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Message from the President
You cannot pick up a newspaper, or turn on the television today without
seeing something about the dangers of tobacco products. Whether it is
smoking cigarettes, second hand smoke or chewing tobacco, the statistics
and reports from a different study almost daily are mind boggling.
Let me say right up front, we employees at Lorillard have NEVER tried to
persuade, encourage, or entice children or adults to smoke. However we do
strongly feel , that as long as tobacco products are legal in this
country, adults should have the right to make the decision if they want to
smoke or not. If the owner of any business, restaurant, store,
etc...decides to allow smoking in that business, then adults make their
decision of whether to patronize that business. Every adult person in this
country has to make adult decisions and choices daily.
Where we go eat, sleep, drink, drive the speed limit in our cars, wear our
seat belts, fly, are all decisions and choices we make all the time. The
problem today is, PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO EXCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR
OWN ACTIONS. It is always somebody else fault. Example: Parents buy their
teenage son an automobile that registers 160 mph on the speedometer. He
goes out and wraps it around a tree at 149 mph on impact, and is killed
instantly. Should his parents then be able to sue and collect from the
maker of the automobile? I THINK NOT!
However , that is not what I want to talk about this time. I want to talk
about the propaganda and out right lies that are being sold to the public
today. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 400,000 people die
every year from smoking-related diseases. How it arrives at this figure
has always been a bit of a mystery. For one thing what exactly is a
smoking-related disease? According to the CDC it is something a smoker is
more likely to get than a nonsmoker. Thus if a smoker dies of heart
disease, say, the CDC will count it as a smoking-related death. This means
that other possible causes of death such as a family history of heart
disease or chronic lack of exercise are resolutely ignored.
Moreover, the CDC does not like to tell us at what age these 4oo,ooo died.
The suggestion is they died young. Yet there is no evidence of this.
Everyone dies of something . Dying of lung cancer at 75 is not the same as
dying of it at 45. As a Cato Institute study pointed out :" Almost 255,000
of the smoking - related deaths-nearly 60 percent of the total - occurred
at age 70 or above. More than 192,000 deaths - nearly 45 percent of the
total - occurred at age 75 or higher. And roughly 72,000 deaths - almost
17 percent of the total - occurred at the age 85 or above."
If the Lord Tarry's his coming we will all die of something. (Hebrews
9:27) Let's say I smoked for 5 years starting at age 20. Then stopped at
age 25 and never smoked again for the next 50 years. At age 75 I died with
a Heart Attack. This is considered smoking - related. Never mind I weighed
400 lbs, and my whole family had a history of heart trouble. This is what
the public HAS BEEN SOLD.
Employers anxious about the cost of providing their workforces with
healthcare coverage, corporate managers launched a fierce campaign to
compel their employees to lead healthy lives. It was not enough that they
did not smoke in the workplace. They could not smoke outside the
workplace. They could not drink. They had to maintain a proper diet. Ted
Turner , for example, refused to hire smokers. A few years ago the Florida
Supreme Court ruled that it was not violation of privacy for an employer
to ask a job applicant whether he had smoked over the previous 12 months.
A desire to reduce health insurance costs, the Court argued, constituted
reasonable grounds for not hiring someone.
The healthcare cost are ludicrously exaggerated. And deliberately so, for
it provides the corporations with an excuse to intrude into their
employees' personal lives. And it provides government with a basis to make
a bogus financial claim. Smokers are not a net cost to society. The
economist W. Kip Viscusi believes smokers will die before nonsmokers.
Therefore, whatever the healthcare they may inflict on others during their
lifetimes, these would be more than offset by the financial gains that
arise from lower nursing - home costs, not to mention forgone retirement
pensions and Social Security claims.
We must stand up and fight for our jobs. This means telling our friends ,
neighbors and elected official's that we don't believe the lies that have
been told on smoking or second hand smoke. American's better stand
together to protect their right to a legal product, because cigarettes are
just the beginning of this government's holding a legitimate business
hostage for part of their profits. Even if you don't smoke, the next
attack could be a product that you like or choose to do.
Until next time,
Your President
Randy W. Fulk
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