Saving the Children for the Tobacco Industry

In this article we juxtapose the recent success of child survival programs with the growing health problems and environmental destruction related to tobacco consumption and cultivation as a form of defective modernization. Data on tobacco cultivation and its impact on ecology, global smoking trends, the economics of the tobacco industry, cigarette marketing, and projected levels of morbidity are all reviewed. We focus on the effects of smoking not just on the consumer but also on the household. The complicity of the U.S. government in promoting cigarette sales in the Third World is considered in relation to ethical issues pertaining to the concepts of market justice and free trade.