Because we believe in the tobacco illusion, we believe somehow that most of these people died as a result of their own behaviour. Even though we blame the tobacco companies for providing our smoking dead with their cigarettes, we can't really get mad at them because it was really our loved ones fault. After all, everybody knows that tobacco smokers get lung cancer.
But, what if it turns out that our loved ones haven't been smoking real tobacco for years, but a synthetic chemical blend of materials which include reprocessed tobacco scrap and recycled municipal waste, as well as agri-business scrap like sawmill tailings? And what if it turned out that these synthetic cigarettes also contained chemicals to hook the smoker on that particular brand? What if millions of dollars of sophisticated research had been done so that you get a vaporised cloud of these chemicals when you open a pack of your 'favourites', and another volatilised dose when you first light up?
What if exposure to even tiny residues of any one of the dozens of banned pesticides in modern cigarettes were known to create more cancer in African-American and Mexican-Americans than in Anglo-Americans, and what if it can be shown that the cigarette companies knew about the problem of pesticide-related cigarette disease as early as the mid-1960s and have done nothing? And finally, what if it turns out that the cigarette industry is totally unregulated regarding contamination of its products with agri-chemical residues, toxic solvent residues, asbestos, pesticides, and untested additives as the result of covert understandings struck with a government which has been jailing, ruining, and killing tens of thousands of people because they use or deal in 'dangerous drugs'?
What if all these synthetic smoking materials and chemicals and contaminants are the real cause of most of the human damage done by cigarettes, and what if almost all of the horrible damage done so far could have been prevented? Finally, what if the damage was deliberately tolerated and even designed into the product, because there are greater profits that way?
Would that not constitute a crime on the scale of war against humanity? And should those responsible not be arrested and tried as war criminals, by an international tribunal? I believe that the answer would be affirmative, that the evidence points in that direction, and that the public forum of a 'Crimes Against Humanity' trial is the proper place to initiate the process.
The counts of the indictment for such a trial should roughly parallel the Tokyo/ Nuremburg models.
- Count 1: The executive officers and members of the boards of the multinational cigarette companies are indicted for conspiracy, or preparation of a common plan to execute the substantive crimes enumerated in Counts 2,3 & 4.
- Count 2: These executive officers and members of the boards are indicted for crimes against peace and criminal aggressive acts against persons.
- Count 3: The executive officers and members of the boards of the multinational cigarette companies are indicted for deliberate, wilful violation of traditional norms, laws and rules of commerce and social contract.
- Count 4: The executive officers and members of the boards of the multinational cigarette companies are indicted for crimes against humanity; for deliberate atrocities rather than innocent but culpable errors.
The basic rationale of the Nuremburg and Tokyo war crimes trials was that over time there has been a development of the concept of 'limitations on the harshness of war'. The Crimes Against Humanity trials would be based on the parallel concept of a developing limitation on the social license granted to organised interests to exploit unprotected individuals or groups.
Bill Drake, 527 West Jefferson, Waxahachie, Texas 75165, USA (tel 001 214 938 2927).
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