John Montgomery Presents This Week's	July 22, 2000	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	Tobacco Companies and the People Who Sue Them
	Joe Camel Gets Humped

I remember my first cigarette very clearly. I was 13 years old, in eighth grade, and up until that moment had been convinced that I'd never smoke. Ever since I'd been old enough to understand, my non-smoking parents had filled my head with horror stories about cigarettes, especially the one about my paternal grandfather. Long before I was born, he died of some smoking-related illness at an early age, and lay in his coffin with a sunken face, yellow teeth, brown fingers and bad breath. That picture was enough to scare me away from any thoughts of tobacco until that day out in the woods with my friends. Rosalie, who I'd known since elementary school, but who hadn't seemed too interesting until my hormones started to kick in and take control, was there with a pack of cigarettes she'd stolen from her mother. "Do you want one, John?" she asked in that sweet way she'd only recently learned would cause teenage boys to melt. Years worth of parental warnings and all thoughts of Gramps vanished immediately as I put the butt in my mouth and clumsily got it lit. Rosalie showed me how to inhale and within seconds I was Cool. I was also coughing like an old car that won't start on a winter's morning, gasping for breath, with eyes burning and nose running, but Cool nonetheless. Rosalie smiled at me and I was in heaven.

Let's be clear about why I started smoking. Not because of Joe Camel or The Marlboro Man or the "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" jingle. Not because of any advertisement I'd ever seen. I lit up because I was under the spell of Rosalie and The Raging Hormones. If she had asked me to tie myself to a boat anchor and throw it into the river, I wouldn't have hesitated if I thought it would make me Cool in her eyes.

This week, the world's two largest tobacco companies, RJR Nabisco and Phillip Morris, began bargaining with attorneys general in eight states to settle lawsuits filed over health issues. This comes only weeks after another company, Ligget, broke ranks and settled lawsuits with 22 states. It seems the companies are now willing to admit, after decades of denial, that smoking is not healthy.

Duh!

Anyone who has ever smoked for even a brief period of time knows two things:

1. Smoking is physically addicting.
2. Smoking is bad for your health.

So what's the deal with these lawsuits? "Your honor, I've been smoking three packs a day for 30 years, and all this time I was enjoying it and amazed at how something so good could also be so good for my health. Then, guess what happened? This morning I went to the doctor and he told me I have lung cancer! And heart disease! And high blood pressure! And athlete's foot! Those dirty tobacco companies! How could they have deceived me like this? No one ever told me smoking was bad! I want millions of dollars in compensation so my survivors can become wealthy due to my stupidity!"

Give me a break. If you want to smoke, smoke. But don't come crying to court with your lawyer claiming ignorance. Let's send those tobacco executives who committed perjury to jail and then let the laws of supply and demand control the industry. Getting rid of Joe Camel or collecting billions from the cigarette companies is not going to change the mind of the next kid out in the woods who submits to the demands of peer pressure or his blossoming libido.

I wonder if Rosalie is still smoking. I wonder if she's still getting men to do her bidding with just a smile. I wonder if kissing her would have been like licking out an ashtray. I wonder what I might have learned from my grandfather if I'd ever met him.