Slow, smoky death

Just as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was again declaring major tobacco legislation figuratively dead last week, a judge in Florida was ordering Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. to pay $1 million, including $450,000 in punitive damages, to the family of a man whose very real and painful death was blamed on cigarettes. It was the first time a jury has agreed to such a penalty, but it will not be the last.

Unless the industry changes the way it does business, as it could do through the tobacco bill, it will face hundreds and hundreds more of these suits and it will lose. It has a very strong interest in proving Majority Leader Lott’s words premature.

Big Tobacco once enjoyed an untarnished record in beating back the claims of families of smokers, who sued based on the addictiveness of the product and the deception in its advertising. Just recently, the plaintiffs have begun to win and they will keep on winning because of Big Tobacco’s own documents produced during the last few years showing how the industry executives knew of smoking’s dangers, how they lied about it and how they marketed cigarettes to children.

More than 100 tobacco-bill amendments await consideration from the Senate. Some are directly related to the bill; others are like the marriage-tax proposal and the drug-abuse funding measures considered last week that drain money from the bill without reducing teen smoking, a key goal. Both Republicans and Democrats seem to understand that the public expects Congress to enact meaningful tobacco legislation, but they can’t get out of their own way. As long as the bill is weighed down with extras, it will remain stuck.

The Senate desperately needs leadership on this issue to restrain the number of amendments and rally support for the bill’s core: anti-smoking programs and a clear mandate to tobacco companies to stop trying to sell tobacco to kids. Sen. Lott has been no help at all. He said Monday that he wants legislation “much more aligned with the original settlement offer.” But he has done nothing to rally Republicans to the cause. His alternating commitment to passing a bill and celebrating its demise is confusing and frustrating.

Private meetings among senators this week could clear away many of the needless amendments to the bill. But the legislation won’t go anywhere until Senate leadership gets behind it. Maine senators can lead the way. Early supporters of the bill can move things by limiting their amendments. Most importantly, senators who believe they are looking out for the tobacco industry should see the interest they have in getting this bill approved.