By Frank James

On this day when President Barack Obama signed historic legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco, Two-Way reader Shannon Bryony (bryony1) posted a comment I wanted to highlight. Shannon wrote:

I've been smoking since I was conceived. Both my parents smoked, my mother throughout the pregnancy. In those days, the late '40s and early '50s, no one knew it could kill you, except the tobacco industry, and they weren't telling.


So advertising had no effect on me. Mu (sic) parents were the "best" ad I could have had. But who knew?


I started smoking actual cigarettes at 13, two packs a day from the start, as soon as I discovered menthol cigarettes, and am only now looking back and cutting down, hoping to quit.

Here's something to think about. In mid-October of 1984, three people I worked with and was close to met with me on a beautiful sunny day on one of the men's boats, docked in Sausalito. Three of us smoked. Two of them are now dead from cancer, breast/brain in one case, lung cancer in the other, mid-40s in the first case, lung cancer mid-50s in the second. The first didn't smoke, but was exposed to it frequently. The third survived a cancerous colon tumor. I have obstructive lung disease.

Was it worth it to me? I have to be honest. Yes. Unfortunately, not for my friends.

It's striking how rationally Shannon accepted what's sounds essentially like a Faustian bargain.

In exchange for what I'm assuming were the pleasures of smoking for so many years, Shannon is willing to trade good health. That sort of exchange might not make sense to many people, but in a free society adults are allowed to choose even when their choices are pernicious to themselves.

But here's the problem with tobacco, especially when you start using it as a child. It's a point Obama made today. Because of smoking's addictive power, you may not be able to make an adult choice. Tobacco locks many adults into "choices" they made as teenagers or even younger. Shannon intimates that the addiction started as early as the womb. Even less of a choice there.

That's why it's so important to deter children from taking up the habit in the first place. While not impossible, It's hard to resist tobacco's siren song once it becomes a regular part of your life.

4:00 - June 22, 2009

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