Tobacco Books

This collection of essays is practical and wide-ranging. The editors have assembled essays from academics who study law, politics, public health, and economics. The information is reliable and current. The charts are easy to understand. The writing is almost always clear, but arguments and analyses will challenge newcomers and provoke old hands.

Essays concern the regulation of tobacco by means of international and domestic politics, taxes, marketing, and litigation, as well as efforts to reduce injuries to smokers and availability to youths. Every essay complements the whole. Each chapter features at least some history to summarize the performance of policies to date. The index will expedite use of the book as for building bibliographies, as will the abundant references and footnotes.

I award only four stars because some of the chapters go too far and some not far enough. Dr. Jack Slade calls the marketing of tobacco "peculiar" despite the fact that the appeal of tobacco companies to freedom of choice is a position accepted by 75-80% of Americans, to the best of my information. Dr. Robert Kagan and his co-author conclude on page 32 that "On balance, contemporary U. S. tobacco policy seems to reflect American public opinion much more than it does the preference set of either the tobacco industry, public health activists, or antitobacco lawyers." Try writing that "duh!" conclusion in a term paper and see what grade you get when the teacher stops guffawing. Not only is that contention so obvious as to be risable, but it also misleads. Even if tobacco companies have not gotten all that they wanted, they have made billions by addicting young people to known carcinogens. Policy may long have reflected tobacco power far more than public health activism or litigation, ya think?

Still, this is a terrific resource.

Relying on extensive original documents, Morton constructs a highly readable portrait of life in 18th-century Virginia.

Robert Carter was a leading planter and businessman, one of a long line of Carters that held significant influence in pre-Revolutionary Virginia. By highlighting his significant operations, Morton provides a fascinating glimpse of this early American business leader.

Along the way, the reader is also introduced to a cast of characters whose lives intersected with Carter including tenants, slaves, businessmen and family members. Most interesting are the insights of Phillip Fithian, a tutor to the Carter children who kept a journal while employed by the family.

The book does not hide its age, as its passages relating to Carter's slaves portray him as the archetypal "benevolent master," yet it is highly worthwhile to anyone with an interest in Virginia, the Carter family or 18th-century America.

This book is beautifully done. It lets smokers improve their health dramatically while continuing to smoke. Just reading it resulted in two life-time smokers managing to quit on their first after-reading attempt. Both are still smoke-free years later. It's a real shame to let this book go out of print!

Smokescreen tells the ugly facts behind what 'big tobacco' has done in this country and abroad. The book itself is a little dry; it reads a little like a documentary. However, what it lacks in style, it makes up with stunning facts and secrets from the industry. If every citizen read this book, the people of our nation would be screaming for a lynching. If you smoke, it may make you quit out of spite.

If you grew up in rural Gadsden County, Florida, anytime between the 1930's through 1976, you should read this book. Kay Davis Lay interviewed three dozen people who grew or worked in the shade tobacco industry. It is printed in the rough...in the vernacular of those who spoke about the trials and tribulations of raising tobacco.

This story has in it the original Y2K bug! Not technically a bug, but a genetically altered form of lepidoptera, which produces larval forms with a voracious appetite for tobacco in the field! The industry is wiped out, in this book, in spite of the wickedness of those in charge, and we have a tobacco-free world in the year 2000. It was a great fantasy, while it lasted!

This well-researched and well-written book gives a brief but complete history of tobacco---world-wide, but primarily in America. Though Ms Heyes is best known as a writer for young adults, she does not "write down" or condescend. People of all ages can---indeed should--- read this fascinating true story.

This book was OK, but not great. I think a better book on the topic is "Up In Smoke: From Legislation To Litigation In Tobacco Politics" by Martha A. Derthick. I recommend that book instead of this one. They both tell pretty much the same story.

This is a great book on many levels. It offers tremendous insight not only into the past misconduct of tobacco but also the legal framework -- be it plaintiffs' lawyers or AGs -- that sought to take big tobacco down (the legal history is particularly great). The insider's view of one of the foremost plaintiffs' lawyers in the country is particularly worthwhile: the author paints a very compelling figure who one does not know whether to worship or pity. Nevertheless, the book is probably 50-75 pages too long as it tends to drone on after the main events have already concluded. A postscript detailing the current state of tobacco regulation and litigation would also be worthwhile. That said, the book is definitely worth a read.

This is one of the best books on a legal subject that I've read in many years. Readers who are looking for a squeaky clean hero in Ron Motley miss the point - - or are too mentally numb to get it. Zegart is refreshingly open about the faults of Motley, his merry band of plaintiff's lawyers and the global settlement they hammered out with the industry. The book's brilliance lies in the way gadfly Cliff Douglas is used as a foil to highlight everything that's wrong with Motley's big lawsuit approach. And Zegart has made the tale of a bunch of lawyers going after the cigarette industry truly fun, filled it with unusual and memorable characters, both major and minor, and plenty of drama - - no mean feat. The book will stay with you long after you've finished it.

I once had the opportunity to meet Dan Zegart. Ironically enough, he chain-smoked and let ashes fall over my carpet, my floor, my desk, and made little effort to use an ashtray. In person, Zegart is brilliant. His mind runs something like a pinball ricocheting off of surfaces at wild angles, racking up points and entertaining all who watch. After I met him, a professional musician friend told me he is also one of the best drummers they had ever heard. You get glimpses of a wild mind in this book -- a worthwhile read but hopefully just the first in what should be a body of great work. I am more interested in what Zegart writes or produces next. Here's a bold prediction -- Zegart could be a major voice in social analysis.

Readers will find this easy-to-read book more or less useful depending on the viewpoints and preparation they bring to it. I recommend it to everyone as a quick read that will fuel whatever side of the arguments the reader favors.

The author focuses on litigators who tried to hold tobacco companies responsible for some of the harms from which the companies [and governments] have profited. Many of those litigators were flush with money derived from suits over asbestos or other faulty products, so this book features the swashbuckling lawyering familiar from the plaintiffs' attorney in A CIVIL ACTION. If the reader stereotypes lawyers as greedy parasites, that reader will find ample examples in this book. On the other hand, readers open to the idea that little folks sometimes get something resembling justice through lawsuits or not at all may regard the trial lawyers as the last hope for many underdogs -- not perfect by any means, but better than no champions at all.

Some litigators were motivated by other values than money or in addition to money, so the reader whose mind has not been poisoned against all lawyers will find attorneys acting on principles or ideals.

Readers unaware of the secrets and misbehavior of the tobacco companies should probably read about those companies in greater detail elsewhere, but this book provides a deft summary of intimidation, perjury, junk science, public relations, and other corporate viciousness.

Readers who emphasize that Big Tobacco deals a legal drug that users are free to reject will find little sympathy for that view in this book, but they will find ample evidence of the misbehavior of critics of Big Tobacco.

Readers who believe that plaintiffs file frivolous suits to shake down moneyed defendants every day will learn just how hard it is to get any money from economic powers.

Readers who suspect that economic clout translates to legal and litigational prowess will find ways in which that is both true and false. Such readers will learn that black and white views do not adequately convey the complexity of economic powers.

It is true that one ends this book without a tidy ending to this ongoing struggle. Even that, however, is an important lesson about tobacco politics.

James Moore, former ATF agent, paints a very honest picture of 'the poor man's FBI' and the gun-stroking nuts who would rather die than give up their collection of phallic symbols. He also delves into the internal management problems and glory-grabbing FBI. I was a lower-level clerical employee of both agencies at one time or other and can attest from personal observation Mr. Moore writes the truth. FBI agents are in pressed suits, white shirts, ties, arrogant, self-important; ATF agents are in blue jeans, flannel shirts, work boots, not afraid to get their hands dirty, and most likely alcoholic. At various times during the ATF's history, the agency was so underfunded Agents were spending their own money to buy gas for the G-cars and not paid for overtime they did in the pursuit of criminals.

The ATF office I was assigned to was headed by a jerk of an SAC; the agents called him 'Little Big Man' behind his back and he was responsible for a lot of resignations and reassignments because of his own stubbornness and ego problems. Morale was at a low, but the remaining agents muddled through the best they could.

Mr. Moore's personal experiences are well described and he backs up his research with 60 pages of endnotes and statistics. However, he explains in the "New Battlefields" chapter:

"At midnight [December 15, 1968], Senator Dodd's new Gun Control Act of 1968 went into effect. The senator hadn't won his battle simple because thousands of criminals used guns to prey on the innocent, or merely because millions of Americans had favored tough gun laws for more than thirty years. Dodd won because within a brief span of weeks, one psychotic shot presidential candidate George Wallace, another assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, and a third man murdered Martin Luther King." Mr. Moore's dates are wrong: King and Kennedy were murdered in spring, 1968; Wallace was shot in May, 1972. Point of clarification -- what's the difference between 'murder' and 'assassinate?'

Mr. Moore highlights the dangers of the undercover agent where a slip of the tongue can result in execution on the spot. How agents muster the courage to go up against bloodless drug dealers, motorcycle gangs, gun traffickers, and Waco wackos is beyond me. I knew some of the agents mentioned in Moore's book and ff you saw these men at a shopping mall, restaurant or baseball game, you'd never know they were Federal agents. One case described at length explained how a suspect with hand-grenades and unlicensed guns in his apartment sued the Agents who barged into his apartment and shot him. Well --- agents and police announced their presence to deliver a warrant. The suspect barricaded his door from inside. Agents used a battering ram to break in. The suspect was standing naked inside with a gun pointing toward the agents and police and fired as they entered. In the ensuing gun battle a bullet from a police officer wounds the suspect severely enough he's disabled for life. The suspect had the gall to sue! The judge found the suspect's injuries were due to his own 'contributory negligence.' He could have opened the door when agents first announced their presence, and if he hadn't fired first at the officers they wouldn't have fired back. DUH! Gives you an idea of how stupid some crooks can be.

I do not own a gun. Never have, never will. I find all the meat I need at a grocery store and don't have to go out tracking and hunting my dinner. Gun hobbyists, IMHO, are a little off their rocker. Handguns only have one use -- to kill another person. When people stop misreading the Second Amendment, we might become a safer, kinder, gentler Nation. I'd recommend this book for anyone considering a career in Federal law enforcement, or for the merely curious who want to know how our Government works.

This is the first book written by an insider to tell the whole truth without self-protection, coverup, anger, or revenge. It's the firsr book to give a true and honest picture of ATF and, indeed, the larger federal law enforcement community. The facts are conveyed via exciting accounts of real cases and events within this agency, all documented thoroughly with a huge appendix giving sources.

While I've read reviews claiming this book is not well researched, anyone considering this purchase should know that 60 of its 384 pages consist of appendices documenting sources for everything stated by its author. It should be obvious that those dissing the book are probably gunlovers who simply don't like what the author says and proves. I'm an NRA member and a little truth doesn't bother me. I support the 2nd Amendment but I've also known gunlovers who happened to be idiots! Other than that, I found it the most objective treatment of federal law enforcement I've ever read -- including the turf wars between ATF and ther FBI which, frankly, make me sick. Exciting too. As for giving ATF too much praise, this is silly. The author details crimes committed by some ATF agents and illustrates how, for a long period of time, there was gross incompetence at the very highest levels of its management. But if facts frighten you, skip this one.

The BATF has been much in the news but very few serious studies have been published on its history or operations. As a former ATF agent, the author is in a position give an honest perspective from the "inside". However, given the often hysterical accusations thrown at the FBI, NRA, and others, this reader fears that he lost his battle to be objective.

His book displays too many prejudicial notions about various classes of people, and should not be taken seriously. The author should focus on proven facts the next time he writes such a text.

Too many allegations, not enough proof!

I enjoyed reading this book very much. It is an outstanding piece of non-fiction journalism. I was perhaps most shocked to learn about ACLU director Ira Glasser's involvement in pedophillia, his role in undertaking work on behalf of Philip Morris & RJ Reynolds in exchange for huge cash "donations" and then lyning about it to the public and the ACLU members he supposedly represents. How Ira Glasser has avoided a lengthy prison sentence would make a great sequel to this book.

I have never smoked but was fascinated by how intimately linked American history is with the history of tobacco production and cigarette manufacture. This book reminded me of one of my all-time favorite oral histories-WORKING by Studs Terkel. I am eagerly awaiting Fash's next book!

I enjoyed reading this book very much. It is an outstanding piece of non-fiction journalism. I was perhaps most shocked to learn about ACLU director Ira Glasser's involvement in pedophillia, his role in undertaking work on behalf of Philip Morris & RJ Reynolds in exchange for huge cash "donations" and then lyning about it to the public and the ACLU members he supposedly represents. How Ira Glasser has avoided a lengthy prison sentence would make a great sequel to this book.

I have never smoked but was fascinated by how intimately linked American history is with the history of tobacco production and cigarette manufacture. This book reminded me of one of my all-time favorite oral histories-WORKING by Studs Terkel. I am eagerly awaiting Fash's next book!

This book actually feels like 3 booklets crammed beneath one cover- I'll review them separately.

The first booklet is a fairly well researched look into the shadier side of the tobacco/cigarette business. It has an obvious anti-tobacco air about it, but is still an interesting read. Unfortunately, much of the business described took place in the late 1800s/early 1900s- it has little bearing on today's market. Still, the evidence shown from modern times is damning, and is a fine indictment against the tobacco industry. I just wish that this part of the book had delved more into the recent past rather than the roots of the tobacco industry.

The second booklet consists of unrealistic-sounding miniature interviews with various people. They are separated into three chapters- one for current smokers (most who apparently have attempted to quit), one for people who worked in some way for the tobacco industry, and one for people who have quit smoking. If it weren't for the inclusion of a bit from Kelley Deal (of the Breeders!) in the first section, I'd have thought these vignettes were fake. They all sound like they've come from the same mind and pen- but this may just point to some over-judicious rewriting and editing on Mr. Fahs' part.

These interviews are unnecessary for the book. Most of the interviewees go on tangents that have nothing to do with the subject. When they do talk about smoking, often their experiences come across as bizarre or alien. The interviews feel completely out of place and entirely too subjective for a book billed as the "unfiltered truth".

Mr. Fahs' relationships with his interviewees, too, is jarring and disturbing. His complete lack of objectivity- indeed, his extreme hatred of some of these people- casts a shadow on what is already a very weak section of the book. His mean and spiteful descriptions of people are unnecessary, and do not help in attempting to interpret what the person interviewed is trying to say.

The last booklet is like a bad parody of Hunter S. Thompson's works- "gonzo journalism". This section is even titled "Fear and Loathing in Marlboro Country", in case the very gonzo-ness of his writing doesn't beat it into your head.

Where the interview section felt unnecessary, this section literally screams to be removed from the book. By the time this part is finished, any kind of journalistic credibility (and personal integrity) Mr. Fahs had when the book was started is dashed apart. Mr. Fahs comes across as an egocentric psychopath who blames nicotine withdrawal for his raging idiocy...

One of the main overall problems I had with this book is that John Fahs has taken his own personal experiences with nicotine addiction and withdrawal, and extrapolated from them a belief that these effects are universal. Visual and auditory hallucinations, nausea, black-outs, rage, anger and more are the rule here, not the exception. The interviews earlier in the book seem tilted towards this listing of horrific ailments, too. This is all despite medical studies that show nicotine withdrawl is not quite so dangerous. Mr. Fahs' symptoms are an extreme not shared by the majority of people undergoing withdrawal, and his blanket assertions that his symptoms are universal does a grave disservice to people who are already afraid of quitting. (And, as an aside, after reading Mr. Fahs' little character assassinations in the interview section and his overall piggishness in the gonzo section, I'd be more likely to chalk up his symptoms to pre-existing problems, rather than blame withdrawal.)

I would like to begin this review by saying that I am not a fan of the tobacco industry. What I am a fan of, however, are well researched subjects.

Mr. Fahs does not offer a bibliography or footnotes in his book. I can not take such a book seriously.

This is an excellent non-fiction book. Very readable. Definitely one of the best and most thouroughly researched books on any subject I've read in the last ten years. Perhaps most shocking are the revelations about How American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Ira Glasser has been up to his ears in a host of unsavory activities including pedophillia and took money from Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds in exchange for having the ACLU do the cigarette manufacturers legal work and government lobbying. Glasser then lied about his unethical and illegal activities to both the public and the ACLU members he supposedly represents. How this man has avoided a lengthy prison term would make an excellent sequel to this book. I was also surprised to discover how intimately linked American history is with the history of tobacco production and cigarette manufacturing. This book reminded me of another all-time favorite pieces of non-fiction journalism, WORKING, by Studs Terkel. I eagerly await John Fash's next book.