Tobacco Industry

There is a drug war going on in Orange County. The dealers and pushers are the tobacco industry and their supporters. The governor, his appointees and our legislative leaders are pushers in this war for the health and even lives of our children. Tobacco products are the lethal weapon. Deceptive advertising and marketing practices are the ammunition. Until very recently, our government refused to admit that tobacco was addictive or that it was a drug.

How do you convince kids not to smoke? That's the question of the moment for educators, health activists--and the tobacco industry. While educators struggle to reduce smoking rates among youth--the only segment of U.S. society in which smoking has not declined in the past decade--the tobacco industry is promoting its own anti-smoking program this summer in a 30-city tour punctuated with public service announcements on radio, television and billboards.

Despite winning a major battle with the decertification of the huge Castano class-action lawsuit, cigarette manufacturers still face major litigation filed by state governments, the prospect of up to 50 new private class-action suits around the country, possible indictments by the federal government and the threat of Food and Drug Administration regulations.

It has been a little more than a year since Gov. Pete Wilson signed the nation's toughest anti-smoking measure into law. Authored by then-Assemblyman Terry Friedman, AB 13, now Labor Code Section 6404.5, bars smoking in virtually all indoor workplaces across the state. Wilson called the bill "the next logical step in California's continuing efforts to improve the health of our workers and businesses."

Portraying their initiative as an anti-smoking measure, the tobacco industry is airing radio spots in which a woman identifying herself as a school vice principal claims that Proposition 188 will keep children away from cigarettes. But California's top health official, and other critics of the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot, call the ad one more ruse to sell the initiative to California voters.

While critics rejoice at its mounting legal and political problems, the U.S. tobacco industry may have quietly turned a corner in its struggle to stabilize its domestic market. Domestic cigarette consumption actually rose in 1995, something that has not happened in more than a decade, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was a small increase--from about 485 billion to 487 billion cigarettes--but it arrested a long retreat in smoking by Americans.

The tobacco industry has mobilized scores of talented law firms to fight an unprecedented siege of mega-lawsuits. But none of tobacco's defenders is as busy, nor relied on as heavily, as this city's Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Shook, Hardy has been defending tobacco companies for nearly 40 years and has been instrumental in preserving the industry's near-perfect courtroom record. In the process, it has become one of the great success stories in U.S.

Twenty-six sculptures that are scattered in popular spots throughout the Cal State Fullerton campus will be honored by The Architecture Foundation of Orange County. The university will receive an Art in Public Places Award on Friday. "They have a unique collection that caught our attention," said Paul Ruffing, chairman of the foundation, an offshoot of the American Institute of Architects--Orange County Chapter. This year's annual awards banquet will be at the Noguchi Garden in Costa Mesa, the first site presented with the award--an inch-thick glass plaque about 4 inches high and 6 inches wide.