Politicians' nicotine fix.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINEPRINT - Tobacco habit

I'm not a smoker, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Once, as a kid, I sneaked an unfiltered Chesterfield out of the pack my father always had within easy reach and lit it up outside. I didn't understand that I was supposed to inhale the smoke--I just held it in my mouth, then blew it out--but it still made me swimmy-headed. Years later in college, a couple of buddies and I fell into the habit of lighting up in our dorm rooms after dinner. After about two weeks, I declared myself out of the smoking club. I also had brief flirtations with cigars and pipes, but none of it took. Tobacco and I just never fell in love.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

That's not the case with the federal government or with the governments of every state in the union. Appearances to the contrary, government loves the tobacco industry. Or at the very least, it has a powerful addiction to it. Take the government's hand-wringing over tobacco's threat to the health of its citizens for what it is: a bit of theater needed to ensure that those very same citizens don't dwell too long on the fact that eliminating tobacco use is the last thing government needs.

The kindest thing that can be said about the government's love/hate relationship with tobacco is that an appealing libertarian philosophy is in evidence. Despite its recent decision to have tobacco products regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, the federal government has chosen not to intrude forcefully into personal choices made by its citizens. It will whine and nag, but if smokers wish to smoke, they can still do so. But in every other aspect of government's bond to tobacco, hypocrisy, avarice and cold-blooded-ness dominate.

The first is a minor sin. All of us harbor some degree of hypocrisy, so it's unwise to hurl a large stone here. Still, it's odd that a government such as North Carolina's can operate a numbers racket (called the "Education Lottery") and act as the exclusive supplier of hard liquor to its citizens--but simultaneously be agog with concern over the economic and health risks of smoking. No one ever slaps around his wife and terrorizes the kids after smoking too many cigarettes; no one ever buys a pack of smokes in the starry-eyed hope that somehow, against disheartening odds, they'll get rich through that purchase. The fact that government--any government--can market a lottery while also claiming to be concerned about the tobacco industry's advertising practices requires a breathtaking display of...