A Hazy Idea for Tobacco Money

“Evil! Blackhearted! Train robber!�

Until this week, terms like these haven’t been thrown around since the gang at Desperation Gulch ambushed the banker and taught the schoolmarm to fox trot.

But now they’re back in fashion, hurled by Ventura County supervisors straight at the head of Michael Bakst, the director of Community Memorial Hospital.

Bakst made a simple proposal: Ventura County’s $225-million tobacco settlement should be torn from the grasp of county officials, who haven’t won any awards lately for fiscal prudence, and placed in the proper hands--namely, his own, and those of his counterparts at other private hospitals.

Predictably, the county doesn’t think much of this idea. Court battles loom, plus a bruising, expensive campaign over Bakst’s proposed November ballot measure.

Fortunately, there exists another way--a path that courageous citizens will applaud for its fairness and admire for its common sense. In a nutshell: The tobacco windfall should be seized from the county, bypass Bakst and his merry band and land in hands that are supremely, undeniably and irrevocably proper.

That is, mine.

I hereby promise to manage Big Tobacco’s Big Bucks without the slightest stain of self-interest--which is more than can be said of both the county and its clamoring private hospitals.

Naturally, I would expect a small administrative fee, but that’s a detail we can discuss later.

First, let’s review this tangled, terrible situation.

The swag at issue--$9 million annually for 25 years--comes from Ventura County’s participation in an epic lawsuit against the tobacco companies. It is meant to pay the county for its past treatment of poor people with smoking-related illnesses.

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While the money can be used for anything, county supervisors have pledged that most of it--aside from a few million here and there for this and that--will be used for health care.

That’s health care--not potholes or pistols, gravel or golf courses.

I selflessly make the same pledge, in just as vigorously non-binding a fashion as the supervisors.

Under my stewardship, the tobacco money will be used for nothing but health care, and tobacco would be its focus.

Of course, the administrator might need to pay off a credit card here or purchase a big-screen TV there, on which he would view such health-related programming as “ER� and Liposuction Lottery on the Plastic Surgery Channel.

Now, misguided people will no doubt quibble. They will cry that I am using public funds for private gain. I can only say that not everybody understands the complexities of modern health care.

Here’s how my program would work.

Instead of handing money to hospitals, I’d avoid these bothersome middlemen and award the booty directly to the ill and to the might-become-ill-at-any-time.

The poor souls suffering from lung cancer, emphysema or other smoking diseases would get some help straightaway.

Ex-smokers too would benefit from generous cash grants, encouraging them to go the distance on the rocky road of abstinence.

Needless to say, hefty bonuses would accrue to those ex-smokers whose first cigarette, at the age of 15, was a Kool, lit up in the dim light of a New York apartment house basement. Research has shown that these individuals have had a particularly tough time of it.

I can’t get into all the details here, but under my professionally responsible, perfectly equitable, peer-reviewed care, bonuses would gladly be given to anyone:

* Who was conned into thinking smoking was sexy, and. . .

* Who sat only in smoking sections, thereby to meet sexy smokers, and. . .

* Whose clothes and hair for 12 years smelled like a four-alarm fire, and. . .

* Who knew that cigarettes tasted better with Scotch, and therefore drank more Scotch, and. . .

* Who after many tries, was spurred to quit by a bilious voter-registration clerk who told him: “Young man, you’ve got the breath of a cow!�

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Clearly, such people are in need and would be totally overlooked by the self-interested, look-out-for-numero-uno schemes of bureaucracies both public and private.

I’d tell you more, but I think I’m about to be sick.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at [email protected].