Tobacco Industry’s Secret Files

The front-page article, “Tobacco Firms Ordered to Give Up Secret Files,” March 8, brings home to me with powerful force the depth of iniquity of this cabal against the health and lives of millions of people. We are faced with a deliberate, knowing assault upon us that has been going on for years and is nothing short of criminal. We do not bargain with guilty murderers; we execute them or imprison them for life. Untold numbers have died a miserable death from tobacco. The perpetrators of this carnage should be punished, not shielded from lawsuits.

What can the average person do to express his or her anger? Hit them in the pocketbook. Don’t buy Nabisco or Philip Morris products. The food products already have suffered losses due to a silent boycott.

SANDY WOHLGEMUTH

Reseda

* Re the article on March 10, which pegged the taxpayers’ annual cost at $12 billion for the treatment of smoking-related diseases contracted by indigents: I don’t smoke, my wife doesn’t smoke, my children don’t smoke and we don’t like to inhale other people’s smoke, but that doesn’t mean that we are gullible, anti-tobacco loonies who won’t be offended by the flawed logic of your article.

Face it, everyone dies eventually--smokers and nonsmokers alike. So, were there nonsmoking control groups in the cited studies? Were the Medicaid costs of the control group members, over their life spans, compared to cost of treatment of diseases contracted by the smokers?

If this is simply a self-serving (and there is nothing wrong with being self-serving to protect the public health) campaign to stamp out smoking by taxing and fining smokers, just say so. Don’t insult the public’s intelligence by abandoning logic to threaten our pocketbooks.

STU O’GUINN

Huntington Beach