[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 65 (Wednesday, May 20, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5245-S5246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL TOBACCO POLICY AND YOUTH SMOKING REDUCTION ACT

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Arizona for allowing time for me to make a few concluding remarks here, 
because I want to discuss an amendment that is one of those offered and 
pending. It is the Gregg-Leahy amendment. I want to express my opinion 
on this because I think this is a cornerstone issue in terms of this 
piece of legislation, the tobacco bill altogether. I simply do not 
believe that we should provide special legal protection to the tobacco 
industry.
  This isn't a vote about holding together a coalition, as is often 
described, or some other purpose other than determination as to how 
this country conducts itself vis-a-vis its tobacco policy. This is 
going to be a straight vote, up or down, about providing this industry 
with unprecedented legal protections.
  Now, I described it before as kind of a cornerstone issue, because if 
these special protections that are being talked about in this bill, 
eliminating immunity for this industry that certainly doesn't deserve 
immunities in my eyes, tobacco companies, if the bill stands 
unmodified, unamended, tobacco companies will get special legal 
protection for having such things as arsenic in its products. But 
another industry that might use arsenic in its products would not enjoy 
such protection. They would have to list their product, be very 
specific, get permission to use it, et cetera. Why in the world would 
we want to do that--because arsenic is a very dangerous material among 
the many materials, 500 items, that are included typically in a 
cigarette.
  Why, of all the industries that we have in the United States, would 
we want to provide special legal protection to the tobacco industry? We 
are talking about an industry that has continuously lied to Congress, 
lied to the American people, deceived them about what might happen if 
they picked up, started smoking cigarettes. The average person wouldn't 
have the foggiest idea--warnings could be dangerous to health. It 
doesn't say it is almost guaranteed to make you an addict. It doesn't 
say if you took these ingredients apart, there are many that are quite 
toxic. If the labels on the package said you might die if you do this, 
you might die early, you might die at a prime time in your life when 
you would like to be with your family and your friends, when you would 
like to be able to enjoy life, be able to do the things that you do 
athletically or functionally or vocationally, it doesn't say on there, 
hey, listen, if you start this, first of all, you will be spending 
thousands of dollars a year to support this habit.
  Having been a smoker, I am somewhat of an expert on the subject. I am 
not a zealot. I don't say that just because I took the cure, so to 
speak, that other people have to take it. But I know what it is that 
got me around to ceasing my smoking habit, and it was the love of a 
child. It was when my youngest daughter of three children, who was 
about 7 or 8 years old, came up to me one night when I lit a cigarette 
after a meal and said ``Daddy, why do you smoke?'' And I said, ``Well, 
I enjoy it. It is restful, makes me feel good.'' And she said--this is 
a child in first or second grade--and she said, ``Today we learned if 
you smoke you get a black box in your throat.'' She said, ``Daddy, I 
love you. I don't want you to have a black box in your throat.'' This 
is after I had been smoking some 20 years.
  I smoked before I went in the Army and I made sure I smoked when I 
was in the Army. When I was overseas during the war, I was used to 
trading butts with my friends. I would take a puff, they would take a 
puff. Smoking was part of your life--not only part of your life, it was 
part of your resources. It was a currency. You could trade it for some 
fresh fruit. You could trade it for a bottle of water--we didn't drink 
much bottled water in those days, but whatever you chose to have. It 
was currency. It was more valuable than the French franc or the Dutch 
guilder--places I was stationed--or the Belgium franc, or the mark, for 
sure.
  So here I smoked and this child brought me to my senses, my daughter. 
I tried to stop, I would say at least a dozen times. She convinced me 
in that little message--``I love you. I don't want you to have a black 
box in your throat.'' All I could think about were those beautiful big 
eyes looking at me the next couple of days and that was the end of my 
smoking. Thank goodness that child did me an enormous favor.

[[Page S5246]]

  But the industry didn't let me know that. The industry didn't let me 
know at the time that I might develop an illness, emphysema, some other 
respiratory problem, maybe a fatal heart attack that couldn't be 
predicted because of smoking. They never told me anything about those 
things. They said life is more beautiful, life is glamorous. You could 
be a cowboy on a horse or a great skier. I happen to be, it has nothing 
to do with my smoking, but the fact of the matter is that all of those 
things give you images that are deceitful, dishonest, and shouldn't be 
allowed to be out there with impunity, because if someone falls for 
that story, someone falls for that image, they wind up in deep, deep 
trouble, killing 400,000 people a year in this country. That is not a 
very credible industry, I must tell you. They don't tell you that.
  So this industry knew that its products caused cancer. They wouldn't 
acknowledge it. I sat at hearings galore. I was part of one hearing 
where we had the scientist in front of us from one of the tobacco 
companies, a man with incredible credentials if you looked at his 
curriculum vitae. He had gone to great schools and he had done 
wonderful things. I asked him what happened when they tested the 
products on humans, and he said, ``We didn't do human research.'' I 
almost fell off the chair. I said, ``You didn't?'' All of these 
studies, by then 60,000 reports on the dangers of smoking had come 
out. But this company, one of the biggest, said scientists representing 
him said, ``Oh, no, we didn't.'' I said, ``What did you do in your 
research?'' He said, ``We did some research on animals.'' I didn't 
pursue that because I am sure those animals didn't fare very well.

  This is an industry that deliberately targeted our children, not for 
a good purpose, not for better health, for worse health, to try to 
addict them. If it was an illegal drug, we would be after these guys 
and they would be thrown in jail for long, long sentences. But they 
targeted our kids. They went to your children and my children and said: 
``Smoke and you are going to be a hero among your peers. Smoke and you 
will be beautiful. Smoke and you will be desirable.'' All deceit, all 
lies, all determined, at no matter what cost, to grab that child, get 
him or her smoking. They knew they could put money in the bank. They 
could probably take it to the bank as collateral for loans very easily, 
because that person, with rare exception, was hooked.
  That is why we have over 45 million people today who can't quit. I 
say they can't quit because I never met a smoker yet of any duration--
not once--and I meet people all the time, but not once have I met a 
smoker who didn't say they would like to quit smoking. They tried. They 
have gone to clinics, wore patches, and they have done this and that. 
But every time they stop for a while, something else comes up, some 
situation comes up, and they start all over again.
  That is what they want our kids to do. They want our children to be 
their marker. In all kinds of testimony given--some of it willingly and 
some unwillingly--by edict of the courts, especially in Minnesota, 
information has come out that they new bloody well they were targeting 
kids, and they new doggone well that they alter the nicotine content 
and make that addiction even firmer. They knew very well that people 
got cancer and they knew very well that people got sick. They didn't 
give a darn. They had one thing in their eyes: Cash. And they went 
after it, and they were willing to seduce children to do it.
  In many other cases, if anybody touches a hair on a child's head, 
they go off to jail. If they dare say something improper to a child, 
they get punished. These guys wanted to seduce 3,000 kids a day, a 
million a year, to start smoking because they knew that they made that 
cash register ring. This industry, that purposely pushed its product on 
to all American children, focused often on African Americans, or 
minority children, who seemed to be a little susceptible. Now they find 
out it is not just the minority children, it is all children that are 
susceptible.
  This industry is being investigated by the Justice Department. What 
kind of precedent does that set? Because what we are talking about in 
this bill is immunity from lawsuits for damage created by the smoking 
habit which they were fooled into beginning. So with all of that, and 
being investigated by the Justice Department, we say we want to protect 
them in the event of a lawsuit? We don't want to protect anybody else, 
like car manufacturers, food manufacturers, or house builders. Food 
manufacturers have to list everything. They are all subject to redress 
of their rights through the courts. That is the way it ought to be.
  But here we want to do something different. So if this is a 
condition, why shouldn't we give all white-collar criminals special 
protection? We could extend it to drug dealers as well.

  The Gregg-Leahy amendment will keep the legal system right side up. 
It will prevent Congress from rewarding the corporate outlaws who are 
the tobacco industry. Unless we pass this amendment, we are going to 
undermine the rights of Americans who have been harmed by the tobacco 
industry's deliberate conduct. These people are dying of lung cancer, 
heart disease, and they are often debilitated in wheelchairs or in 
hospitals. They become sick because they were nicotine addicts, which 
has the same pharmacological qualities as cocaine and heroin. Mr. 
President, these people should not have their rights abridged, and the 
tobacco industry should not get unprecedented legal protection.
  I ask my colleagues to support the Gregg-Leahy amendment. Don't let 
the tobacco industry get away with this, because, again, I think this 
talks about the value of having this legislation. If they are free of 
their appropriate responsibility under the law, if they are free by 
virtue of a limitation on immunity, they are going to have a bonanza 
here, and we ought not to permit it. This amendment is not a deal-
breaker, but it breaks a sweetheart deal for the tobacco industry. I 
hope that when the votes are counted here, the American people will be 
watching to see what the favorite industry of this body is.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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