Handcuffing the Locals in Tobacco War

Smoking kills more Americans in one year than our enemies did in World War II (425,000 die from tobacco each year; 405,399 died during World War II. In three years, smoking kills more Americans than the 1.3 million who died in all of U.S. battles; in only a year, smoking costs the U.S. economy virtually as much as it cost to wage the Korean War (that conflict cost the United States $67.4 billion); according to a 1985 study by the federal Office of Technology Assessment, smoking costs this country $65 billion a year in health-care costs and productivity.

In only 10 years, smoking will cost Americans $650 billion. This is far more than the $505 billion cost of all our wars.

Yet year after year, our government insists on subsidizing tobacco growers, helping them to produce a crop that directly kills 390,000 smokers a year, according to the surgeon general, and kills an additional 35,000 nonsmoking Americans, according to two recent studies.

Americans are dying, taken unawares in this undeclared war, one in which only one side is fighting. We need to take cover, pull our forces together and counterattack.

Marvin Braude , Los Angeles city councilman.