Published in The National Post, July 18, 2000, p. C-15
The $145 billion (US) of punitive damages awarded against tobacco companies by a Florida court is highly relevant to Canada. Not only are some of the condemned companies related to Canadian cigarette manufacturers, but Canadian governments also tend to import the craziest American fashions – just as, in Evelyn Waugh’s novels, African despots plagiarize the worst European ways.
To explain Florida-type judgments against tobacco companies, it is tempting to invoke Willie Sutton’s famous explanation of why he robbed banks – “Because that’s where the money is.” This is certainly a large part of the explanation. The director of one of the most extremist anti-smoking American organizations said: “Here I think the old anomaly that lawyers are like sharks is true. When they smell blood, they’ll go after it and in this case, that would make me happy (http://ash.org/july00/07-12-00-2.html - visited July 17, 2000).” But the very virulence of this statement suggests that more than money is involved.
Indeed, the award dwarfs the $100-billion (US) market capitalization of the American tobacco industry. Moreover, other industries have deeper pockets: the American automobile industry has a market capitalization nearly four times higher than tobacco; the brewing and distilling industry’s capitalization is 63% higher. Why not rob these, instead – or, at least, start with them?
Part of the explanation lies in the fact that smokers, at around 25% of the U.S. population, form a poor and unpopular minority, while car drivers and alcohol drinkers are often good-standing members of politically-correct majorities.
Another part of the explanation is related to the interests of the large, and heavily subsidized, Public Health industry – i.e., members of the medical profession but also, and mainly, government bureaucrats, public health lobbyists, modern temperance activists, and other such paternalistic busybodies. Add the lawyers, and you have the recipe for modern-style prohibition campaigns.
The Public Health industry has persuaded the general public that smokers are duped into smoking. As the World Bank says, “many smokers are not fully aware” of their health risks. But even such a prudent statement is contradicted by research showing that American smokers actually overestimate the risks of smoking, compared to the claims of Public Health specialists themselves. While the smoker’s risk of getting lung cancer is estimated at around 10% in the scientific literature, opinion polls show that the public’s assessment of this risk is at least three times higher.
Addiction is another decoy. Half of non-smokers are former smokers, which suggests that quitting is not impossible. It is true that many smokers claim that they would like to quit. But words are only words, and an actual choice to smoke reveals that, all costs and advantages being considered, this is what the smoker prefers to do. Analogously, notes economist Kip Viscusi, half the residents of Los Angeles claim that they would like to move out, but never do. There is much everyday evidence that one is “addicted” to tobacco because one likes it, not the other way around: many former smokers start again months or even years after any withdrawal symptom has long gone away, and smokers prefer a cigarette to nicotine gum or patches.
And who would seriously claim that smokers are more addicted to tobacco than public health activists are to the state?
The antitobacco campaign is not about nonsmokers’ health either. If it were, why would it be forbidden to open a restaurant, or charter flights, “for smokers only”? The antismoking campaign is against individuals making personal choices that authoritarians do not like.
Why are tobacco companies so inefficient in fighting attacks against smoking? One reason is that tobacco executives are merchants, used to sell, cajole, convince, smile, and present the other cheek. Hence the cowardly crawling and apologizing of many American tobacco executives recently.
I suggest that tobacco executives should leave their dream world, and come in to the real world. Their customers’ lifestyles are under attack by authoritarian forces. Their commercial smiles and high-price lawyers won’t do much good to counter state propaganda and coercion. Only rational discussion and ideas can win the battle.
But there is another reason for tobacco companies’ passivity. It lies in what economists call the problem of collective action. Each company is tempted to let its competitors fight the dark forces of prohibition and state coercion, and reap the benefits of an uncertain victory without having to support the certain costs of resistance. This is why the state grows uncontrollably. This is why large, wealthy tobacco companies are so cowardly inefficient in the political sphere.
Yet, there may be some relief from an unintended consequence of the antitobacco campaigns of recent decades. These have increased tobacco production costs and, consequently, encouraged industry concentration – a common effect of government intervention and regulation. A smaller number of producers can move more easily to coordinate a common defense.
The current assault against tobacco companies is not really about smoking, it is about controlling non-PC lifestyles. It is not about justice, but about destroying individual responsibility. It is the work of legal pirates destroying our capital of liberty. If tobacco companies were to spend on preserving this capital only a tiny fraction of what they abandon to the thieves, they could greatly contribute to the welfare of their customers, their shareholders, and the rest of us.