Big Tobacco has a powerful lobby (at both the legislative and executive levels).  In case you missed Former U.S. Attorney Sharon Eubanks speaking about this on this past Sunday morning's news shows, here's a link to the WAPO article:

http://www.washingto...

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Altria, the parent of Philip Morris USA, spent about half of what Dominion spent in the last two election cycles.  For reference, Dominion spent over $1 million, and money well spent given those re-regulation bills.

I guess Altria must be feeling buyer's remorse for giving Kaine $50k for his inaugural committee.

I worked at FDA when the whistleblower from Brown and Williamson came forward. There were enough incriminating records to fill a room.  Everything from paying doctors to smoke, paying Albert Einstein Hospital in NY to stop doing studies on tobacco, paying little stores near middle schools to take cigarettes fromt he pack and sell them as "one-sies" so kids could afford them (and so the warning label would be absent). Then they blended tobacco with varieties illegal in the US that had higher nicotine levels and used those blends especially in low-tar varieties while telling people the "low tar" versions were "healthier."  The crimes go on and on. And they continue today. There's more in the Commissioner's Book "A Question of Intent," and a new book out called, I think, "The Tobacco Century."

Reviewed in the Post here.

If they can sell us a war, why not cigarettes?

What made cigarettes cheap, popular, and available is when they could be machine rolled.  In Asia and Russia, until recently they were hand rolled and the quality an availability of tobacco and papers varied wildly.  I won't even get into filters, since they are ooptional. While people smoked, they didn't smoke often because of price and scarcity, and they couldn't inhale as deeply. Also, merely making cigs in that part of the world was difficult; it required manufacturing in one province, growing tobacco in another, and making paper in another, with irregular power sources and refrigeration, not to mention paying all the local politicians their graft.  Thanks to Altria, they are making cigarettes avialable to pre-teens all over the world! If you don;t get addicted before you're 16, you almost never get addicted.

for giving us the story that lobbyist's wish you wouldn't tell.

Work is so crazy I am blogging after 11.  Thanks again.

A recent article in the RTD talked about the changing map for Virginia's exports:

Virginia sent $645.6 million worth of chips abroad last year, compared with slightly less than $12 million in 1997, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership's Division of International Trade.
***

Chips -- also known as integrated circuits or semiconductors -- are the state's top manufactured export behind coal, the top export overall. Leaf tobacco and aircraft parts round out the top five.

While chips have risen, the devices are forced to fill a major gap left by the rapid descent of Virginia cigarette exports. From 1997 to last year, exports of cigarettes fell nearly 83 percent to $439.5 million.

http://www.timesdisp...

Here's an older story that shows how tobacco exports have fallen:

Tobacco was first exported from Virginia nearly 400 years ago and has remained one of the state's most important commodities ever since. Unfortunately, Virginia's tobacco exports have been in decline for eight consecutive years, falling from $3.37 billion in 1996 to $1.16 billion in 2004. Moreover, tobacco's share of Virginia's total mer easechandise exports has also fallen from 28% in 1996 to just 10% in 2004.

http://www.exportvir...

I am all for a state program to ease the entire tobacco industry out of the state while minimizing worker dislocation.  I am happy to see the exports declining -- it means less kids are being hooked.  But I'll be really glad to see the tobacco lobby out of our state politics.

I'm honestly amazed tobacco companies and Virginia Republicans are fighting so hard on this.  Even Sen. John Warner, no fan of big government, said today it's not a big deal to ask smokers to step outside for a minute to light up.  Smoking bans have taken effect in CA, DC, DE, NY, and MA without destroying commerce as we know it. 

We're not asking people to quit smoking, we're just asking them to step outside while they do it.  Why is that an "emergency"?  Isn't that a moderate, pragmatic solution?  Especially when President Bush's own surgeon general, no wacko liberal, has declared there's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke?