Mark Dolliver's Takes: When the Smoke Clears

If tobacco companies hope public aversion to nanny-state intrusiveness will save them from stricter regulation, they’d better guess again. As you can see from the chart, drawing on an ABC News/Washington Post poll, even conservatives are more likely than not to favor giving the Food and Drug Administration power to make life miserable for Big Tobacco. Nor do smokers comprise a reliably anti-regulation constituency.

And, truth be told, it might not matter much if they did.