appeal, can be used to undercut smoking bans and litigation based on the EPA's research.

The problem with this thinking is that it ignores the fact that tobacco use is more a political than legal issue. Politically, the industry and smokers have no chance of translating legal victories into major rights victories unless they're willing to become a political force.

This isn't likely for a group that, although it's 40-million strong, allows itself to be brow-beaten and dispatched on daily guilt trips at whim. The industry is obligated to fight for its rights in court, of course, but it's missing the boat by not organizing its customer base as a political force.

Joe Camel may sell cigarettes, but what smokers really need is a political rallying point. It's the only thing that makes sense for a business and its customer masses in an era of interest-group power politics.

@txr:Jerry Heaster's column appears Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. To share a comment, call (816) 889-7827 and enter 2301. Send e-mail, including a telephone number, to jheaster@kcstar.com.