Fired Up Over Idea of Tobacco Investing

“Outlook for Tobacco Makes RJR a Bargain Hunter’s Dream” [Street View, June 23] is a perfect example of something that makes sense from a purely business standpoint but is totally amoral.

It’s a look at tobacco stocks as a way of making money. Tobacco kills hundreds of thousands each year; it has been and still is shamelessly peddled to adolescents by corrupt companies who know very well its addictive and disease-causing properties. The diagram even uses the Joe Camel picture, one of the most cynical publicity icons ever devised.

Perhaps John Dorfman, the writer, might be a little more nauseated at this kind of business deal if he had lost a parent or a friend to lung cancer, or if he saw his kids start smoking because it’s the cool thing to do.

I am an educator, and I see young men and women hooked up to this poison at age 17 and 18, rushing to inhale a few puffs in between classes, destroying themselves. It’s enough to make your blood boil.

Shame on Dorfman for this amoral and irresponsible piece, and shame on The Times for publishing it. Tobacco stocks should collapse and tobacco companies should be wiped out--that’s the best thing that could happen to this country and the world, and in the suffering and costs that would be eliminated it would be good business too.

JEAN LECUYER

Los Angeles