Smoking: The Butt Stops Here

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Humor is another tactic. Philip Morris has launched a campaign for Benson & Hedges that satirizes the nation's ongoing antismoking fervor. In the new / ads, smokers puff away on rooftops, window ledges and even airplane wings. The tag line: "The length you go to for pleasure." Karen Daragan, manager of media programs for Philip Morris U.S.A., calls it "our empathy campaign." Says she: "It makes smokers feel like they're not alone out there, and they're not the bad guy -- that they are 50 million strong, and they should be able to enjoy a cigarette in public places."

Besides courting its friends, the tobacco industry is also coming down hard on its foes. Philip Morris has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against ABC for its Day One reports charging that the tobacco industry "artificially adds nicotine to cigarettes to keep people smoking and boost profits." Says Herbert M. Wachtell, the attorney representing Philip Morris in the suit: "The basic allegation of the programs -- that the company spikes its tobacco with additional nicotine during the manufacturing process -- is just fundamentally and flatly untrue." The network says it stands by its reporting. (A Day One source says Philip Morris refused requests for an on- camera interview and gave "totally unresponsive" answers to written questions.)

The tobacco industry is becoming more aggressive on the political front as well. In California, for example, where more than half the nation's estimated 600 local antismoking ordinances have been enacted, the tobacco industry is trying a pre-emptive strike. According to antismoking activists in the state, cigarette companies are behind a "citizens' group" supporting an initiative that would institute statewide restrictions against smoking. The catch is that the measure is milder than the many local ordinances it would override.

But more than just tobacco-industry executives and die-hard smokers are raising questions about the current antismoking frenzy. Has the crusade turned into a witch-hunt? Will the campaign to ban smoking simply make the forbidden weed another rebellious turn-on for kids? What sort of policy sense does it make to try to legislate smoking out of existence at the same time that the government is becoming increasingly dependent on tobacco as a source of tax revenue? And for all the new efforts to enact tough restrictions on smoking, how widely does the American public support them?

A TIME/CNN poll taken last week by Yankelovich Partners found that the support is less than overwhelming. Only 47% of nonsmokers felt that smoking should be banned in restaurants (48% preferred setting up special areas for smokers), and just 44% thought it should be forbidden in offices. Tolerance seems the watchword: only 31% of nonsmokers agreed with a statement that our society should do everything possible to stamp out smoking.