Tobacco, murder, genocide

How many people ever talk about the moral and justice issue of tobacco?

The World Health Organization has done a comprehensive study of tobacco in 179 countries. The NY Times ran an editorial on the study on the 19th of this month: Tobacco "will kill more people this year than tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria combined, (and) unless governments do more to slow the epidemic, tobacco could kill a billion people by the end of the century, the vast majority in poor and middle-income countries."

The recommended (and proven) strategies: very high taxes on tobacco products; a total ban on all advertising and promotion; a ban on smoking in all public places and workplaces; large, scary warning pictures on packs; and strong programs to help people quit.

The editorial reports that "not a single country fully implements all of the measures, and not one of the recommended steps covers more than about five percent of the global population. The tobacco companies’ vigor to sell is unflagging."

Here is how the Times describes two of the latest tricks in a long and rotten history: "As part of a strategy to ramp up its sales in the developing world, Philip Morris International is being spun off from the Altria Group so that it can escape the threat of litigation and government regulation in the United States. The international company is also planning a slew of new products aimed at particular countries, including sweet-smelling cigarettes that have more tar and nicotine."

I have to ask why on earth this is called anything else but homicide? Or even genocide, which is defined as "the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation"? Why?