Source: Oakland Tribune Contact: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 Guest editorial from Washington Post TOBACCO TALK THE chief executives of the major tobacco companies told Congress Thursday that they could not "agree," as one unfortunately put it, to comprehensive tobacco legislation that did not include limits on their future liability. It was an odd and anachronistic choice of words in testimony otherwise carefully crafted by the companies' PR people to sound somewhere between virtuous and contrite. The implication was that this was still to be regarded as a deal instead of an act of Congress and an expression of national policy. But the deal stage has been left behind, and the Founders left the tobacco industry out of the Constitution. The companies may once have had the political power to block what they continue to resist; they don't now. "We don't need the tobacco industry's blessing" to pass a bill, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-L.A., said, and he's right. The industry looks upon limited immunity as the quid pro quo for all the rest that Is likely to be in the bill - the money it would have to pay, the marketing and other regulations to which it would become subject. The executives made no secret of that Thursday. Nick Brookes, chairman and chief executive officer of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., said in prepared testimony that the likely effect of any legislation would be declining sales, and "as declining sales are spread over our fixed costs, our profits must fall. This is . . . the reason we cannot agree to any legislation that does not include the limited, common-sense civil liability protections" in the deal the companies struck last summer with the state attorneys general who were suing them. "We cannot agree to give up our constitutional rights to market our products to adults and consent to crushing annual payments and ... penalties, without receiving some certainty as to the future of our business. To do so would risk destroying not just Brown & Williamson but an entire industry." But saving the Industry is not what Congress should do first. First it should pass legislation to retard smoking, particularly among young people not yet hooked. The right way is to tax up the price, tighten regulations and offer the addicted greater help to quit. Then Is time enough to tidy up, figure out how to split up the money raised and what protections if any to afford the industry. The industry's health and the public's should be separate calculations. The executives said Thursday that the proposed limits on liability were not that great. If that were so, they would not be fighting so hard for them. This is an industry that itself has begun to admit after years of denying that It produces a lethal product. It is in retreat and wants a bill that would let it regain its balance. Congress should keep it on its heels.