The war on smoking has existed for decades. With theadvent of more tenacious laws prohibiting smoking in publiclocations, and most recently Minnesota’s historic tobaccosettlement, many actions against “Big Tobacco” have become moresuccessful. Anti-smoking campaigns have become moreconfrontational, directly targeting tobacco companies in aneffort to expose its manipulative and illegal marketing tactics.On the surface, last November's $206 billion settlementagreement between the tobacco companies and 46 states looks likea serious blow for Big Tobacco. In addition to the money, itcontains some important concessions: a ban on outdooradvertising, limits on sports sponsorships and merchandising, nomore "product placement" in movies, and they have to close theTobacco Institute and other instruments. And Joe Camel - alongwith all other cartoon characters - is gone for good. Yet this did not hurt the tobacco industry's ability tosell cigarettes. On Nov. 20, the day the attorneys generalannounced the settlement, the stock of the leading tobaccocompanies soared. After all, the Big Four tobacco makers willpay only 1 percent of the damages (at most) directly; the restwill be passed on to smokers through higher prices. Since manystates are already figuring the settlement money into theirbudgets, this puts them in the odd position of depending on thecontinued health of the tobacco industry for their roads,schools, and hospitals. Punishing the industry, in other words, doesn'tnecessarily address the root of the problem - reducing demandfor cigarettes. And that won't go down until we all face thefact that smoking is once again cool. In the 1980s, scarcely anyteenagers smoked. However, according to the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention, teen smoking rose 73 percent from 1988to 1996. As long as movie stars like John Travolta and Uma Thurmanflirt gorgeously through a haze of cigarette smoke, as long asit drifts through all the r...
