The March 22 edition of the Tribune reached a new low point. In your quest for ad dollars, you sent a full-page color ad for cigarettes (Section 1, Page 9) into every home you serve. Never mind that smoking kills thousands of Americans every year. Forget that tobacco companies target our kids, with 3,000 starting to smoke every day. Ignore the fact that secondhand smoke kills thousands more, people whose only offense is being the spouse or child or co-worker of a smoker.
There was a time when we as a society were ignorant of the death, pain and suffering that tobacco causes, but that time has long past. When you decide that it is OK to send this message of death to our homes, you have lost sight of your public responsibility. You owe your readers an apology.
