European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 1, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday july 1, 1994 a commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 s a to Over Goodman someday we Are All going to miss the tobacco companies. I know we Are. They just done to make corporate villains like this anymore. A of occasionally an Oil company turns a massive spill into a or Bonanza. Sometimes a chemical company twists a court ordered cleanup into proof of Good citizenship. But nothing rivals the creativity of the disinformation campaigns that Roll out of the tobacco Industry faster than a pack of camels. Last week just when everything was going wrong for the tobacco manufacturers we were treated to newspaper ads. That reached dizzying speeds of spin control. In a voice of Sweet it reasonableness . Reynolds was publicly pleading for a dialogue a for a discussion a for a Courtesy a for a a coexistence and even the ads presented tobacco executives As peace negotiators in a world fraught with hostile anti smoking extremists big government and uncivil no libertarians. The Bottom line of the ads came straight from a pacifist handbook by Way of a marriage counselling manual a together we can work it the lion can lie Down with the Lamb Rwjr with the Ama Brown amp Williamson with the Fra. You gotta give them Points for nerve. Americans now know More than Ever about How the cancer causing cohort has manipulated the drug and the research the government and the Public. In congressional hearings the other Day the Fra told us How tobacco companies keep their customers hooked. In turns out that Brown amp Williamson the third largest Domestic cigarette company did no to just calibrate the dosage of nicotine. The company altered the tobacco Gene itself growing plants called Al with twice he hit to give their Low tar smokers their fix. That Isnit All. Much As i hate to Sully any tobacco makers crafted pose As de fender of openness and Freedom Choice a few mors facts Are in order. In the tobacco Industry Bunker of for 30 years the tobacco companies appear to have known that nicotine was addictive and smoking dangerous. Brown amp Williamson having failed to make a safer cigarette buried the evidence of danger. Others like the Rwjr manufacturers now in favor of a open dialogue Quot steadfastly denied a in and out of court a that cigarettes cause disease. The whole Cabal fought in Congress against adding health warnings on cigarette packs. They fought in court against accepting any guilt in the death of smokers. They fought in Public the accusation that they were advertising to kids. They fought against smoke free air planes smoke free restaurants a smoke free workplace. They still deny the evidence of secondhand smoke dangers. They still go on spending s3 billion a year pitching cigarettes. But now with Rwjr at the wheel of the Industry spin control they Are holding out a peace pipe what a if filled with a i a a. The sudden interest in a accommodation Quot comes because cigarette makers Are finally on the losing end of a 30-year War. It appears that the Fra May actually have to treat nicotine As a drug. The Justice department is going to look into whether company executives lied to Congress and regulators. There Are new taxes new Legal strategies new bans in the works. So Here we go. Health defenders Are now portrayed As health vigilantes. The manufacturers of products responsible for 400,000 deaths a year Are protectors of openness peace and the american Way. A smoke free society is portrayed As an Unifree society. Warning darkly of the sinister forces of cigarette prohibition the ads ask a who knows where it will All end a Well 1 am not in favor of prohibition. If you be seen one smoker in withdrawal you done to want to see 45 million at the same time. So i am witling to make a Deal a in a smoke free room of course. In a the interests of an informed debate a As Rwjr put it the tobacco companies Only have to admit that smoking causes lung cancer emphysema and All the other woes listed on the pack. In lieu of a ban they give us a full list of cigarette ingredients beginning with a for ammonia. They Tell us what they knew about addiction and when they knew it. Next they can Stop promoting advertising and generally hooking the next generation of smokers. If they lower the nicotine dose Well even Stop calling them drug pushers. Yes As the and says we can work it out. A. A bos on Glubo a. The Way Michael Fay tells it a a it a like a bloody in his Case however it was bloody buttocks a a the skin did rip open. There was some blood. I mean lets not exaggerate and lets not say a few drops or that the blood was gushing out. It was Between the ends the Saga of the american youth who was caned in Singapore for vandalism a charge to which he once confessed but now denies. _ throughout the drawn out affair the Quot Issue rarely entered on. Fay s guilt or innocence that came in the Days immediately before his caning. Always however it was the brutality of caning. A a when first the Issue arose it appeared that everyone in America was an expert on caning particularly editorial writers on the nations newspapers. When one colleague read that i readily would have stood in line to give Fay a whack a so indignant am i about vandalism especially Graffiti a he called to detail All the horrors of caning. Howard Kleinberg of course he had never observed a caning but somehow he and others including the president of the United states seemed to possess great knowledge of what happened in such circumstances. The skin split wide open. Often the victim passed out. Horrible scars were left Etc. We were left with a picture of a half dead person. Shortly after Fay was caned a . Consular official in Singapore reported on the severity of the punishment saying a flesh was ripped and broken and there was horizontal slashing and grim report indeed. But Michael says a a let a not exaggerate.�?�. I fear that is what happened before and immediately after the punishment. People who had no More knowledge of caning than they do of einsteins theory of relativity built the Issue of caning to great Heights a almost As horrible As an execution which is a form of punishment in Many of the United states that much of the Western world sees As Barbaric. Had the juror around Michael Fay entered on his guilt or innocence it would have been More logical but those who shuddered at the thought of caning were not proclaiming the youths innocence a by just focusing on the punishment most of them were accepting his guilt. We Are a people Quick to Rush to judgment without a scintilla of evidence we have formed opinions just As so Many of us became forensic experts vis a vis the effects of caning. There is past history of 4s whacks being administered by Singapore in a 19s8 Case involving an armed robber a and he lived to Tell about it Michael Fay took but four whacks. Certainly they Hurt. That a the whole idea. He bled a Little and he will he says probably have a scar or two on his buttocks a not exactly his most Public exposure. But As he tells us a a let a not too Many of us did before the fact. C Cox news service u
