TOBACCO CHARADES
Student
Taxpayers underwrite price supports for tobacco farmers while also paying the Surgeon General to try to eliminate tobacco use. Cigarette companies squeeze ever-increasing profits from the very health fears surrounding smoking. Filter cigarettes were widely introduced in the 1950's in response to the first studies showing that smoking causes lung cancer. Although, as the author notes, "there was no evidence" that filter-tipped cigarettes "offered any significant protection from the diseases of smoking," they turned out to be both cheaper to make and more attractive to smokers than nonfilters, boosting the industry's profits on two counts. The potential legal liability in making and selling cigarettes insures their continuing profitability by keeping would-be competitors out of the market. Banning cigarette advertising on television hardly dented sales, but saved the tobacco companies billions, which they, in turn, have invested in business like General Foods, CBS and life insurance companies (which charge smokers high rates).
