The novel notes that English King James I detested the use of tobacco for many of the same reasons that non-smokers express today. This took place almost 400 years before the health consequences of heavy tobacco use came to light. The king, however, suppressed his criticism when tobacco tax money started rolling in. In this, Buckley implies, James began a trend that the 20th-century tobacco industry would perfect—and for the same reason. Money is also the primary motivator for the tobacco industry as portrayed in the narrative.

The tobacco industry could see regulations and restrictions coming for decades. As the Captain notes, Reader’s Digest printed an article about the dangers of smoking in 1952. Forty years later, when Nick stands up to address Clean Lungs 2000, all the research and logic are against him. The organization he represents, the Academy of Tobacco Studies, with its army of “researchers,” investigators, benefactors, and spin doctors, has a single goal: mitigating the growing public awareness of the deadly consequences of tobacco use. As a confounded journalist tells Nick, by 1994, 60,000 studies demonstrated the multiple health consequences of tobacco. Because the facts are virtually all stacked against him, Nick’s primary tool is the manipulation of the truth.