Conflicting Points of View
There are two entrenched interests that have opinions about the tobacco industry: (a) participants in the industry, and (b) people affected by the deaths attributable to tobacco use. These interests conflict as they involve large amounts of money, long-held (historically) belief systems, and the premature deaths of loved family members.
Participants in the industry argue that commercial tobacco production is a vital part of the American and world economy. They state that thousands of farmers in the United States, alone, make their living from raising tobacco leaves for use by the industry. They cite the fact that the tobacco industry contributes billions of dollars in tax revenue to the state and federal government every year.
People affected by or sympathetic to the large death rate attributable to active and/or passive tobacco use cite the fact that half of all tobacco users die from tobacco-related causes worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, that means that about 650 million current smokers will die from a preventable cause. They also indicate that smoking-related health problems contribute to rising health care costs.
Read more about this topic: Tobacco Industry
Famous quotes containing the words conflicting, points and/or view:
“Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist’s relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)