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Thursday, November 7, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Tobacco industry needs tougher FDA regulations
Tobacco is a $45 billion industry in the United States. Clandestine activities and deception have helped the tobacco industry become one of the most politically influential industries in the country. With high-ranking government officials in their pockets, tobacco companies now are opposing efforts aimed at making them subservient to the Food and Drug Administration. As the facade of big tobacco crumbles, the industry is being exposed as a Marxist dream of how capitalism can be synonymous with corruption. This election year, empty promises to regulate tobacco companies should be filled without fear of tobacco corporations' backlash.
Regulatory processes of tobacco companies are difficult to pursue while many congressional leaders pledge their allegiance to the tobacco industry. A recent article in Mother Jones reported that in 1995 the Republican Party received $2.4 million in "soft" donations from tobacco companies. Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, according to this same article, personally has received more than $330,000 from tobacco giants such as R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and U.S. Tobacco during his political career. In effect, the money that tobacco lobbyists funnel to government officials is used to buy votes and political support against tobacco tax increases and FDA regulations.
In recent months, the tobacco industry has littered Congress green in efforts to prevent the FDA from regulating the main component of tobacco products, nicotine, as a drug. The FDA has amassed enormous amounts of information on the addictive nature of nicotine. In addition, FDA investigations, based in part on information contributed from former tobacco employees, have concluded that some tobacco companies bolster the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to hook smokers. In an interview with Mother Jones, FDA commissioner David Kessler said that tobacco companies could raise the content of addictive nicotine in cigarettes. Based on this and other studies conducted by the FDA, it is seeking to regulate tobacco sales by verification of age, eliminating mail-order and vending machine tobacco sales and banning billboard advertisements of tobacco products. These measures are aimed primarily at curbing the number of teen-age smokers, which Kessler estimates increases by 3,000 every day.
A recent campaign by anti-tobacco groups has shifted from the controversial debate as to whether nicotine should be classified as a drug and has instead centered on more stringent warning labels on cigarette packages. According to a recent article in the Kansas City Star, anti-smoking groups want to see the surgeon general's warning on cigarette packages made stronger by stating that nicotine is addictive or adopt Australia's warning, "Smoking kills." Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., told the Star that cigarette warnings now are "insufficient and have been insufficient over a period of decades." But don't most Americans already know the dangers of smoking? It is commendable that Meehan is making an effort to challenge tobacco companies' suppositions that nicotine is not addictive, but more needs to be done.
Americans are seeing through the smoke-filled deceptions that tobacco companies have propagated. Perhaps this is one reason why tobacco companies are beginning to focus on international markets such as China, where there are an estimated 300 million smokers and no regulations. If the tobacco industry cannot play the part of Machiavelli, the deceitful Italian philosopher who cared only about himself, in the United States, they will play the wart overseas. If the U.S. government continues to wilt from tobacco companies' demands, tobacco imperialism will continue unabated.
NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
Editors
Campus ... Susanna Lófó
... Jason Strait
... Amy McVey
Editorial ... John Collar
Features ... Nicole Kennedy
Sports ... Adam Ward
Sports ... Bill Petulla
Associate sports ... Carly Foster
Online editor ... David L. Teaska
Photo ... Rich Devkild
Graphics ... Noah Musser
Andy Rohbrot
Special sections ... Amy McVey
Wire ... Debbie Stalne
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Mark Ozmek
Regional mgr ... Dennie Haupt
Assistant Retail mgr ... Dana Centeno
National mgr ... Krista Nye
Production mgr ... Den Koppe
Production mgr ... Den Koppe
Lisa Quebbaman
Marketing director .. Eric Johnson
Creative director .. Desmond Lavelle
Senior Designer .. Shannon Sheehan
Mass Impact mgr .. Dena Ploclette
Internet mgr .. Steve Sanger
Are you seeking to make a change in your humdum life full of promise and upward mobility? Are you ready to catch the spirit of Lawrence like a recurring case of scabies? If so, read on. This is your Let's Go! hourly guide to Being Punk in Lawrence on $13.63 a Day:
Timetable for achieving punk spirit of Lawrence
11 a.m. Rise. Cough up something from the night before. Retire.
Noon Rise again. Raging hangover. Try to remember if you accidentally stabbed, slept with or said anything offensive to anyone who would prevent you from obtaining drugs or entrance to this evening's party. If not, breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate yourself on your mastery of interpersonal relations.
12:05 p.m. Make way to kitchen.
Step over your roommates, who are unconscious on the floor. Check to see if they still are breathing. Discover that they still are alive, only because you turned them sideways to prevent the choking-on-one's own-vomit phenomenon, a skill you gleaned from a handy article in a recent Kansan.
12:15 p.m. Attempt to bathe. Discover that because your water bill is unpaid, the only water in the house is in the bong. Compensate by changing into a Misfils shirt from your worn-less-than-five-times-since-last-washing pile.
12:30 p.m. Rotate your piercings.
12:45 p.m. Discover you have no money for the evening. Brainstorm prospects for income that do not involve going to work.
1:30:15 p.m. Have a near-death
experience. Go toward the light.
Realize you have done this hundreds
of times before. Become bored.
blood at NABI.
1:30 p.m. Pass out after donating blood at NABI.
STAFF COLUMNIST
bomber jacket. Get apprehended at the door. Threaten to kill the cat-inresidence if you are not released, then run. Fall down the stairs and shatter the shoplifted goods.
Revive.
2:15 p.m. Sell all of your clothes to Arizona Trading Company.
Receive $13.63.
2:30 p.m. Go record shopping at the Love Garden. Discover rare 12" singles by The Meatbearers and Acute Renal Failure. Conceal them in your pile-lined
2:35 p.m. Reflect on the high level of dramatic irony in your life. List correlations between yourself and the female protagonists in Henrik Ibsen's later works while you are running from the police.
3 p.m. Dodge the police in time for your interview for a busboy position at Replay. Deal with raised eyebrows at your declaration that the last position you held was "plasma supplier."
4 p.m. Return home. Call your girlfriend/boyfriend. Learn she/he has dyed her/his hair twice, performed CPR on a roommate and been fired because of job abandonment, all in one afternoon. Praise her/his effective time-management skills. Learn the location of this evening's party.
4:30 p.m. Nap time. Dream of a better life, a life where you are free
7 p.m. Buy a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon (call it PBR to obscure the fact that your drink of choice is the most popular beverage among those who shop at Sears).
His Boy Elroy, until one of the members drops dead because of an overdose. Break for the evening.
10 p.m. Meet your surviving friends for a show at the Bottleneck. Become disgusted that the first band to take the stage is ska. Become increasingly disgusted at the multitude of plaid-clad Hashinger Hall residents who are taking the music seriously. Exeunt.
11 p.m. Proceed to party in East Lawrence, where 200 people have squeezed into a 10-by-12 foot room to watch Crabs in Toyland's lead singer holler a "reinterpretation" of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. Experience noise, sweat, saliva and speed metal in rapid succession. Become bored. Leave the room when natural selection begins to take place.
11:15 p.m. to 1 a.m. Drink your PBR and do lots of drugs that are known by abbreviations (K, etc.). If you must partake of a drug with a full name, labor over a clever nickname. Check to see if any of your friends have died. Lift your nose from your rubber cement can long enough to laugh at someone inquiring about heroin. Tell her/him to go west of Massachusetts Street if he wants trendy.
1:15 a.m. Roll the unconscious on their sides. When you are accused of reading the Kansan, deny it.
8 p.m. Rehearse with your band,
1:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pass out at some point during this period.
11 a. m. Awaken. Consult your Franklin planner and Let's Got' guide as to how to start the dav.
11:15 a.m. Rise. Cough up something from the night before. Retire.
Michael Martin is a Lenaex sophomore in English and theater and film.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Chronic complaining about weather annoying
From year to year, I have noticed the custom of the chronic complaining that prevails during inclement weather. We all know that it is inevitable sooner or later. Also noticeable, however, is that even the later bad weather gets just as much negative attention. We live in the Midwest. What else we do we expect — yearlong tropical
temperatures?
Why is it all that bad anyway? Does it really inconvenience us so much? Maybe it is just a mindset. What would happen if we told ourselves how fun and adventurous it is? Possibly we could all be happier if, while we were planning around it and being more careful, we could become more aware of the beauty of it.
Besides, how many people get to tell their children that it snowed this much in mid-October? My
mother still tells us how she saw it snow here in June. At the very least you could be thankful you are not watching the snow fall from a cardboard box in an alley and feeling every degree drop.
How few minutes do we ever actually spend out in the weather? Count your blessings.
Carol Porter
Lawrence first-year law student
Bill Clinton never grew up, never sacrificed and never did anything real.
The president repeatedly has said that the public is better off today than it was when he first took office. But to have reached that point, it
And now the scoundrel is president again. Clinton didn't have to say it as bluntly this time around, but it was the economy, stupid.
Clinton's win means people have lost faith in presidency
STAFF COLUMNIST
Expect the same thing to happen with this election's campaign theme: The Bridge to the 21st Century. Clinton's bridge-building estimates will have been wrong. The bridge's span will fall short — the people again will be slighted by an untrustworthy man. It will be back to the usual White House routine. As soon as the inauguration is concluded, the president will go back to the Oval Office, pour a cup of coffee, perhaps pardon some friends, maybe read some FBI files, make some Cabinet appointments and bring more ignominy and incompetence to Washington. Maybe he'll go on a date.
Who cares? It's the economy, stupid.
took strong leadership in Congress to block most of his campaign promises. Other promises he did in by himself: Change welfare as we know it? No, that didn't happen. Tax relief for the middle class? No, they got a tax increase. Health care for everyone? That fell through, too.
Most of what Bob Dole has said has made a lot of sense. No one disagrees with focusing on the family or fighting crime. In one of his siller campaign ads, Dole published a full-page list of economists who had endorsed his tax plan. Who disagrees with a tax cut? No one.
How to submit letters
Andy Obermeyer is a Liberal, Kan., junior in journalism.
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Student letters must include the author's signature, name, address, telephone number, class and hometown. Faculty or staff members must identify their positions. All letters should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom,111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject submissions. For any questions, call John Collar or Nicole Kennedy, editorial page editors, at 864-4810.
HUBIE
But Clinton has been fortunate to be president during an economic winning streak, and so he gets the credit. People can pay their monthly credit card balance and so can the country — why take a chance on Dole?
We elected Bill Clinton again. We'd rather be well off than well respected. After the 1992 election, Clinton admitted that he had been wrong on some of the estimates his campaign had made in terms of the budget. As a result, his tax-relief campaign promise turned into one of the largest tax increases in history.
Because the nation needs the change that Dole would have brought. The people have lost faith in the office of the president. The White House is no longer regarded as a place of honor. Otherwise Clinton would have been sent back to Arkansas. We have disregarded character in lieu of the man who simply was in the right place at the right time.
By Greg Hardin