John McCain Quotes

We must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face -- an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress -- let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children.

The tobacco business is a conspiracy against womanhood and manhood. It owes its origin to that scoundrel Sir Walter Raleigh, who was likewise the founder of American slavery.

Don't let tobacco companies make the choices for you... they care about their own well-being, not yours

Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we're selling this deadly stuff anyway?

Smoking cigarettes seems to alarm peace activists much more than voting for Reagan does.

One would understand a ban on surrogate advertising, but to completely ban [smoking] is ridiculous, a joke taken too far.

In the world of commercial speech, tobacco advertising bears the earmarks of an endangered species.

If somebody invented cigarettes today, the government would not legalize them.

Preserving and protecting the state tobacco settlement funds is the nation's Governors highest priority.

I was turning down cigarette campaigns before it became fashionable. I wouldn't let CBS Radio sell 'The Stan Freberg Show' to R.J. Reynolds and American Tobacco, which had sponsored Jack Benny, the man I replaced.

It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life.

Sure, it is apparent that presidents are looking at polls, but they are also stepping up on issues. President Clinton stepped up on tobacco. He shaped the polls on the tobacco issue.

Historically, tobacco control was not a partisan issue in American politics. Neither major party favored it. Republicans were sympathetic to corporate interests and Democrats were dominant in states where tobacco was grown and manufactured. However, beginning in the late 1960s Republicans began replacing Democrats in the South … and that liberated the Democrats to be the party of tobacco opposition.

Getting cigarettes out of the hands of kids before they get hooked, is family values.

I've treated so many adults who are desperate - desperate - to get off tobacco. They all started as kids. I see the industry getting another generation of our kids addicted.

E-cigarette companies are using shameful tactics, such as Joe Camel-like cartoons in advertisements and creating e-cigarette flavors like bubblegum and cotton candy, to addict our children early - and guarantee another generation of smokers.

I don't smoke, but people say that you get secondhand smoke. But this is a country that was founded mainly on the tobacco industry - tobacco and coffee. It's so surprising that they are now essentially making cigarettes illegal, when that is where the whole country came from.

Anti-smoking sentiment has replaced middle-class morality entirely. The smoker has taken the place of the homosexual. Today you hear people say things about smokers that used to be said about homosexuals - they pollute the environment; you don't want them around your children.

The federal government, state governments will not do without that tax revenue from tobacco no matter what. I've always thought it was one of the most contradictory setups that we have, because everything said publicly about the product is intended to besmirch it, impugn it, and do the same thing to the people that use it. And yet here's the government scoring, I mean, you want to talk about obscene profits, the government doesn't do a damn thing but stick its hand in. The government taxes tobacco at every stage. It taxes tobacco when the farmer's thinking about planting it.

There are certainly a lot of sins to be taken on. To take on smoking and movies is a weighty enough thing, I think, and it's one I've experienced, and it's what's caused me to live in-with my voice maimed for the rest of my life.

When I care about something, I care about something. I think I have an obligation as an American to - and as a citizen, as - as a human being, to help others. Smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. I've put six hundred million dollars from my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not in their health.

The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves for their country and, frankly, for their families and for their children. It's a choice between two futures, and it is a choice America cannot make for you. A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremists. Drive them out. Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your Holy Land. And drive them out of this earth.

Tobacco, in its various forms, is one of the most mischievous of all drugs. There is perhaps no other drug which injures the body in so many ways and so universally as does tobacco. Some drugs offer a small degree of compensation for the evil effects which they produce; but tobacco has not a single redeeming feature and gives nothing in return.

British scientists have demonstrated that cigarettes can harm your children. Fair enough. Use an ashtray!

People of all ages, including children, have been exposed to clever and eye-catching advertising material, .. All that will now change. Tobacco advertising is going to end, and it's going to end soon,.