Congressional Smokeout

Congress voted yesterday to cease control over the tobacco industry’s ingredients and marketing of their products. That means no more Joe the Camel lighting up in a casino plastered across billboards in America. In fact you might just see billboards of people with tracheotomies advertising Marlboro instead.

The disturbing image is not the death of half a million Americans a year from smoking, but the constitutional liberties that are at stake here. I am a firm believer in write what you want. Today there is no more of a liberal frenzy over media censorship, than there is over social censorship. Here is our country up in arms against Iran saying that we want to liberate their private enterprise and their social freedoms, and yet we are tightening the noose around our own necks.

I am against smoking. As an ex-smoker of 7 years, the pains and filth stained on my body are irreconcilable. Nonetheless, I can only employ the truth that death is caused by household materials such as, detergents, dishwashing fluids, bleach, the list goes on and on. The point is that not one of these companies that have caused cancers in millions of Americans lives are being regulated by the Senate. The Government doesn’t regulate the marketing of these products because special interests are too widespread. The tobacco industry may be the first target, but surely not the last.

Just keep in mind that it could be your company that has the government’s hands in your coffers next year. As your marketing budget shrinks and revenues on advertising are taxed at higher rates, at least you know who is skimming your profits.