Phil was relaxing in his corner office at the huge tobacco plant where he was an executive. He looked out over the campus and absorbed the acres of carefully landscaped grounds. He leaned back further in his executive chair and closed his eyes in blissful reflection when a loud “Bang! Bang!” on the door roused him from his reverie.
“Come on in, Morris!” he called out.
Morris took three strides to Phil’s desk and pounded on it.”Phil!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “We’ve got to stop selling cigarettes!”
Phil soared to the floor and put his face next to Morris’s. “No, we do not,” he said. “We live and work in a free country, and we are not going to stop selling tobacco products.” He leaned back and frowned at Morris. “But what has you so worked up, little brother?”
“I’m not you’re little brother,” Morris fumed. “There’s a new study out about what just one cigarette can do to a young person.”
“How young?”
“Eighteen to thirty. That’s young, Phil.”
“Younger than you, for sure. What did the study find?”
“Well, they tested the arteries of these people, who were all healthy. After one cigarette they found that their arteries were getting stiffer. That means they’re more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.”
“How much stiffer?”
“They measured it, Phil. Twenty-five percent stiffer arteries after just one smoke.”
“That’s incredible.”
“You said it. Phil, we’re selling poison. People who smoke build up more of that sticky plaque stuff that gets in the arteries and slows down the flow of blood. That makes the heart pump harder and faster. You know where that leads: heart attack. Plus there’s lung cancer and dozens of other bad things that happen to people who smoke.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Phil asked, pushing away from his desk.
“I suggest we stop right now. No more cigarettes. Shut down the plant.”
“Morris, Morris, Morris. Even if this huge company suddenly stopped making cigarettes, people wouldn’t stop smoking. You know that. Someone else will fill the gap if we leave, and they’ll walk away with the salaries and the profits we are earning now.”
“And we’d be without a job.”Morris’ voice trailed away.
“Us and a few others. Morris, the tobacco industry provides jobs to 2.3 million people in the United States.”
“Who says so?”
“It was in a study a few years ago by Price-Waterhouse.”
“Yeah. By the tobacco institute owned by Price-Waterhouse. That study was blown apart, and it’s more like 680,000 people whose jobs depend on tobacco.”
“All right,” Phil said. “I’ll give you that. But still, we have to think about the growers and the manufacturers and the users of tobacco. Besides which,” he added, “we have to think about ourselves. If we don’t get paid to make tobacco products, you can be sure someone else will. Are you ready to give your job away?”
“I guess not,” Morris said as he put one hand on the doorknob. “But it’s still poison that’s making us rich. See you later, Phil.”
