Source:    THE KANSAS CITY STAR 
Published: March  30, 1997 OPINION; Pg. L3
FAX: KANSAS CITY STAR  KANSAS CITY MO  18162344926;

GOVERNMENT GETS ITS CUT IN ALCOHOL, TOBACCO SALES by DICK FEAGLER, 
Scripps Howard News Service Copyright (c) 1997, The Kansas City Star Co.

 It's big news that one of the major   tobacco companies
has admitted that cigarettes   are addictive, may be lethal
and are marketed   for minds as young as 14 years old.

   Who	 didn't know this?

   My late grandmother,   born in the last century,
referred   to cigarettes as "coffin nails. " But nobody  
ever quoted her on the front page.

   "Are   you still on those coffin nails? " she would	
ask me when, with great savoir faire, I lit a	Salem with
a sharp flick of the wornout spring   of my Ronson.

   Of course, back then,   everybody I knew was on those
coffin	 nails.

   "Got a light? " was still an   acceptable pickup line
in an upscale saloon.	 Cigarettes might eventually kill
you, but you'd	 die looking cool.

   The drive to look cool   is one of the great human
drives, like   the drive for sex or the drive for air or
the   drive to control the TV remote control.

   The large type tells us that a cigarette maker   called
the Liggett Group Inc. has newsily   acknowledged that
cigarettes are an   addiction.

   This came as news to an audience of	 one: Bob Dole.
During what is politely   called his "campaign," Dole's
most memorable	 utterance was that he didn't know whether 
 cigarettes were addictive.

   This caused a   confidence gap between Dole and the
legion	 of smokers and exsmokers.  It is difficult to  
support a presidential candidate who is nagged	 with
doubts about selfevident matters like the   existence of
gravity, the shape of the earth or   cigarette addiction.

   "If he hasn't   figured that out, what else hasn't he  
figured out? " was the obvious question.    November
answered it.

   The Liggett Group,	manufacturers of Chesterfields,
broke down   and confessed that it targets its advertising 
 to the 14yearold mind.  It promised to stop	 doing this
is the future.

   No great   revelation there.  Just about any
advertisement	you see for anything is aimed at a consumer
  with the intellect of a 14yearold and the	mating
instinct of a goat.  Drink this beer   and you'll get
women.	Wear these panty hose	and you'll get men.  Drive
this allterrain   vehicle on a deathdefying safari
through the   Great Northern parking lot and you'll look  
cool.  If the Liggett Group starts aiming at   the mature
American mind, its audience will be   small enough to allow
it to advertise by   telegram.

   Liggett has agreed to put a	 warning label on its
brands stating that   smoking is addictive.  To smokers,
this is a   revelation about as riveting as telling  
residents of the Ohio Valley that floods are   wet.

   The government is heralding this as a   triumph, but it
is a triumph that doesn't mask	 the government's
underlying ethical dilemma.

   The underlying ethical dilemma is that the	government
is a silent partner with the   nicotine and alcohol drug
kingpins.  While   loudly waging  war  on other  drugs, 
the   government takes its cut of the proceeds of the	two
most lethal drugs in America.  A hint of   the economic
philosophy of Colombian drug lords   is alive in Columbus
and the District of   Columbia.

   An honest warning label on the   side of a pack of
cigarettes would have to say:	"Reminder: Government
proceeds from the sale	 of this deadly and addictive
product are used   to build major league sports stadiums."
Or: "FYI: Cultivation and manufacture of this  
deathcausing, tragically habitforming   substance are
subsidized by your tax dollars.    Have a nice day."

   If what comes out of a   cigarette came out of a
smokestack,   the government would shut the factory down.  
 Physicians who prescribe marijuana to dying   patients
have been threatened with   criminal prosecution.

   Some years ago, the	 government waged a costly allout
war   on asbestos.  The feds, I discovered recently,   have
moved in to occupy my kitchen floor.

   "There's some asbestos under there," said the   man who
had come to lay some new tile. "The   law says we either
got to get some men in space   suits to come in and rip it
out or we got to   bury it. " We buried it.

   But in the war   against nicotine and alcohol, the
government   has dubious moral standing.  It is hard to  
justify being part of the solution and a   beneficiary of
the problem at the same time.	 When the government fights
the tobacco   companies, it wears a boxing glove on one
hand   and holds the other hand out for a piece of the	
action.  That ain't cool.