I guess I'm a little confused by all the attention Joe Camel gets from lawmakers.

You know Joe. He's the cartoon character with the gigantic nose who hawks Camel cigarettes.

The latest salvo against the maligned mammal is a letter from Paul McHale, Tim Roemer and Joe Kennedy to the Federal Trade Commission.

They are asking - with the blessing of 67 members of the House of Representatives - for the FTC to reopen its investigation of the Joe Camel cigarette advertising campaign.

In their letter, they point out that the FTC already investigated Smokin' Joe two years ago. At that time the FTC decided to discontinue the investigation. They said there was "not enough factual evidence to conclude there is a direct correlation between the Joe Camel ads and increased smoking among children."

Your tax dollars at work.

But now, say the lawmakers, "studies have shown advertising plays a significant role in encouraging young people to smoke."

Then they cite some studies.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, for example, did a study showing advertising is more influential than exposure to peers or parents who smoke in encouraging young people to begin smoking.

That doesn't make sense to me. I always figured a kid's first cigarette was usually given to him by a friend.

But the study shows that more often, kids see Joe Camel and rush out and buy cigs. Interesting.

But then again, I could probably commission someone to do a study showing smoking is good for you.

We all know how that goes. One study says salt is bad for you. Another says, nah, salt's OK. One study says caffeine in coffee is bad for you. Another says decaffeinated coffee is actually worse. One study says don't eat butter, eat margarine. Another study says eat butter, don't eat margarine.

And a study about smoking advertising by a cancer group? It's akin to asking the Women's Christian Temperance Union to study the merits of swilling Jack Daniels.

But there is a larger, more basic issue here.

First of all let me say I know smoking is not healthy. I would venture a guess everybody in the U.S. knows smoking is not healthy. If they don't, they've been living in a cave for the last 30 years.

Kids know smoking is not healthy, too. And I don't think kids should smoke cigarettes.

I used to smoke cigarettes. I regretted it. I quit. And I can say with a high degree of certainty that most people who smoke sooner or later will regret it and wish they hadn't started.

I, and lots of other people, will even go so far as to say the U.S. probably would be a better place if there were no cigarettes.

The message couldn't be any clearer. Smoking isn't a good thing. Everybody knows it.

We all have to choose whether we are going to partake in things that are bad for us. Some things are so bad they're against the law. It's against the law for kids to smoke, so maybe the government ought to crack down on illegal smoking instead of tobacco advertising.

Which brings us to the larger issue.

Should the government be telling cigarette companies how they can advertise?

I don't think it should. As long as they aren't being deceptive or breaking any laws, shouldn't they be allowed to advertise any way they want? Isn't this America? Don't tobacco companies have rights?

I bet some of these lawmakers would defend to the death the right of a guy to put smutty pictures on the Internet. It's his First Amendment right, you see. Any harm to society he may cause is incidental because his right - freedom of expression - must not be abridged.

Apparently, there's a higher standard of societal harm placed on cigarettes.

What about all those cute little frogs and dogs they use to con us into buying various brands of beer?

Why are we not targeting them?

I mean, when was the last time a guy - after a hard night of smoking Camel straights - came home and beat up his wife? Or when, after several Kool Milds, did somebody blow a stop sign and kill a family of four?

Seems to me booze causes lots more harm to society than cigarettes ever will.

Yet there's no FTC panel investigating Spuds McKenzie, Red Dog or the Bud-Weis-Er frogs.

I wonder how much good it would do to remove Joe Camel ads anyway. Smoking is a forbidden fruit kind of temptation for kids. I don't think they smoke because of Joe Camel. I think they smoke because they want to be grown up, or rebel.

And any time I see lawmakers going after the cigarette companies, I get a chuckle. After all, tobacco growers do get huge government subsidies, don't they? [[In-content Ad]]