The federal government has long engaged in a political balancing act to accommodate the conflicting forces that debate the shape of public policies affecting the use of tobacco in the United States. The contradictions in federal policies are striking: the government invests millions of dollars annually for medical research on the links between smoking and disease and regulates cigarette advertising and smoking on airplanes, trains, and buses, while it extends price supports and low-cost loans as agricultural subsidies to tobacco growers.Now, 20 years after the release of the first report by the surgeon general on smoking and health, the . . .