Tobacco-Samples Proposal 'Shameful And Scandalous'

Source from:  greeleytrib.com Ed Phillipsen Greeley December 2, 2007 12/03/2007

One of the fondest memories I have of my youth is sitting in the book-lined library of my father's home, as he sat across from me in his comfortable leather chair -- filling his Meerschaum pipe -- and discussing literature, politics and theology long into the night. My mother would bring him a martini or a scotch and, as the smoke from his pipe spiraled into the air, he would hold forth on the meaning of God in the works of T.S. Eliot, or the arguments against Sir Francis Bacon having written the works of Shakespeare. I loved those conversations and believe they were the genesis of my own love of English and American literature -- and my addiction to tobacco products. I am still a tobacco addict. My addiction began when I was a sixth-grader, when cigarettes were freely available in my parents' home. Although my mother never used tobacco, my father used everything: cigarettes, cigars, spit-tobacco and a pipe. I have been in recovery from my tobacco addiction for 23 years now, but still experience the negative consequences of my decades of active addiction. The body of research that exists around how drug dependencies develop indicates that my discovery of tobacco was consistent with how many people develop drug dependencies. We learn them at home, usually from an older male in the family that we admire. We learn to use alcohol at home by watching parents drink wine with meals, or have a martini after work to relax. We often grow up with a belief that drug use, legal or illegal, is normal and OK, because the people we love, admire or respect use drugs. If the law says it's not OK, then the law must be wrong. Tobacco is a more deadly drug then heroin, and as difficult to stop using, with a 90 percent failure rate. About 500,000 people die every year in our country from the direct and indirect consequences of using tobacco products. It is the only legal product in America that, when used as directed by the manufacturer, kills 33 percent of its customers. It is easy to become addicted; it takes less than three weeks of use. Those who profit from the illegal drug trade, pushers, give the product away free at first in order to cultivate addiction. Weeks later, when the dependency is entrenched, they charge the going market price, knowing full well that dependency on the drug will force the addict to come up with the money. This is also the strategy used by the tobacco industry. They know that only 18 percent of us in Colorado continue to use tobacco and that, given its cost, fewer of us are choosing to buy the product. So they look for opportunities to give it away free, knowing full well that they will create dependency and thus develop a whole new generation of addicts that will fill their coffers with money. This is an immoral act. The notion that profit is more important than community health is obscene. The idea that a $200,000 scoreboard, donated to the Independence Stampede by the spit-tobacco industry for 15 days of use a year, must be paid for by giving away free samples of an addictive, deadly drug is shameful, scandalous and corrupt. That scoreboard is not worth the good health of even one of our citizens. Ed Phillipsen is a licensed mental health professional who has treated individuals struggling with drug dependency for more than 30 years. He also sits on the Greeley City Council, serving Ward II. Enditem