The anti-tobacco absolutists could learn a lot from the Harm Reduction movement, which acknowledges the dangers of illicit drugs but urges users to use them more wisely (e.g., secure clean needles from needle-exchange programs; don't mix heroin and alcohol). The leading scolds in the public-health industrial complex downplay the different risks posed by different tobacco products. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop warned against replacing the "ashtray with the spittoon." "Tobacco is tobacco is tobacco," a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official told the New York Times in 1997. But some products are safer than others. A study by the American Cancer Society found that "cigar smokers had somewhat higher death rates than nonsmokers" and "there was little difference between the death rates of pipe smokers and the death rates of men who never smoked regularly." Likewise, one pathologist has calculated that the life expectancy for smokeless tobacco users is about the same as nonusers (although they're much more susceptible to oral cancer).