| The Tobacco Reference Guide |
| by David Moyer, MD. |
| Chapter 32 Political issues |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour |
| Political issues: Bob Dole and the 1996 Presidential Campaign |
| globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
| In 1986, Bob Dole joined Connecticut Senators Christopher Dodd and Lowell |
| Weicker in a letter to the government of Hong Kong on behalf of Greenwich-based US |
| Tobacco company. The letter urged Hong Kong not to ban smokeless tobacco and |
| implied that the United States might engage in trade retaliation if it did. Dr. C. Everett |
| Koop wrote in his memoirs, "I imagine they thought it was more important to save a |
| Connecticut firm's profits than Asian lives." |
| Washington Post National Weekly Edition, May 27, 1996, p. 14 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| During the 1985 federal budget negotiations, a bipartisan bill was introduced in |
| Congress to raise excise taxes on chewing tobacco and make it less affordable to |
| adolescents. Dole defeated the measure (simultaneously slipping in a tobacco |
| growers' subsidy crafted by Sen. Jesse Helms). As Common Cause magazine |
| reported, Dole promised he would reconsider the excise tax hike if the pending |
| surgeon general's report linked smokeless tobacco to oral cancer. The 1986 Surgeon |
| General's report did; the Kansas senator didn't. "Dole was very loyal to the |
| smokeless tobacco industry," a former industry representative told Common Cause . |
| "He was someone that they could rely on in Congress to derail legislation." |
| Quote from Mother Jones magazine, May-June, 1996, p. 3 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| Bob Dole has total tobacco industry contributions of $477,000, and has flown 38 |
| times aboard tobacco industry corporate jets. He commented that smoking is not |
| necessarily addictive; former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said that Dole's |
| remarks "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his |
| blind support of the tobacco industry." Dole in response to Katie Couric on the Today |
| show suggested that "perhaps a little bit" Koop had been brainwashed by the liberal |
| media, and also created more controversy by his statement "We know it's not good |
| for kids. But a lot of other things aren't good...Some would say milk's not good." |
| Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1996, p. 16, San Francisco Chronicle, June 28, 1996, |
| and San Francisco Examiner, July 7, 1996, p. B7 |
| tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| Page 1 of 84 |
| globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
First page
of this chapter
Previous
page of this chapter
Next page
of this chapter |