[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 64 (Tuesday, May 19, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5031-S5033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TOBACCO AND PUBLIC HEALTH

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the debate on tobacco legislation that we 
will begin again at 10 o'clock this morning is one of the most 
significant in which any of us will ever be involved.
  Smoking is, in the words of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, 
``the chief, single avoidable cause of death in our society, and the 
most important public health issue of our time.''
  Every year, tobacco kills more than 400,000 Americans--accounting for 
more than one out of every five deaths in our country. Smoking kills 
more people than die from AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, 
suicides and fires--combined.
  So often, when we hear that someone has died as a result of smoking, 
we think, ``That was their choice. They were adults.''
  But chances are, they were not adults when they made the decision to 
pick up that first cigarette.
  Ninety percent of adult smokers started smoking at or before the age 
of 18--before they were even old enough to buy cigarettes legally.
  The average youth smoker starts smoking at 13, and is addicted by the 
time he or she is 14. One out of every three of those children will 
eventually die from smoking.
  It may take another 20 or 30--or even 50--years until that decision 
catches up with them. But the decision is made when they are children.
  That is what this debate is really about. Are we willing, as a 
nation, to protect our children from an epidemic that may eventually 
kill them?
  During the first half of this century, another epidemic threatened 
America's children: polio.
  Summer was a time of fear for American parents and their children. 
Parents kept their children out of swimming pools, movie theaters--
anywhere the virus might be spread.
  Still, thousands of children died every year from polio, and tens of 
thousands were crippled.
  The worst polio epidemic in U.S. history occurred in 1952, when 
nearly 60,000 new cases were reported.
  Back then, America marshaled all its resources and all its resolve 
and, in 1953, Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine.
  As a result, polio has all but vanished from this nation.
  We may not be able to eliminate all tobacco-related disease, as we 
eliminated polio. But we can dramatically reduce the number of people 
who pick up that first cigarette as teenagers and become addicted and 
eventually die from smoking.
  The bill that will be pending in just a few moments provides the 
comprehensive approach that is needed to do that.

[[Page S5032]]

  It is supported by a majority of this Senate--Democrats and 
Republicans--and by the President.
  More importantly, it is supported by the American people.


                    cigarette companies target kids

  Smoking by teenagers is now at a 19-year high.
  Every day, 3,000 kids become regular smokers. That's more than a 
million kids a year.
  The increase in teen smoking is not an accident. It is the result of 
a deliberate and aggressive marketing campaign.
  Once-secret internal industry documents make it clear that the 
tobacco industry targets kids--and has for more than 25 years.
  The tobacco industry spends $13 million a day--$5 billion a year--on 
advertising. Many of their ads are specifically targeted to kids.
  A 1981 Philip Morris internal memo makes clear why.
  According to that memo, ``The overwhelming majority of smokers first 
begin to smoke while still in their teens . . . The smoking patterns of 
teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris.''
  A 1984 RJ Reynolds internal memo--written just before RJR launched 
its ``Joe Camel'' campaign--is even more blunt.
  ``If younger adults turn away from smoking,'' it says, ``the 
(tobacco) industry must decline, just as a population that does not 
give birth will eventually dwindle . . . Younger adult smokers are our 
only source of replacement smokers.''
  ``Replacement smokers.'' That's how RJR sees children: as 
``replacements'' for older smokers who quit--or die from tobacco-
related disease.
  If we can keep kids from smoking when they're young, chances are they 
will never smoke.
  Tobacco companies know that. That's one reason they're spending $50 
million to try to kill this bill.


                     the tobacco industry is scared

  Another reason is because they don't want to be held accountable for 
the damage they knowingly caused in the past.
  The tobacco industry is being sued by states across the country. 
States are demanding to be reimbursed for billions of dollars they have 
already spent treating smoking-related illnesses.
  The cases aren't going well for the industry. In the last year alone, 
it has settled out of court with four states, rather than risk going 
into court and losing even more.
  The $6.6 billion the tobacco industry agreed to earlier this month to 
pay Minnesota is the third-largest court settlement in U.S. history. It 
is topped only by the $11.3 billion it agreed to pay Florida, and the 
$15.3 billion it will pay Texas.


                    the truth about the tobacco bill

  The tobacco industry is scared. So they are spending $50 million to 
try to kill this bill. We have all heard their arguments.
  First, they are trying to convince the American people that the only 
reason Congress wants to pass a tobacco bill is to raise mountains of 
money.
  The truth is, 40 percent of the money that would be raised by this 
bill wouldn't go to the federal government at all.
  It would go to state taxpayers, to reimburse them for money they've 
already spent treating tobacco-related illnesses.
  The rest of the money would be used for three purpose: To support 
medical research on treating smoking-related illness and preventing 
smoking; to dramatically reduce teen smoking; and to help tobacco 
farmers make the transition to other crops.
  The industry's second argument is that this bill will create a black 
market for cigarettes.
  They point to the cigarette smuggling problems Canada experienced in 
the early 1990s when it raised tobacco prices.
  The reality is, our bill includes tough anti-smuggling, anti-black 
market provisions that Canada lacked.
  It is worth mentioning, I think, that a lobbyist who enlisted several 
law enforcement groups to warn that this bill could create a black 
market in cigarettes also has another employer: a leading tobacco 
company.
  The third argument the tobacco industry makes is that our bill would 
drive cigarette companies into bankruptcy.
  Mr. President, the tobacco industry makes $100 billion a year.
  Even if it made only $100 million a year, it still would not be in 
danger of bankruptcy because, under this bill, it is smokers--not 
tobacco companies--who pay.
  Finally, the tobacco industry wants people to believe that we're on a 
slippery slope; that today, tobacco is the whipping boy, but next it 
will be alcohol or some other product.
  This argument ignores one crucial distinction: tobacco is the only 
legal product sold in the United States that will kill you when used as 
intended.
  Mr. President, the companies that are making these claims are the 
same companies whose CEOs raised their hands and swore before Congress 
that cigarettes are not addictive.
  They were blowing smoke then, and they are blowing smoke now.
  As I said, this is a historic opportunity. If we fail to grasp it, 
our Nation will pay a terrible price. Unless we reverse current trends, 
5 million children who are under the age of 18 today will die from 
smoking-related illnesses.
  Have you ever known anyone who has died from cancer or emphysema or 
some other tobacco-related disease?
  It's torture--on them, and for the people who love them. Unless we 
act now to reverse current trends, Americans will spend $1 trillion 
over the next 20 years--$1 trillion, a thousand-billion dollars--to 
treat smoking-related illnesses.
  This bill would raise $516 billion over 25 years, $516 billion over 
25 years to save $1 trillion over 20 years--and 5 million children. Mr. 
President, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
  Several years ago, internal documents that the tobacco industry had 
for years kept secret--that the industry had for years denied even 
existed--began to trickle out. After a while, the trickle became a 
flood. As a result of these documents, we now know cigarette 
manufacturers have known for decades that tobacco is addictive.
  We now know that cigarettes kill people directly, and they are a 
contributing cause of illnesses from heart disease to sudden infant 
death syndrome. We now know that tobacco companies manipulate the level 
of nicotine in cigarettes to hook smokers. We now know that the 
industry aggressively targets children. We now know that the price of 
cigarettes influences kids' decision to smoke. We know that's true. But 
we also know it's not enough.
  The only way we are going to break the deadly cycle of teen smoking 
and addiction and death is with a comprehensive bill that includes 
price hikes, plus strong counter-advertising efforts and effective 
retail licensing, and sets goals for reducing teen smoking and 
sanctions against tobacco companies for failure to attain them. That is 
what this bill contains. If we can improve it, we should. And then we 
should pass this bill, and urge the House to pass it as well.
  Teen smoking is an epidemic. If this Congress can't protect children 
from a deadly health threat, what in the world can we do?
  In 1973, a senior RJ Reynolds employee wrote a memo entitled 
``research planning memorandum on some thoughts about new brands of 
cigarettes for the youth market.'' In that memo, he argued--and I 
quote--``there is certainly nothing immoral or unethical about our 
company attempting to attract (teen) smokers to our products.''
  Mr. President, most Americans disagree with that assertion. Most 
Americans believe that aggressively marketing to children a product you 
know could eventually kill them is both immoral and unethical. And, 
they believe it ought to be illegal.
  As the industry's own documents reveal, most adult smokers start 
smoking as teenagers. Victor Crawford was one of those kids.
  He started smoking when he was 13 years old. He died 50 years later, 
after the cancer that was caused by smoking had spread from his throat 
to his pelvis, lungs and liver. As a adult Victor Crawford served 16 
years as a member of Maryland's House of Delegates and its state 
Senate. He was a colorful and effective politician. He was also a 2\1/
2\ pack-a-day smoker. In 1986, Victor Crawford left politics and went 
to work in Maryland's state capital into the

[[Page S5033]]

work of lobbying. One of his clients was the Tobacco Institute, the 
propaganda arm of the tobacco industry. The Tobacco Institute paid him 
$200 an hour to help kill whatever tobacco restrictions came before the 
Maryland General Assembly.
  Six years later, in 1992, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. His 
doctors told him he had three months to live. But, with the help of new 
and experimental treatments, he managed to hang on for three years.
  Victor Crawford used those last three years of his life to prevent 
other young people from making the same mistake he had made when he 
picked up that first cigarette at 13.
  A first reluctantly, then passionately, he spoke about the pain of 
his illness, and his remorse over having contributed, through his work, 
to the suffering of others.
  He described his former employers, the tobacco industry, as ``hard-
nosed, brilliant and ruthless. I can also state without question,'' he 
said, ``that the profit motive is supreme, and that there is no avenue 
they will not explore and no means they will not use to that end.''
  He told his story to state legislatures, on ``60 Minutes,'' in Ann 
Landers' column--wherever he thought it would get through.
  A year and a half before he died, he returned to the Maryland 
Statehouse--to the place where he had worked as a legislator and 
lobbyist. Only this time he as a witness, testifying in support of a 
law regulating public smoking. He wore a wig to hid the baldness caused 
by chemotherapy, and he was terribly gaunt. But everyone who heard him 
was deeply moved.
  Said on of his former colleagues after his testimony, ``Yours was the 
voice of truth.''
  Mr. President, Victor Crawford's voice--and the voice of America's 
children--are calling to us today.
  They are asking us to protect them from addiction.
  They are asking us to protect them from painful and premature death.
  Are we listening?
  It is time for Congress to pass a national bill to reduce teen 
smoking and to tell the cigarette manufacturers, ``Our children are not 
`replacement smokers,' and you cannot prey on them anymore.''
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________