Article published in the Ottawa Citizen, March 9, 2002, p. B-7
The Canadian Medical Association blames tobacco manufacturers for their campaign against youth smoking. The more the tobacco pariahs seem to crawl, the more they are trampled down.
This is part of the health industry's new war against smokers, and was illustrated by the European Ministerial Conference for a Tobacco-free Europe held in Warsaw by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February. WHO's aim, according to the organization's news release, is to "denormalize tobacco." WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland warned that tobacco "is a communicated disease, communicated through advertising and sponsorship." Tobacco companies must be prevented from "whitewashing their tarnished reputations," she said. "It is essential not to take money from tobacco companies for youth-prevention campaigns."
WHO wants to make sure that only state organizations, and state-subsidized intellectuals, can participate in the market of ideas. "In addition to youth and sport programs," charges the director-general, "the industry attempts to buy goodwill through other means. Its promotional activities include targeting educational and scientific institutions. Nottingham University in Britain recently accepted $9 million from British American Tobacco to create an International Centre for Corporate Responsibility."
Tobacco companies can't defend themselves very effectively, if only because few intellectuals want to risk becoming pariahs by association. If they are willing to take the risk, they may be tempted to ask for support from tobacco companies, which is understandable but also very risky (and may not be successful, anyway). WHO recently obtained, and leaked, a private e-mail revealing that British conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, an outspoken critic of the health organization, received honorariums from Japan Tobacco International. Prof. Scruton was criticized by Ms. Brundtland in her opening remarks at the Warsaw conference.
ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), an anti-smoking organization, declares: "You can't claim to be a free-thinker if you are in the pay of an industry that has a record of 50 years of deceit, denial and obfuscation about its products and business practices." Strangely, it seems you can be a free thinker if you are in the pay of an industry that has a record of many centuries of deceit, denial and obfuscation about its services and practices, and has killed 170 million of its own customers (in genocides, excluding world wars) during the 20th century. This industry is the state, of which WHO is a creature.
More than ever, tobacco companies tend to protect themselves by turning the other cheek. British American Tobacco pleads, "We call on the WHO to engage with all stakeholders, not only with anti-tobacco advocates." Says Philip Morris: "We believe that today we share many areas of common ground with government regulators, public health authorities and, we hope, WHO."
Why does WHO act in such a bellicose way? We cannot ignore the possibility that some WHO bureaucrats genuinely care for people's welfare, so much so that they are willing to impose a healthy lifestyle on them by force. Coercive paternalism, which is characteristic of the contemporary state, is even more likely in an organization such as WHO, which is far removed from even the faintest form of democratic control. Yet, we should not underestimate the incentives and perks that WHO offers to bureaucrats and researchers the world over: 12 per cent of its $1-billion annual budget goes to its Geneva headquarters.
Why do tobacco companies crawl so humbly? And why are they so inefficient when they decide to return blows? Merchants are trained, and selected, to be nice toward their customers, and are unable constitutionally to be as nasty as state organizations (except, of course, when they are in symbiosis with the state). They naturally turn the other cheek. Tobacco executives have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders and, contrary to the fictitious obligations of political rulers, theirs are sanctioned quickly by the stock market.
Tobacco executives don't care any more than the politicians and the bureaucrats about our accumulated social capital of trust and liberty. Indeed, this is illustrated by Operation ID, the very program attacked by the Canadian Medical Association -- but for the wrong reasons. The campaign aims at forcing young people to show official identification when they purchase cigarettes. We do nothing to protect our liberty when we condition young people to carry, and show, official ID papers like they do in banana republics, or when we accustom them to bow before the state.
Businessmen are especially inept in the world of ideas. On the anti-smoking activists' side, tens of thousands of bureaucrats and subsidized health specialists around the world are paid with taxpayers' money to debate and spread ideas. They are opposed, on the pro-choice side, by a few individuals who have little time to indulge in ideas or little money to publicize them.
The battle between the World Health Organization and tobacco companies is typical of the setup of the contemporary Sanitary State: on one side, paternalistic busybodies, paid with public money, and supported by cops who ultimately enforce their diktats; on the other side, "denormalized" minorities who have learned they are being coerced for their own good, smiling merchants and a few libertarians fighting intellectual guerrilla warfare. Anybody surprised at the outcome of the battle?