Nicotine Harvest

A friend who bears no love for the tobacco industry passed along a news item this week that goes straight to the top of the someone-is-trying-to-tell-us-something file, otherwise called the Department of Poetic Justice.

"Authorities say a smoldering cigarette butt was the probable cause of a fire that destroyed the luxury vacation home of the president of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The three-floor vacation home . . . on upscale Figure Eight Island in North Carolina was reduced to a row of charred pilings after it caught fire while workers installing ceiling tiles were at lunch . . . . Fire officials said the blaze probably was caused by a cigarette butt left by a worker who told inspectors he had smoked near where the fire started about half an hour before the crew left."

It wasn't cigarettes that caused the tongue cancer that afflicts our friend's nearest and dearest, but cigars, which have surged in popularity in the past few years even as the use of cigarettes has waned somewhat.

Those who smoke cigars or pipes will tell you more often than not that their habits are harmless. After all, they don't inhale. High school students who have discovered snuff (sometimes called "smokeless tobacco") almost always believe the same.

In fact, of course, there is nicotine in all these products, and it is just as addictive as it is in cigarettes. Those who think they are in no danger because no smoke reaches their lungs should think again, and again.

"A trip to the head and neck division of Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center would probably do more to cure nicotine addiction," says our friend, "than all the 'patches' and chewing gum and expensive rehab programs in existence."