Letters: Sucked in by Joe Camel
Re “Blow out the Camels,” Opinion, Oct. 20
The centennial of Camel cigarettes in this country is no cause for celebration. Tobacco’s grim toll on its consumers’ health remains predictably costly, as professor Robert N. Proctor poignantly relates in his Op-Ed article.
Yet the cigarette-selling business model remains viable, as the stock of the company that makes Camels has trended upward over the last few years. That’s because the tobacco industry externalizes the long-term costs of its products’ use. Most of the expenses caused by the deterioration of smokers’ health are borne by society and not by the tobacco companies.
Let’s hope Camels and other cigarette titans come nowhere near a second centennial.
Sandra Perez
Santa Maria
The 100-year anniversary of Camel cigarettes will not be celebrated in my family, as my attention will be on the approaching ninth anniversary of the death of my mother and the 40th anniversary of the death of my father — both killed by Camels.
Donald Bentley
La Puente
Cigarette smoking here in Long Beach seems to be headed in the same direction as film photography a few years back. Ask anyone, especially the young: E-cigarettes (vapes) are in; smoking is out.
Technology is rapidly doing what taxation and regulation could not.
Corey Bennett
Long Beach
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