How U.S. Tobacco Snuffs out Taxes, Health Reforms
What do Chateau Ste. Michelle and the U.S. Congress have in common?
They're both owned by U.S. Tobacco. And they've both helped the company take over the United States snuff market.
In its spring 1993 issue, Common Cause Magazine describes how U.S. Tobacco - now innocuously called UST Inc. - has taken over 90 percent of U.S. snuff sales while blocking new taxes and watering down efforts to warn the dippers of their habit's often gruesome effects.
(UST makes snuff, a smokeless tobacco placed between your cheek and gums; chew, which is balled up and stuffed in the side of your mouth, is a different though comparably harmful form of smokeless tobacco.)
The evidence linking the use of snuff to serious health problems is compelling and disturbing: Dippers are four times more likely to get mouth cancer and 50 times more susceptible to throat cancer than non-users, Common Cause reported. "Moist snuff can be deadly," the magazine quotes U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello as saying.
Ask Alan Hilburg of the Smokeless Tobacco Council, however, and he'll say there's no proof that snuff "causes any adverse health effects or human diseases," and that nicotine isn't addictive, Common Cause reported.
Behind UST Inc. is Louis Bantle, a former cigarette addict who once said snuff made him "sicker than a dog." With Bantle as its chair, UST sold $1 billion worth of Copenhagen, Happy Days, Skoal and Skoal Long Cut loose tobacco over the past year. According to internal UST documents, the company has schemed to "hook" young dippers; a fourth of the country's 10 million snuff users are under 21, Common Cause said. The average high school male starts pinching at age 9.
But Bantle couldn't have achieved his success without a little help from his friends in Congress and the Bush administration. Since the late '80s, Bantle and the political action committees of UST and the Smokeless Tobacco Council have given about $2 million in contributions to congressional candidates and in "soft money" to the Democratic and Republican national committees, most going to the GOP, Common Cause reported. People connected to UST banded together to become the largest contributor to the Bush-Quayle primary campaign of 1992.
At a fundraiser for GOP congressional campaign committees in 1991, UST lubricated conversations with $83,000 worth of wine from its Washington state vineyards and served in glasses engraved with the UST logo, according to Common Cause.
What UST got in return is favorable treatment when big tax increases were proposed in Congress. As a result, federal excise tax on a can of snuff remains less than 3 cents, one-eighth of that on a pack of its smokeable counterpart, Common Cause said. And Bush helped UST block bans on snuff in other countries, CC said.
UST also has blocked requirements to place health warnings on promotional T-shirts, hats and other items carrying company logos, Common Cause reported. And, according to the magazine, the tobacco industry still is free from regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.
Said a member of a national anti-tobacco organization: "U.S. Tobacco is probably the best example of a company that is putting corporate profits above the health of our children."
A former Oregon state lawmaker coming to the defense of a CIA operative accused of blowing up four people in the 1984 La Penca bombing?
Sounds bizarre, but that's what the Willamette Week reported in its May 27-June 2 issue. In a lengthy article, the Portland weekly explores the relationship between Drew Davis, a Democrat-turned-born-again-Republican, and John Hull, a shadowy American believed to have used his Costa Rican ranch as a command post for the United States' proxy war in Nicaragua.
Like most stories detailing a misguided U.S. foreign policy, this one can take longer to explain the background than it does the latest revelations. Briefly put, John Hull is believed by Costa Rican authorities and others to have been involved in a plot to kill EdŽn Pastora, a former Sandinista who parted ways with the communists and joined up with the U.S.-backed Contras. When that relationship soured, Pastora gathered together his own army to work against the Sandinista government. The decision upset the CIA.
Pastora was injured and four people, including a Portland news reporter, were killed when a bomb exploded at a news conference during which Pastora planned to announce his revolutionary game plan. In 1989, Costa Rican prosecutors charged Hull with being involved in the bombing, but he has hidden successfully in the U.S. ever since. Investigators and reporters suspect CIA involvement in the bombing.
Enter Drew Davis. Elected to the Oregon state House of Representatives at age 23 in 1974, Davis served what has been described as a less-than-impressive stint as a Democratic lawmaker. In 1984, Davis took on right-wing beer-meister Joseph Coors Jr. as his finance chair in a losing race against U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden. Soon thereafter, he began opposing gay-rights laws in Oregon, setting the stage for Lon Mabon's Oregon Citizens Alliance, Willamette Week reported.
For the past year-and-a-half, Davis has been trying to clear Hull's name; he's in daily contact with Hull, though Davis won't say where the fugitive is, WW reported. "John just needs the correct professional help to get out the right story," WW quoted Davis, who says he has spent $500,000 of the money his wife earned selling Tupperware in his campaign to vindicate Hull.
From getting Hull and other alleged bombing participants to take lie-detector tests, to filing motions in Costa Rican courts, to seeking donations in the U.S. through a 1-800 number, Davis has made Hull's defense his life's work. He's also worked with Oliver North, bringing the spook/aspiring politician to speak in Portland as the Iran-Contra scandal unraveled.
Common Cause Magazine
2030 M St. NW
Washington, DC, 20036
(202) 833-1200
subscriptions -$20/year
Willamette Week
2 NW Second Ave.
Portland, OR, 97209
(503) 243-2122
subscriptions -$40/year
Investigative Digest is compiled by Free Press staff.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |