RALEIGH, North Carolina – In the window of Pipes by George, a smoke shop in the centre of this big tobacco city, a photograph of hockey superhero Wayne Gretzky appeared last week to promote the product.
On the cover of the magazine Cigar Aficionado, Gretzky and wife Janet Jones stood smiling, cigars in hand.
“I smoke with the guys,” Gretzky says in the magazine. “It’s a way to relax.”
Even in this southern state, where hockey rates well below college football in popularity, the image of hockey’s all-time points leader coming out of the closet as a smoker makes the newspapers.
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“We know Gretzky here and this shows you can be an elite athlete and still enjoy a smoke,” says the smoke shop salesperson, presumably George, although he will not give his name.
But here, in a state where tobacco growing is a billion-dollar business, even Gretzky’s testimonial was not enough to lift the gloom.
Feb. 28 marked the beginning of the latest U.S. government attempt to tighten regulation of tobacco sales and promotion.
Effective last weekend, the U.S. government announced it will become aggressive in policing a ban on sales of tobacco products to consumers younger than 18. Vendors will be liable to fines if they do not check ID cards.
It was the first step on a road that will make tobacco a product controlled under the Food and Drug Act.
Later this year, advertisements by tobacco companies will be curtailed, cigarette vending machines will be outlawed except in bars and tobacco companies will be banned from giving away product or selling cheaper mini-packs of cigarettes.
Tobacco farmers and their lobbyists were fuming.
“If it becomes a drug, it will have a major impact on tobacco farmers and and on government revenues,” complained Fred Fox, a tobacco specialist with the North Carolina Farm Bureau. “Tobacco taxes pay for the health care and education in this state. Where will they get that money if they kill the goose that lays the golden egg?”
Out on his tobacco farm west on Raleigh, Bill Upchurch sees hostile Democratic Party politics at work.
Attack on industry
“I am a registered Democrat but I vote for whoever is for the farmer,” he said. “I would say the Republicans are more supportive of tobacco than the Democrats. I see this as an attack on our industry by Washington.”
Both men said the government’s attempt to tighten controls on sales of tobacco to young people will backfire.
“Young people always try to do what they’re not supposed to and I guess that will happen again,” said Upchurch. “I don’t favor young people smoking but regulation ain’t going to stop it.”
Fox said the government and health groups will not defeat the tobacco industry.
“Even if they shut us down, someone would grow it,” he said. “It is not going to destroy the industry. Why, tobacco financed the American Revolution. It helped make this country.”
