Wake up, America! Tobacco is not a policy issue anymore. Adolescents, adults and anyone else with a passing interest in human life need to acknowledge the crisis at hand. Smoking is a moral issue and if somebody would like to argue that point, he or she should look at the statistics.

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths each year and resulting in an annual cost of more than $50 billion in direct medical costs. Each year, smoking kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides and fires, combined. Every day, nearly 3,000 young people under the age of 18 become regular smokers.

The world is faced with a decision to make. Whether you realize it or not, the tobacco giants have manipulated the minds of millions and usurped so much governmental influence that they’ve actually gotten away with it. The government should be applauded for originally getting the word out that tobacco just isn’t any good for your health and trying to regulate the industry via the FDA. But, it faces a major decision now, one on which the livelihood of humanity depends whether or not to accept the collective state tobacco settlement..

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To settle lawsuits brought by 40 states, tobacco companies agreed in June to pay $368 billion over 25 years and curb advertising. In return, they would get protection from future lawsuits and restrictions on how heavily the FDA can regulate nicotine.

While the settlement is positive in that it seeks financial retribution for the wrongs undertaken by these tobacco companies, it is disastrous in that it contains an immunity clause, by which tobacco giants may no longer be subject to suits involving people who are on their death bed thanks to smoking. Also unsettling are the lines that undermine the FDA’s ability to regulate nicotine. The FDA must now prove that lowering nicotine levels would be healthier and would not lead to a black market. The agency would not be able to ban the drug until 2009.

Taken as a whole, this settlement exemplifies the untouchable nature of the tobacco industry. Tobacco companies have strong-armed a settlement that, in effect, makes them legally untouchable. Consequently, their profits will continue to soar as more children acquire the habit made possible by these companies. Absolving the tobacco industry of its liability for 400,000 deaths each year is unconscionable. By banning further litigation, we are in essence licensing the industry to kill. We wouldn’t institute laws making convicted murderers immune from future murder charges if they agreed to pay millions in settlement fees. So why should we accept this proposal? Not only is this outrageous, it’s morally reprehensible.

And in terms of nicotine, we already know from the uncovering of the Liggett Co. documents that the tobacco industry purposely adjusts the levels of nicotine in an attempt to hook their customers, especially adolescents, and lied about it to Congress. They lied, plain and simple. Lying to Congress is against the law.

If society is not already aware of nicotine’s addictive nature, we might as well just crawl into a hole and die. In effect, this is what we are doing by standing around and letting the tobacco industry manipulate us. Tobacco is a $45 billion per year industry. Over the next 25 years, it will have amassed, with this figure, $1.25 trillion. And they’ve agreed to pay only $368 billion, a mere third of their profits profits reaped from the killing of their customers. If this isn’t getting away with murder than what is?

For once we need to stand up to tobacco CEO’s and fight back. This means the federal government needs to reject this settlement and unleash a reign of regulative terror on tobacco. Do the right thing by implementing laws aggressively regulating nicotine, seek more than $368 billion dollars in retribution and put these CEO’s in jail where they belong.