US government wants to make tobacco tell the truth

What is wrong with that?

From the article:

The Justice Department wants the largest cigarette manufacturers to admit that they lied to the public about the dangers of smoking, forcing the industry to set up and pay for an advertising campaign of self-criticism for past behavior.

As part of a 12-year-old lawsuit against the tobacco industry, the government on Wednesday released 14 "corrective statements" that it says the companies should be required to make.

One "corrective" statement says: "A federal court is requiring tobacco companies to tell the truth about cigarette smoking. Here's the truth: ... Smoking kills 1,200 Americans. Every day."

Another of the government's proposed statements begins: "We falsely marketed low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain our profits."

"For decades, we denied that we controlled the level of nicotine delivered in cigarettes," a third statement says. "Here's the truth. ... We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain smokers' addiction, because that's how we keep customers coming back."

...

The government proposed 14 statements to cover the addictiveness of nicotine, the lack of health benefit from "low tar," `'ultra-light" and "mild" cigarettes and negative health effects of second-hand smoke.

The proposed statements are labeled "Paid for" by the name of the cigarette manufacturer "under order of a federal district court."
 
Other proposed statements include:
 
"We told Congress under oath that we believed nicotine is not addictive. We told you that smoking is not an addiction and all it takes to quit is willpower. Here's the truth: Smoking is very addictive. And it's not easy to quit."
 
"Just because lights and low tar cigarettes feel smoother, that doesn't mean they are any better for you. Light cigarettes can deliver the same amounts of tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes."

"The surgeon general has concluded" that "children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma."

And I would suggest adding this one:

We are greedy, immoral assholes that have killed people for decades by hooking them on our products as kids by making smoking look sexy and cool, even as we knew that half our customers would eventually die from our products, an average 14 years earlier than normal in slow, painful, expensive deaths.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_justice_tobacco