| Although some, including a top ReynoldsТ executive, argue that smokeless tobacco poses fewer health risks than buy cheap cigarettes, studies have linked it to various diseases, particularly mouth cancer. Nobody knows for sure. Absent government regulation, however, Big Tobacco would be free to market these and other products as less harmful than cigarettes. So far, cigarette-makers havenТt done that, but theyТve taken that tack before. On the ropes in 1964 when the surgeon general first warned of smokingТs dangers, the industry came up with УlightФ and other Уlow-tarФ cigarettes to lure the public. The ploy worked. Smokers switched in droves. Yet to satisfy their addiction, they smoked more and inhaled more deeply. As a result, the National Cancer Institute reported in 2001, the Уnet effect of the introduction and mass marketingФ of these brands may have been an increase in smoking-related deaths. Federal regulation could prevent a repeat of that cruel deceit. Under a bipartisan measure: * The FDA would have to approve, based on scientific evidence, any Уreduced harmФ claim by industry. |