Letters September 9, 2003 Dear Letters Editor, Ottawa Citizen: The Ottawa Citizen's support for tobacco-funded arts programs, and its portrayal of tobacco companies as good corporate citizens, their coffers overflowing with generosity, was crude. The tobacco companies' "charitable donations" are tainted with the blood of the thousands of Canadians who are disabled and killed each year by cigarettes and second-hand smoke. How disheartening that the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival sold its soul to the tobacco cartel! A tobacco industry cheque with dollar signs followed by lots of zeroes apparently induces amnesia. The Canadian government banned tobacco advertising because cigarettes kill when used exactly as intended. Our government does not allow drug dealers to advertise heroine or crack cocaine in the media or at sporting and artistic events either. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, tobacco companies will do anything to recruit new customers to replace the ones whom they have killed off. They use young girls in tutus, blossoming musicians, and talented athletes to camouflage their true motive. The Canadian government should force the tobacco industry to compensate dying smokers, victims of second-hand smoke, and taxpayers who spend millions of dollars each year on tobacco-related health care expenses. Then taxpayers would have lots of money left over to fund arts groups. Carmela Graziani