Pol who compared cigarettes to smoking lettuce now a lobbyist at R.J. Reynolds

Former congressman Steve Buyer now a lobbyist for tobacco industry.

ProPublica weighs in with a story that shows the folly of populating Congress with lawmakers who are puppets for special interest groups.

The online news agency reports that a former 18-year member of Congress who was especially cozy with the tobacco industry has become a paid consultant and registered lobbyist for tobacco giant Reynolds American, the parent company for R.J. Reynolds.

Justin Elliott of ProPublica reports that Steve Buyer, a Republican congressman from Indiana from 1993 to 2011, received more than $100,000 in Reynolds donations over the years and pushed the company’s legislative goals.

Here’s a portion of the story:

“In 2009, Buyer gave a famously colorful speech on the House floor endorsing smokeless tobacco: ‘You could have smoked that lettuce and you still end up with the same problems. You could cut the grass in your yard, dry it, and roll it up in a cigarette, and smoke it -- and you're still going to have a lot of problems,’ he said. ‘It is the smoke that kills, not the nicotine.’

“Buyer revealed the new job for Reynolds American in little-noticed testimony Sept.19 before the Indiana General Assembly's Health Finance Commission. A federal disclosure filing shows that Buyer and his former chief of staff, Mike Copher, registered to lobby for a Reynolds American subsidiary called RAI Services as of the beginning of September. Buyer became a lobbyist immediately after leaving Congress in 2011, with a health care company as his first client.

“At the Indiana hearing, Buyer said he is working as “an advocate of Harm Reduction Strategies” for Reynolds American.”