Cigar sales have been soaring, and a naive person might assume that, with prices of cigarettes high and inevitably going higher, many smokers have switched to cigars. The government, however, finds something sinister about this increase in cigar smoking, and wonders if the cigar companies are targeting young people in its ads. Again, the government somehow knows that the increased consumption of cigars is by 14 to 19 year old smokers. There seems to be a magic about statistics. If someone connected with government quotes a statistic like the one about the 14-19 cigar smokers, it is accepted as true.
Statistics can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If so, it is remarkable that the industry itself appears to anxious to cooperate in its own destruction. For instance, Bennett LeBow, chairman of the Liggett Group, told a jury in a recent tobacco trial that he is convinced that smoking is addictive and causes disease. The list of substances to which that same statement applies is long indeed. For instance, there are reports showing a statistical link between fluoridation and hip fractures. An artificial sweetener is similarly linked to brain tumors.