Big Tobacco Bought Protection From Public (Oregon)

Let’s be clear.

The evidence is in, and cigarette smoking is drug addiction, not sin.

Big Tobacco is a legalized pusher and they are targeting your children, the next generation of addicts.

Our hospitals, nursing homes and morgues are full of their victims from cancer and cardio-vascular disease. And we subsidize it all from our own wallets with higher insurance premiums, higher taxes for Medicaid, Medicare and disability payments.

Businesses subsidize tobacco addiction with lost productivity from sick and dying workers.

So let’s not fool ourselves. The Big Tobacco drug pusher has bought protection from Republican politicians and from you, the public.

So let’s not fool ourselves with arguments about fairness for the nicotine addict and the constitution.

We lost, children lost and the drug pusher won.

— Bill Ryan, Salem Statesman Journal