Forces are gathering against the capitalist control of nicotine.
In Britain the main companies and their profits in Britain last year in pounds (£1=1.66 US$) are as follows:
Imperial Tobacco £391 million (Brands: Regal, Embassy, Superkings, John Player Special, Lambert and Butler)
Gallagher £320 million (Benson and Hedges, Silk Cut)
British American Tobacco £1,237 million (Lucky Strike)
The British Health Minister Frank Dobson is apparently going to target the next move in terms of restricting the tobacco companies' appeal to children. A source in the ministry is quoted as describing them as "cunning, deliberate and premeditated child killers". It will apparently be argued that tobacco firms have to recruit 120,000 new smokers each year in Britain, many of them youngsters, to replace the same number who die each year of tobacco-related illnesses.
Recent figures suggest that in Britain 450 children between the ages of 11 and 16 take up smoking each day. One third of all 11 year olds and 2/3 of all 16 year olds have experimented with smoking. About half of all 20 year old smokers will die from diseases related to the habit.
I do not know the fine detail of these statistics and no doubt they will be fought over hard, but the government, despite its embarrassments over Formula 1 Racing receiving sponsorship from tobacco and giving it in return to the Labour Party, appears to be about to make a further move.
It is thought that a ban on bill-board advertsing of cigarettes will be brought forward to the year 2000.
Chris Burford
London