Full of Smoke

The contest to see which special-interest group can produce the year’s most deceptive political advertising in California promises to be close, but count the tobacco industry right up there among the leaders. In a well-financed campaign, the industry is preying on the public’s fears with a claim that passage of Proposition 99, which would boost cigarette taxes by 25 cents a pack, would lead to an explosion of crime.

Invoking such worries is effective; for a time even some law-enforcement organizations were fooled. No more. First the California Peace Officers Assn. dropped its opposition to Proposition 99. Now the executive board of the California State Sheriffs’ Assn. has voted unanimously to withdraw its opposition to the measure.

That leaves the tobacco industry, disguised this time around as Californians Against Unfair Tax Increases, pretty much without respectable allies. The industry, as always, is bitterly opposed to any increase in the price of tobacco products--except those that it initiates itself to boost profits--because it knows that as the cost of smoking goes up, the consumption of cigarettes tends to go down. That’s nowhere more true than with young people who are just starting to think about smoking.

The television ads run by the anti-99 campaign are models of cynical and deceptive exploitation. Their point is that higher taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products would lead to the smuggling of cigarettes from states where taxes are much lower. In one commercial an “undercover” cop warns that if Proposition 99 becomes law his working hours will have to be spent chasing cigarette smugglers. In another a punk brags about all the money that he can make from transporting contraband cigarettes, and about all the guns that he can buy with his illicit earnings.

In fact, a 1985 congressional study found that tough new federal laws against interstate smuggling have proved to be an effective curb on the bootlegging of cigarettes. California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp agrees. So does Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, who says that he and other sheriffs “do not see any major crime problem” if Proposition 99 carries.

What can be foreseen if the measure passes is about $600 million in much-needed new revenues from higher tobacco taxes that would be primarily dedicated to hospital and physician services for working people who can’t afford health care and to the indigent. Los Angeles County alone stands to gain $46 million next year, money that could well assure the continued operation of hospitals and clinics whose doors might otherwise have to close. Not to be overlooked, either, is the public-health benefit to be gained if the passing of Proposition 99 encourages some people to quit smoking or, best of all, if it discourages more people from ever starting to smoke. Creating new nicotine addicts is the lifeblood of the tobacco industry. That’s why it desperately opposes Proposition 99. It’s also, of course, a primary reason why thinking people will support it.