LETTERS: March 29, 2008

March 29, 2008 12:46 am

— Reader: Stop Big Tobacco from targeting children

If you call people who distribute Halloween candy tainted with poison or pieces of glass to trick-or-treaters, sick or evil, then what do you call people who make their poisonous products palatable by adding strawberry, grape, and other flavors to it so they can market it to children?
We call the producers Big Tobacco.
What, then, do you call a government that allows them to perpetrate these acts with impunity?
We call the government ours.
If the manipulation of nicotine levels in cigarettes to hook its adult users has not convinced us that the FDA should have regulatory authority over tobacco products, perhaps a new report will.
Compiled by leading public health organizations, the report, “Big Tobacco’s Guinea Pigs: How an Unregulated Industry Experiments on American’s Kids and Consumers,” is available at tobaccofreekids.org/productsreport. It details how tobacco manufacturers take advantage of the lack of regulation to find novel ways to entice new, usually young, users through product design and advertising.
Tobacco companies know that most new smokers are children. Despite their claims to the contrary, they target children by the addition of flavors and sugar. Spit tobacco is also aimed at children.
In 1994, one former U.S. tobacco sales representative stated, “Cherry Skoal is for someone who like the taste of candy, if you know what I mean.”
In addition to flavoring their products, tobacco manufacturers make it easier for children to tolerate smoke by adding chemicals that numb the throat. They even address cigarette design so the novice can light it more easily!
Every day another 1,000 kids become regular, daily smokers, and one-third of them will die prematurely as a result — and we allow it.
Bipartisan legislation, S. 625/H.R. 1108,is now pending in Congress. It would grant the Food and Drug Administration authority to require the disclosure of product ingredients, crack down on tobacco marketing, and take other steps to protect public health. Isn’t it time to stop Big Tobacco from exploiting America’s children by passing this bill?
— Andrea L. Hannah, RN, Jeffersonville

New Albany has lost special man

I arrived home today from a daughter’s wedding in Florida to learn of the recent passing of George Lamkin. Capt. Lamkin was a professional police officer who did much to promote the New Albany Police Department to the high standards it now displays.
He served at a time when we were lucky to have three to four cars running at the same time and yet he always, always looked and acted in such a way that we younger officers looked up to him. He was an example of what a professional should be at a time when we were not as far advanced as the NAPD is now. I respected him so much that I never could call him by his first name but by his rank. That was so even after I served 36 years and was a captain or higher myself. He was always Captain Lamkin to me. His image brought about that respect.
I will miss him and thank Martha, his wife, for sharing him with us. It’s not easy being a policeman’s wife. He never quit being a policeman and only now is he 10-42, ending tour of duty.
— Michael Culwell, New Albany

Reader: Welcome to my traffic world

This is in response to a quote from a resident on Lafayette Drive who is concerned that his street will become a cut-through street if the property on Charlestown Road is developed.
Well, welcome to the real world. Every street in this town is being used by someone as a cut-through. Lafayette Drive should not be singled out as being exempt from this inconvenience.
I have lived on Beacon Drive for 42 years. When we moved here, we had no cut-through traffic. Now, our street has constant traffic going to Wal-Mart and also, people who want to avoid the tracks on Grantline Road, who cut through on a daily basis.
I have sat on my porch in the summer and counted cars going by at the rate of one every 4 seconds. The traffic on Beacon and Laclede is constant.
I really resent that some of the people going by are coming from the Lafayette Drive-Lexington area. I have had people I know, who live there, tell me they know my house because they cut through Beacon and Laclede.
It is wrong to single out certain streets as being more important than others. I would like to have Beacon Drive and Laclede Ave. made non-cut-through streets. It's not likely to happen, but I think all streets should bear the same burden of traffic. Or, let the people of Lafayette and Lexington find a way to get around town without cutting through other people's neighborhoods.
— Robert and Juanita Jamison, New Albany