Anti-Cigarette Decisions and Smoking Bans
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In response to “Vigilantes String Up the Marlboro Man,” by Bruce Fein and Edwin Meese, Commentary, Aug. 19:
I have not read such arrogant, overblown hogwash since Spiro Agnew was attacking “nattering nabobs.”
Their column contains so many errors of fact and unfair innuendoes that it is hard to know where to begin in making a response. I will limit myself to just one issue.
The authors state: “Wilfred Dewey smoked cigarettes for four decades before his 1980 death . . . (and) his smoking continued after legions of federal trumpeters had sounded clarion calls of warning.” What they avoid mentioning is the fact that this poor man was addicted. Tobacco is said to be one of the most addicting substances on earth, second only (perhaps) to cocaine. Mr. Dewey had smoked for 24 years before the surgeon general’s report gave the first hint of just how dangerous tobacco is. By then, he was almost certainly “hooked.”
I wonder how much the tobacco lobby paid these men to undermine the process of enlightened social progress in the field of preventive medicine.
CHARLES L. WILSON, M.D.
Fullerton
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