May 30 - Sky High Profits, Little Innovation - "Most drugs approved for use during the 1990s were not innovative new chemicals that treat diseases in novel ways but rather were modified versions of drugs already on the market, according to a new analysis.  The emphasis on incremental change was especially pronounced in the last six years of the period studied, when the number of popular but less-innovative drugs increased dramatically -- as did the nation's spending on prescription drugs.

"The pharmaceutical companies have migrated towards becoming more marketing than research and development organizations.  Highly innovative drugs are rare."

It's no surprise that the past decade saw little innovation from Big Drugs while their profits skyrocketed into the stratosphere.  When anti-tobacco warrior and pharmaceutical shill, David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, opened the floodgates to saturation drug advertising on television and radio, the focus shifted from research on new drugs to market research on how to sell the maximum amount of drugs to the maximum number of the gullible.

This report from the nonprofit National Institute for Health Care Management (NICHM) demolishes the claims by the international pharmaceutical industry that its enormous profit margins -- the highest for all industry -- are required to fund research and innovation.  As the most powerful industry in the world, dwarfing the tobacco industry, Big Drugs depends more on its government connections than on innovative research.  Big Drugs funds anti-tobacco pressure groups that lobby government entities for higher cigarette taxes, smoking bans and anti-tobacco education campaigns.  Each of these social engineering schemes enable Big Drugs to take over the lucrative nicotine market.  NICHM has ripped the veil of piety off the Drug Cartel and revealed a money-making machine, the largest the world has ever seen.

May 30 - Plantation Politics - “Historically African Americans have been targeted by tobacco industry marketing, which has led to substantial disparities in tobacco-related illnesses and death within our community. Current statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control indicate that 45,000 African Americans die each year from preventable tobacco-related diseases,” said Legacy board member, Dr. Alma Adams.  “These grants will give organizations the opportunity to fight back with national and localized grassroots initiatives. Ideally, these programs will set a precedent for future initiatives that will increase awareness among the Black community, change our views about tobacco use, and ultimately save the lives of thousands of African Americans across the nation.”

Needless to say the above is a lie and is also race-mongering at the highest levels.  The tobacco industry has "targeted" consumers, as has all industry.  It's called marketing and making a buck, something toothpaste makers and the automobile industry do every day.  The granting of $21-million to various race-based organizations is merely legalized bribery on the part of the American Legacy Foundation to buy influential friends to hold in reserve for the inevitable show down between the anti-tobacco organization and those who will seek to disband it.  Racial politics is a potent tool in the perpetual drive to transfer money from those who earn it to those who spend it.  Race baiting is the lowest form of hate propaganda so it's no surprise to find the American Legacy Foundation up to its elbows in that kind of muck.

For a laugh, the press release, reporting the race-based grants, warns potential grantees that the American Legacy Foundation will not bestow any funds upon organizations that take tobacco industry funding.  The press release neglects to mention that the American Legacy Foundation is funded 100 percent by the tobacco industry and that any group it bestows the $21-million upon will, at the moment the cash changes hands, be funded by the tobacco industry.

May 30 - Cashing In On September 11 - Performing admirably its role of full-fledged suck up to the anti-tobacco enterprise, BBC News reports on an odious little study conducted in New York City after the Twin Towers were annihilated.  The researchers found the startling fact that the city's inhabitants were stressed out and were coping in ways highly displeasing to the white-coat Gestapo.

After watching in horror two 110 high rises collapse killing thousands of their neighbors, New Yorkers behaved as people have behaved for thousands of years.  They increased their intake of alcohol, marijuana and tobacco.  Big deal.  That's what they are for, among other benefits.  The researchers who wasted public dollars "discovering" the obvious take a dim view of the masses coping on their own.  The heavy hand of Big Nanny is itching to snatch the cocktail glass, marijuana joint, and especially the cigarettes away from those whose stress-reducing techniques are not provided by Big Drugs.

The spectacle of control freaks and their favorite media shills making hay from the tragic events on September 11 make clear the priorities of the "anti" crowd.  The bodies are not yet recovered and they are working overtime to profit from a national tragedy.  The country should be outraged. 

May 30 - Patting Themselves On The Back - A new study shows that the so-called edgy anti-smoking ads produced by the American Legacy Foundation are effective in deterring minors from smoking while those funded by Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, actually induce the kids to smoke.  And who commissioned this earth shaking study?  Why the American Legacy Foundation!

Apparently the Associated Press is willing to report favorably on an obviously self-serving study funded by the organization being studied.  No better proof of bias exists than this fawning story by a reporter so clueless and unprofessional that she violates several tenets of journalism within the space of a few paragraphs.  Of course truth and honesty isn't helped by the American Journal of Public Health which saw fit to publish this "study" in its June issue.  The American Legacy Foundation's anti-smoking advertisements are incomprehensible to the majority of viewers, have nothing to do with smoking but everything to do with keeping the PR budget well-stocked.

May 29 - Anti-tobacco Flips The Bird At The Judge - MPAAT officials thumbed their noses Wednesday at Ramsey County District Court Judge Michael Fetsch and awarded $900,000 in grants to continue their failing crusade for smoking bans across the state.

The Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT) just can't stop itself from going over the cliff.  In court justifying the hundreds of millions it has received from the state, MPAAT consistently puts its foot in its mouth.  Although it was set up to provide smoking cessation, the pressure group has squandered a fortune attempting to impose smoking bans, which it is not a part of its mission.  By awarding nearly a million in new grants to lobby for smoking bans, its arrogance is clear for all to see.  We link to FORCES Duluth.

May 29 - Squabbling Over Cigarette Taxes - Gov. Bob Taft and House Republican leaders failed early this morning to convince at least 50 Republicans to cast controversial votes for higher taxes.  Earlier yesterday Mr. Gilb said he wants to balance the current fiscal year, ending June 30, and then wait to see what happens with the economy in 2003.

"Don't do the tax increases," he said. "Go ahead and cut government where you need to cut government."

How radical!  How innovative!  How obvious.  Every responsible individual on earth lives within his means.  When the money is tight, the spending diminishes or stops.  This concept is alien to the governing class and to both major political parties but the voters have about had it with politicians that don't have the spine to cut back or eliminate programs entirely.  The cigarette tax hike is the last refuge of the incompetent and will backfire on those who propose and pass it.

May 28 - Revisiting the Association between Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Lung Cancer Risk – There's been a loud and "responsible" silence in the media about this study, published 11 months ago, concerning the overestimation of the already ridiculously small "risks" of passive smoke. "Adjustment for bias due to misclassification of smoking habits reduces the observed relative risk of lung cancer in non-smoking women associated with smoking by the husband from 1.24 to 1.18."   Eighteen percent risk increment …(1.00 = no risk; 1.18 = 18 % increased risk). Readers must keep in mind that statistical risks smaller than 200% are not even considered by serious science – especially when one cannot even be sure of what has been measured – as it is always and only the case for passive smoke. Yet, well financed criminals have penetrated the media, state and even international institutions to the point where a non-existing danger has become a primary legal, financial and political issue at the global level. This is the sad state of decay in the body of "public health" – the entity we trust. For a vast library of scientific evidence on the passive smoke fraud, click here.

May 28 - Con Work in Progress: Fabricating Hysteria -- ‘ Two million workers die each year due to accidents and illness caused by workplace-related hazards including chemicals, stress and passive smoking, the International Labor Organization said Friday. The annual toll includes 12,000 children, according to its report issued ahead of the annual World Congress on Occupational Safety and Health at Work, which opens in Vienna Sunday. Agriculture, which employs more than half of the world's workers, claims more than 50% of occupational fatalities, injuries and diseases, it said. Construction, logging, fishing and mining are also among the most hazardous industries. "Fatal accidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Depending on the type of job, some 500-2,000 smaller injuries take place for each fatality," the ILO's Jukka Takala said in the report. ‘

Isn’t that scary, and impressive? It is called living – people live, work, get sick and die; they sometimes die on the job, or as a consequence of a job. It has always been that way, and it always will be. The figures are big and scary because they represent a percentage of billions of people. Today’s bureaucratic and statistical disease is that this absolutely normal reality of life is painted as some sort of emergency, requiring a constant state of alert – and, of course government intervention through regulation, repression, taxation, prohibition, propaganda, and so on. The institutionalisation of the passive smoke fraud continues as well, of course: "About 200,000 fatalities result from chronic pulmonary disease, asthma, ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular strokes caused by passive smoking". Activating the official mouths of "credible" organisations that are as incompetent as they are corrupt (to project the "certainty" that passive smoke kills) is a well established antismoking technique, as is the circular reference to -- and the endless citations of -- other "authorities", without >>EVER<< facing the real scientific evidence itself, that does not show any significant risk of damage from passive smoking in the workplace - or anywhere else. Intelligently enough, the antismoking cons of "public health" hope that, by institutionalising their frauds on smoking, the frauds will become the new, established truth - never to be questioned. It is the duty of all those who care about future generations (and their own liberty) to fight those cons to their extinction – no matter at what cost, as there is no cost higher than the corruption of the state.

May 28 - Live Long and Prosper – ‘ We may be living longer, but many of us will spend those extra years in the grip of ill-health. … Women, who outlive the men in their life, are shown to fare particularly badly by the first survey of "healthy life expectancy". The average woman in London can expect to live five and a half years longer than her husband, but for only two of those years will she be in good health. She will spend 10.5 of her 80 years in poor health, while her partner can expect only seven years of creaky joints, restricted mobility and sickness in his 74.5 years. The same pattern is repeated in every part of the country. ‘

WOW! … And we certainly needed a survey to figure out that old age is associated with poor health, disease and eventual death! What are we to blame, other than smoking?… Well, almost anything else under the sun, since junk science is here. The implied expectation is clear: we ALL have to live ALL our 80-90 years WITHOUT any disease and discomfort; and if we die earlier, our death is "premature" due to addiction, "bad" lifestyle -- and to big bad guys from some big bad industry: from Philip Morris to MacDonald’s, from Budweiser to General Motors. And it is a matter of course for the socialist, proto-intelligent "public health" types, that personal responsibility and nature have nothing to do with any of that; when they do, they are manifestations of disease in dire need of therapy. If this kind of mentality does not need urgent and aggressive psychotherapy, what else does?

May 27 - It's Official.  Anti-smoking Efforts Fail - "Americans are doing more binge drinking, smoking and overeating than they were a decade ago, but they are also more willing to buckle their seat belts and get tests and shots to prevent disease, government research suggests.  The research is the result of surveys of tens of thousands of Americans around the country in the 1990s."

If the Center for Disease Control is admitting that smoking rates have risen during the 1990's one can be sure that it has risen significantly.  The CDC bends over backwards supporting the anti-tobacco enterprise's bogus claim that it is responsible for dramatic declines in smoking.  The supposed decline is used as a justification to ban smoking, raise taxes and, most importantly, shovel more public money to the anti-smokers. 

Anti-tobacco education, from its beginning in the late 1980's, as always coincided with increased smoking rates, especially among the under-aged.  The greatest decline in smoking occurred when there wasn't any publicly funded anti-tobacco education program anywhere.  In the private sector a decade of failure would be rewarded by employment termination.  Expect a rash of announcements from anti-tobacco spinning the CDC's report in such a way that the tobacco industry is blamed for the increase and the only solution is to transfer more tax dollars to the people who are actually responsible for the increase.

May 27 - Nicotine drink quenches cravings of smokers - A 'nicotine substitute' bottled water product is poised to arrive in US stores by June. "We're going after the smoker. We're going after an age group of smokers that cannot stop smoking because they're addicted to it." … And what a beautiful "addiction" it is! We'll see how many are willing to give up the pleasure and satisfaction they find in 'lighting up' by replacing it with a glass of water that gives you heartburn! Conveniently, the pleasure factor doesn't seem to register with those who want to rip off smokers. The redefinition of the word "addiction" to accommodate the "smoke-free" agenda is having some spin-offs that won't be welcomed by Big Drugs. After all, the 'reformation' of smokers is supposed to be their exclusive territory. Sure enough, the pharmaceutical marionette Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids states that "It could easily act as a first step into addiction with children."

[The product] "not only provides a safer delivery method for people who are addicted to nicotine, but also people concerned about second-hand smoke. No one has ever died off of second-hand water."  Worry not – no one has ever died of second-hand smoke, either. But that’s the way it is in a society where real science is irrelevant, integrity is virtually extinct, institutions are corrupt, and the poles of morality have been turned upside down. At any rate, the good news is that it is quite doubtful that anyone is going to be able to come up with something that beats the sheer enjoyment of sitting back, relaxing, and blowing those smoke rings (or trying to...). Smoking is unbeatable, so keep on smoking -- and drink a beer!

May 24 - 53,000 Dead From ETS.  The Source For This Wild Claim - Anti-tobacco never lets the truth obstruct their agenda.  The fantastic claim that secondhand smoke kills 53,000 Americans per year has taken on a life of its own.  Anti-smoking public service announcements use the figure without any attribution and the media refers to it as though it has been accepted as the truth.  No government agency accepts this figure but that doesn't deter the special interests from using it as a justification to ban smoking in so-called public places such as restaurants, work places and bars.  In many was the media cannot be blamed for passing on this figure as if it is valid.  Anti-tobacco organizations, many of which have an unwarranted reputation of respectability, are not above knowingly using this fraudulent figure for their own purposes.

The American Cancer Society was caught with its pants down several years ago when it used the 53,000 figure in an advertisement and cited the Environmental Protection Agency as the source.  Not true, of course, as the American Cancer Society was forced to admit.  Of course the damage was done and neither the ACS or the newspaper in which the ad appeared acknowledged this egregious error.  So much for the integrity of the media and honesty of the anti-tobacco enterprise.

May 24 - Smoking Bans Devastate Businesses - Observant people have noted that the pace in imposing smoking bans on private property such as restaurants and bars has slowed a bit as word of the financial damage caused by the bans circulates throughout the country.  Where once Stanton Glantz' ludicrous study which found smoking bans increase business was peddled to the uninformed, now first hand proof of financial ruin is presented to policy makers who are considering banning smokers.  Martha Perske notes the trend and provides these comments prompted by one city councilman's claims:

Contrary to what he says, businesses have lost business.  For example, the Weymouth (Massachusetts) News, “Smoking ban burns business in bars,” 3-20-02:

“The new Board of Health regulation banning smoking in public places is killing their business, restaurant owners told the Town Council Monday night.” Business is down 50 percent since the ban went into effect.

Likewise in Ames, Iowa, several restaurant owners suffered when a ban was implemented in August 2001. (“Business Falling Due to Tobacco Ordinance,” Ames Tribune, 1-5-02)

I don’t know what the current situation is in Wareham, Massachusetts, but when a smoking ban went into effect back in October, 2000, Board of Health Chairman Ralph R. Thompson admitted that “he and his fellow board members weren’t aware of just how devastating the ban’s impact would prove to be on area businesses.” (“Wareham smoking ban rescinded,” Standard-Times, 12-20-00)

Obviously, not all bars and restaurants are hurt, but to claim NO loss of business whatsoever – as does Gilbert’s former Councilman – is pure bunk.

I’d love to see the day when those responsible for causing economic harm are forced to pay for damages. In fact, someone (I think it was Canada’s Ottawa Citizen) spelled it out quite nicely: “. . . if a business goes bankrupt . . . and can show the ban on smoking was a contributing factor, and it can further be shown that the city misled, misrepresented or outright lied about the public support for the bylaw and its economic impact, then what should the damages be?”

Stan Glantz are you listening? You among all people should be held accountable for any losses suffered by restaurant and bar owners in that you unequivocally conclude that “Smoke-free ordinances do not adversely affect either restaurant or bar sales.” So you say in your so-called study published by the American Journal of Public Health, October 1997, “The Effect of Ordinances Requiring Smoke-Free Restaurant and Bars Revenue: A Follow-Up.”

Gee, maybe someone should do a follow-up on YOU and how you arrived at that conclusion despite evidence to the contrary.

And we’re still waiting for you, Stan, to explain why you claim a PhD in Economics from Stanford University when in fact you have no such thing according to Stanford University.

May 23 - Taking On The Thugs - Moving from the defensive and going on the offence, a New York City civil liberties organizations served a formal complaint to the Internal Revenue Service challenging the tax exempt status of SmokeFree Educational Services, Inc., an aggressive anti-smoker organization.  Audrey Silk, of New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (NYC C.L.A.S.H.), is a New York police officer who devotes an enormous amount of off-duty time educating city representatives, the hospitality industry and her fellow New Yorkers on the facts regarding secondhand smoke.  She and members of NYC C.L.A.S.H. are unpaid volunteers who are up against the most lavishly funded special interests groups on the lobbying circuit.  Much of that funding comes from local, state and federal taxes.

IRS regulations of non-profit, tax exempt organizations forbid significant lobbying.  Considering that many of these anti-smoker groups are in existence only to pressure governments to ban smoking in restaurants and raise tobacco taxes, it's a safe bet that many are in violation of the IRS' rules.  To compound the problem, there is a big problem with organizations accepting public dollars, then using those dollars to lobby for higher taxes, some of the proceeds of which then going back to the non-profit agitating for the tax hike.  It's a circle of corruption that needs to be broken.  Good luck to NYC C.L.A.S.H. and thanks for taking on this important civic duty.

May 23 - Banning The Smoke Ban - By a three-to-one margin, the voters in Raynham, MA trounced an article that would have banned smoking in restaurants.  Apparently the citizens of Raynham believe property owners should have the right to run their businesses as they see fit.  They also know that it's quite easy to avoid tobacco smoke by patronizing restaurants that ban smoking as their choice.

The ban was proposed by a local busybody named Roberta Andresen who is a walking, talking compendium of anti-tobacco bromides, none of which she can back up with evidence, facts or proof.  The level of her argument can be judged by her comment after her ban was defeated:

"The smoke from (a burning cigarette) is more toxic than mainstream smoke. Second-hand smoke travels 50 feet to land in a plate of food that I just paid $25 for" 

Good for Raynham.  Maybe sanity is returning to New England.

May 22 - Smoke Nazis On A Rampage - "Few things are more dangerous to a free people than government 'protection'. The petty tyrannies imposed upon us by those who would save us from ourselves are, in their sum, far more destructive to the individual than the quirks of human nature they were supposed to 'correct'. Prohibition, the stupid 'war on drugs', censorship, Social Security; just because it may be a good idea for someone to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea for government to force them to do it."

Lee Robinson reports from the front line in Massachusetts where small town after small town is abandoning the stern New England tradition of minding one's own business in favor of the new ethos of paternalism as symbolized by the smoking ban.  On the way he makes a compelling case why banning smoking on private property is no one's concern but the owner and those who are invited inside.  As a nonsmoker, Robinson knows full well that the minor benefits he may receive from a government smoking ban are far outweighed by the extreme dangers to our freedoms and way of life posed by the rule of the elite and un-elected.  

May 22 - Smoking Down, Obesity Up.  Cashing In On Both - "Obesity among those over 50 nearly doubled from 1982 to 1999, to 26.7 percent of that population from 14.4 percent, said the report being released Tuesday.  On the other hand, the study found that, over the past decade, smoking among men and women over 50 has decreased 29 percent."

"Susan Raetzman, associate director of the AARP's Public Policy Institute, said the obesity problem "threatens to outweigh the gains in prevention of other diseases."

Anything that comes from the American Association of Retired Persons is highly suspect.  The one time advocacy organization for retired and elderly people, AARP is now firmly ensconced in the collectivist camp of do-gooders who do very well indeed extracting money from the taxpayers.  Initiatives enabling property taxes to be raised and to establish a huge tobacco tax were recently passed in California with the help of AARP.  Both initiatives are extremely harmful to the constituency the AARP claims to represent.  In Florida the AARP supports a state initiative that will throw old people out of their favorite restaurants, social clubs and bingo parlors.

Still, the AARP is correct that as it, and its anti-tobacco allies, hectored people to quit smoking, so the number of people who are overweight has climbed.  Smokers on the whole are slimmer than nonsmokers so "solving" the smoking "epidemic" has precipitated the "obesity epidemic."  The AARP, after cashing in on the war on tobacco, is poised to cash in on the war on the fat.  Both wars, of course, are not in the best interest of the old people AARP collects the big bucks to protect.

May 22 - Drive Along With The Smoke Cop - Very little comment is needed about this story except to state that it is not a put on.  The unbelievable events in this report are occurring not only in the San Francisco Bay Area but throughout California.  While the state persecutes business owners for allowing their customers to smoke in their bars, a crime no where else on earth, the state is broke and is running a $26-billion deficit.  Although the millions wasted on the particular law enforcement program uncovered by the reporter are mere drops in the bucket, it's a safe bet that the tax payers of San Francisco and environs, if given the opportunity, would vote overwhelmingly to terminate it and divert the funding to anything more worthwhile.

Maybe they'd vote to do something about the abysmal record of the San Francisco Police Department where the incompetent police chief admits that his department solved barely one quarter of the city's violent crimes during the period that cracking down on illegal tobacco smoking became a state priority.  While thugs are getting away with murder scarce public dollars are pouring into programs that criminalize the law-abiding and penalize the tax payers.

May 22 - You May Not Know It But You Are Deeply Unhappy And We Can Help - Maybe you're depressed and you don't even know it. A panel of doctors convened by the federal government is recommending that all adults be screened for signs of depression, regardless of whether they have any symptoms. "The hope is that we would pick up more depression and get it treated," said Alfred Berg, who chairs the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which was convened by an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Wire reports quoted Berg as saying, "About 10 percent of patients seeing their physicians are depressed and only half of them are recognized." He said the recommendation for doctors to screen all adults for symptoms of depression "has the potential for some major benefits." The panel's recommendations appear in Tuesday's edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. (CNSNews.com) 5/21/02

May 22 - Smokers Pay, Big Tobacco Gets Off Scot Free - "These enormous payments are even more striking given the speculative nature of the litigation. The lawsuits did not seek to recover for harm to individual smokers. In fact, smokers get nothing from this deal. Nor were the suits about youth smoking. Although many public officials said that the money from the settlement would be used to deter smoking by young people, that has not proven to be the case and was not a concern of the lawsuits. Rather, the suits were largely an accounting exercise in which the states argued that cigarettes increased the medical costs they incurred."

"Accounting exercise" is a polite term for protection racket payoffs.  The states and lawyers, both egged on by the anti-tobacco enterprise, could not have prevailed under the traditional system of justice common in America.  To prevail against the tobacco industry, laws would have to be corrupted, as was the case in Florida when then Governor Chiles slipped through the noxious legislation that rendered the tobacco industry defenseless.  The tobacco settlement was the result of the industry's capitulation to the shakedown artists masquerading as state attorneys general.  

W. Kip Viscusi digs into some of the seamier aspects of the settlement such as Washington State attorney general Christine Gregoire's greedy grabbing of more cash for her state than it was entitled to, as well as the dishonest methods used to calculate the so-called costs to society caused by smoking.  He also makes it crystal clear that the settlement is no penalty for the tobacco industry.  The financial penalties are borne by smokers, American citizens who had no say in a deal that bypassed the legislative procedures that enable all segments of society to have political input.

Since when do officers of the law operate from "feelings"?  His mother dies from lung cancer and the top cop shrugs off ticketing some high school boy to the tune of $6,000 as some sort of lesson.  The lesson the boy is learning is that the society he has the bad luck to be a part of has lost its collective mind.  Can the public stocks and dunking stool be the next "lesson" to make people behave?

May 21 - Who Better To Lecture The Country About Fat? (final item) -  For unfathomable reasons, Senator Edward Kennedy has chosen to be the spokesman for clean living.  On the senate floor her rails against smoking and to that repertoire he is poised to add overeating.  To make the circle complete, he need only take up the crusade against drinking.  In this country of short memories he could get a way with it.

Senator Kenney is convening hearings this week on the nation's "obesity epidemic".  Considering that, with a sleight of hand trick, the majority of Americans are magically overweight, the shakedown of the food industry and its customers will provide lots of dough for big government, the trial lawyers and assorted special interests, Kennedy's favorite constituencies.  Although his collectivist spirit is certainly willing, the portly senator's flesh is weak and the spectacle of Kennedy wailing over the obesity epidemic should provide some laughs.

"This is a seminal study," said Scott Leischow, chief of the tobacco control research branch of the National Cancer Institute."

Unless the adjective "seminal" has undergone the same sort of debasement common to anti-tobacco linguistics, Scott Leischow is hallucinating.  This seminal study comes to the conclusion that keeping fit is a good way to maintain good health.  More than 25,000 men were part of a 10 year study conducted by two universities.  As a boondoggle that provided employment for many and grant money for the universities for 10 years, the study is undoubtedly a success on that level.  As a vehicle for any better understanding of health it is a flop since the conclusions were reached by all societies thousands of hears ago.

Fit people are more healthy than unfit people.  To bring it up to date, fit smokers are more healthy than unfit smokers and are, in fact, healthier than unfit nonsmokers.  This study is the equivalent of announcing that the world rotates around the sun.  As the country contemplates the way things are post September 11, one useful study that could be done is to determine whether public dollars could be spent more effectively on other things than stating the obvious.

May 20 - What is WHO doing? - "The World Health Organization reported last week that 5,500 children die every day from consumption of food and water contaminated with bacteria. So why is the WHO worrying about obesity, French fries, cell phones, "economy class syndrome" and - worst of all - augmenting its own bureaucratic sprawl? The WHO report paints a shockingly bleak picture for millions of third-world children: 1.3 million under the age of five die annually from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe food and water; another 2.2 million die from respiratory infections caused or exacerbated by poor sanitation. In activist parlance, this death toll equates to about 40 jumbo jets filled with kids crashing every day. But the WHO seems unduly mired in imaginary and low priority health concerns. At this week's WHO-sponsored meeting in New York City on children's welfare, the WHO opted to focus on the dubious issue of childhood obesity, claiming that 22 million of the world's children under age five are overweight or obese."  - By Steven Milloy

Once again, the WHO's priorities with regard to "the children" have been shown to be morally repugnant. Clearly the WHO is more interested in promoting its political agenda than in actually saving children's lives.

May 20 - Please Don't Tread On Me, I Will Tolerate It No Longer - Anti-tobacco corruption in science and economics is well known and scrupulously documented.  What hasn't received nearly enough scrutiny is the deleterious effect anti-tobacco is having on personal relationships.  Its goal of strewing conflict among friends and family is not so easily quantified but the degradation of civility and true tolerance is as grave as the degradation of science. 

May 20 - Jail Time For Smokers -  "Japanese is too tolerant on smoking in public. Tobacco is the only dangerous article that you can carry around anywhere," Nagatsuma said. "The matter urgently needs to be dealt with. It is no longer an issue of manners."

"Anyone who smokes in public spaces in a way that may injure other people or damage their property with a lit cigarette will be given penalties ranging from a 10,000-yen fine to a 1-month jail sentence," read the draft of the bill drawn up by Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) legislators.

Ask anyone who has been mugged with gun or knife whether his heart would sink so quickly if a pouch of tobacco were brandished.  An accordion in the hands of an amateur is also arguably a more chilling sight than a lit cigarette.  Despite the inane rhetoric surrounding this bill, it is probably likely that such a law, if indeed ever passed, is designed to calm down the international paternalists at the World Bank and the World Health Organization.  The jails are not large enough in Japan to contain all the people who will constantly violate such a law.

In the public relations arena, PM will not gain any brownie points for agreeing with the anti-tobacco enterprise on the issue of self-extinguishing cigarettes.  Before long, anti-tobacco will be accusing PM of forcing smokers to inhale more frequently and the shysters who make a living off suing the tobacco industry will launch suits in sympathetic jurisdictions.  PM is a business, of course, and has no interest in "controversial" issues, but its continual kowtowing to anti-tobacco gangsters has never produced positive results.  PM needs to understand that anti-tobacco wants to drive all cigarette manufacturers out of business.  Nothing PM can do will alter that.  PM needs to crush its opponents.

By the way, mandating self-extinguishing cigarettes won't make much of a difference in the number of home fires.  The number of deaths by burning cigarettes never mention that most of them involve drunkenness.  The U.S. Fire Administration, of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, found that in 1998:

• 20.4% of residential fires were caused by cooking
• 12.0% by heating devices
• 10.8% by incendiary or suspicious cases
•  7.9% by appliances/equipment
•  8.4% by electrical distribution
•  6.2% by open flame
•  5.5% by lightning, external fires, spontaneous, etc.
•  4.8% by smoking
•  3.4% by children playing
• 20.4% Unknown

Note: All percentages rounded to nearest tenth.

"Fire in the United States 1989-1998, Twelfth Edition", page 60 - FEMA, US Fire Administration, National Fire Data Center, August 2001.

"We believe smoking regulations that restrict smoking in a private residence are unreasonable," said Tom Ryan, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA. "We believe an individual's decision to smoke in the privacy of their home should be respected."

Limp, impotent, useless and stupid, all are adjectives that describe PM's response to secondhand smoke issues.  Smokers are in the sinking boat precisely because its high-priced legal and corporate "talent" is incapable of putting on the boxing gloves and competently defending its products from libel.  No one expects PM to defend its customers but permitting its only product to be slandered by publicly-funded anti-tobacco pressure groups is short-sighted and foolish in the extreme.  PM knows, as does the anti-tobacco enterprise, that secondhand smoke poses no health risks to anyone.  There were no asthma attacks or panic attacks until PM permitted the lies to become gospel.  PM could end the nonsense, such as denying people housing, in two years if it took a fraction of the money it is spending to buy love with limp, impotent, useless and stupid television commercials.