Koop Clashes With Tobacco Spokesman : U.S. Should Mobilize for War on Cigarettes, Surgeon General Says

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop today clashed with a spokesman for cigarette manufacturers at a congressional hearing in which Koop said the nation should mobilize resources to fight tobacco addiction as it has to fight illicit drugs.

“We should give tobacco use and tobacco addiction the serious attention it deserves,” Koop told a House subcommittee. “Our nation has mobilized enormous resources to wage a war on drugs--illicit drugs.

“We should also give priority to the one addiction--tobacco addiction--that is killing more than 300,000 Americans each year,” he said.

Koop testified before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment on a 618-page report he issued in May in which he said, “Careful examination of the data makes it clear that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting. . . .

‘Processes ... Similar’

“Moreover, the processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine,” he wrote.

Charles O. Whitley, representing the Tobacco Institute, said, “To call smoking an ‘addiction’ trivializes, and almost mocks, the serious narcotic and other hard-drug problems faced by our society and undermines efforts to combat drug abuse.”

Whitley said Koop proclaimed in 1982 that young people are addicted to video games.

“If the mere fact that cigarette smoking produces some pharmacological effects is enough to make smoking an ‘addiction,’ ” Whitley said, “then coffee drinking is also ‘addictive.’ ”

Rep. Terry L. Bruce (D-Ill.) bristled at Koop’s attempt to group cigarettes and hard drugs. He said use of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs cause severe personality and behavior distortions.

Licit and Illicit

“You don’t see that families (with smokers) are disturbed by drugs; that crime is increased by hard-drug use; that cigarette smokers don’t break into liquor stores late at night to get money to buy a pack of cigarettes,” Bruce said.

Koop responded: “I think one of the things that many people confuse is the behavior of cocaine and heroin addicts when they are deprived of the drug. That’s the difference between a licit and an illicit drug. Tobacco is perfectly legal. You can get it whenever you want to satisfy the craving.”

Koop said that if tobacco is withheld from addicts, “there will be people breaking into liquor stores to get cigarettes.”