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ARCHIVE 120
Articles logged December 2002
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"Those three people have seven children among them," said Staunton. "But there is nothing else that I can do. We saw this coming and our accountants told us that we would have to do this." Staunton said when California enacted a similar ban in 1998, revenues from the San Francisco bar and restaurant his brother manages fell 20 percent. "It's interesting that the businesses that are exempt from this ban are cigar bars, which tend to be owned by wealthy people not unlike our mayor," he said. Laying off around a quarter of the work force sounds about right since one quarter of his customers have been told to take a hike because they smoke. There is no doubt that throwing out smokers is bad for business. David Kuneman tabulated bar and restaurant data and produced the following table. Revenue amounts are in billions:
Bar and restaurant revenue data for 1990 and 1998 (before and after the smoking bans) were obtained from Statistical Abstracts of the U.S., 1992 and 2000; Tables 1292 and 1295 respectively. Mr. Kuneman further notes: Smoker-unfriendly states have not kept up with their fair share of our nation's total bar and restaurant business since 1990. Data are presented for total retail trade to control for population shifts and possible poor local economic conditions. The data are not adjusted for the 20% inflation between 1990 and 1998. The smoker-unfriendly states have experienced increased overall retail trade, but bar and restaurant revenues have remained flat. Adjusted for inflation, however, bar and restaurant business is actually down 20% in these states. The studies often cited that purport to claim smoking bans are good for business evidently do not adjust for inflation, and/or do not include bars and restaurants that went out of business. Other studies cite restaurant taxes collected but fail to correct for tax rate hikes. Note bar and restaurant business in smoker-friendly states has appreciated at rates similar to the overall retail trade. Of the 45 states that have not banned smoking at the state or local level, only Hawaii experienced poor revenue growth similar to California, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. Since Utah is mostly Mormon and Mormons don't smoke, it would be expected Utah would not suffer the revenue loses the other states in this category experienced. Mr. Kuneman confirms the conclusions drawn by the California Restaurant Association as well as independent researchers in that that state, the first to widely ban smoking. Since California has no significant population centers located on the borders of the neighboring states that do permit smoking, its low growth rate again reveals that anti-tobacco is lying when it asserts that a "level playing field" -- by which they mean no smoking anywhere -- is good for business. Anti-tobacco Newspaper Commits A Tactical Error
Like asthma, which increased dramatically during the same period, premature births and low birth weights have been blamed on smoking and secondhand smoke. Clearly these increases cannot be attributed on tobacco or smokers. On a logical level, in fact, the increase in premature births can be blamed on the fact that not enough expectant mothers are smoking while pregnant. The real reason, of course, is not known and can be discovered only by utilizing stringent scientific research of the type that is unknown to much of the "researchers" feeding at the public trough. This story suggests, somewhat lamely, that the birth weight and premature rates are rising because there are more multiple births, because of fertility drugs, than in the past. Underlying that assumption is that the problem may be due to woman postponing pregnancy until they are older. Whatever the reason, premature births and low birth rates cannot be blamed on smoking. When more people smoked and there was no stigma dumped on expectant mothers who smoked, the problem that is so puzzling now did not exist. Rack up more evidence for leaving well enough alone.
Norman Kjono, a guest on WWL in New Orleans, had the opportunity to offer a brief and to-the-point assessment of this public-private collaboration. The linked outline is useful to understand the financial angle not of those who initiate smoking bans. Mr. Kjono relates that the segment's host said 83 percent of the radio call-ins believed that smoking bans should be the choice of the business owner and not that of the government. They felt, moreover, that government was too intrusive on personal choices. December 19 - Low-tax State Tax Collectors Taking It To The Bank - "Since we are not losing any money I don't spend a whole lot of time on it," said William M. Remington, director of Delaware's Division of Revenue. "I don't know (how much money the other states are losing) and I really don't care." Dale Irwin, assistant director for Maryland's comptroller's field enforcement division, said individual smuggling is illegal, but he has to use his limited resources carefully. "Cigarette smuggling is very lucrative," he said. "You can buy a carton of cigarettes in Delaware for about $25 and resell them in New York City for $70 to $75." When Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland all raised their cigarette tax rates, the floodgates from relatively low-tax Delaware were opened. All of a sudden retailers at the border saw more out-of-state car licenses in their parking lots and business was booming. Now tax officials in the three loser states are talking tough and calling the phenomenon reprehensible. They are even labeling it smuggling, a practice that anti-tobacco promised would not occur when the cigarette taxes were raised. For a huge guffaw we include the poignant threnody of a lugubrious tax flack: "Cigarette revenue pays for schools, roads and police departments. It's just not fair to honest merchants and it's not fair to the people of Maryland."
The news must be very bad for the anti-tobacco education propagandists if they are actually willing to admit that their anti-smoking efforts are failing. Although it has been clear that not only has the quit rate leveled off in the 1990's but that the underage start rate skyrocketed during that decade of all-pervasive anti-smoking education. There are currently more people smoking in both the United Kingdom as well as the United States than there were before anti-tobacco propaganda engulfed society. By the numbers it appears that anti-tobacco is the best friend Joe Camel ever had. Because more people are picking up the habit, expect the stridency level to escalate. The anti-smoking messages will become more extreme, more dishonest and far more hateful. Demands for more money will increase even as government revenue falls. With their record of failure and as the economies of countries become strapped for cash, the smart politician should take the opportunity to kick the grifters off the gravy train once and for all.
Are these coincidences or are they the signposts of a joint venture between governments and Big Drugs? From North America to India, the announcement of Big Drugs introducing cessation products is inevitably followed soon after by talk of smoking bans that are then followed by actual implementation. For every smoker denied the right to smoke on the job or prohibited from relaxing over a cigarette in his favorite pub or restaurant a potential, tobacco cessation customer is created. Add up the costs of producing and distributing government anti-smoking propaganda plus the invaluable legislation forcing people to quit smoking and one sees that governments are expending millions, if not billions, of dollars to promote pharmaceutical products. Quite a deal for Big Drugs and quite a drain on the taxpayers.
This smoke-free fanaticism is spreading. Pioneered in California, comprehensive smoking bans are expected to be adopted soon in Boston and Chicago as well as New York. Bans have been proposed in many other jurisdictions as well, and it is probably just a matter of time before smoking in this country is legally confined to the home (assuming it is still permitted there). Personally, I won't miss the smoke, but I'll miss the freedom that made it possible." How many freedoms are you willing to lose? In our opinion, none. A loss of any freedom by any group imposed by another is unacceptable. Today it is cigarettes, tomorrow it will be fast food, soft drinks, alcohol, salt and any food that is deemed unhealthy. While these life style choices are being removed one by one, the major problems of air pollution by fossil fuel, AIDS, drinking water contamination are not being addressed. We are short sighted, lost in fanaticism, not willing to look into the future and see the consequences of these actions. The implications are that the government will continue to infringe on your personal life style choices until you no longer have any.
Yeah, it's an amusing fantasy but it makes as much sense as the spectacle of grown men obsessed by what in times past was the provenance of bossy, irritable old women. Since the center of tobacco prohibition has shifted from the American heartland of the 19th century to the "sophisticated" coasts of the 21st, the religious mania that was the font for anti-smoking then, obviously must be hidden from view now. Religious fervor emulating the formidable woman who made bartenders and smokers tremble before her slashing ax must provide the spiritual sustenance to fire up her latter-day acolytes. Although Carry Nation is best remembered as an anti-alcohol virago rampaging through a myriad of gin joints, she also really hated smoking. Then, as now, her prohibitionist zeal was tinged with religious intolerance. The best lesson to be gained from her unpleasant affect on the cultural scene is that it eventually passed. Her "good works" were undone and forgotten. Books about these crazy times will footnote the antics of Glantz, Banzhaff and Bloomberg for the edification of those who won't be able to believe that, for a brief time, they were every bit as relevant as a crazy, ax-wielding woman who got her jollies stamping out good times.
What the American public should be made aware of is the certain absurdity of the NTP's [National Toxicology Program] cancer labeling scheme. First, the notion that substances by themselves cause cancer is faulty. There is not a single substance or group of substances that, acting alone, causes cancer in all people at any and every level of exposure. The secondhand smoke scam, endorsed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, is only one, albeit the most egregious, of a myriad of government-generated cancer "risks". Publish or perish is the credo of the academic world and also applies to the bloated federal bureaucracy. With all those drones to feed, the bureaucracy must continually justify its self. One way it does so is crank out studies and reports designed to whip up hysteria and produce public demands for more "research" which leads to more employees working their hearts out to find more dangers. It's a circle that grows tighter each year and costs the taxpayers billions. Steve Milloy of junkscience.com, takes a look at a few cancer "risks" that don't stand up to the light of day.
The Health Department's quarterly newsletter, mailed to doctors, devotes its entire November issue to nicotine addiction and issues a stern warning. "Because physician intervention can be so effective, failure to provide optimal counseling and treatment is failure to meet the standard of care - and could be considered malpractice!" the newsletter states. Welcome to the brave new world of health run by anti-tobacco fanaticism. In case there are any who doubt that New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg is dangerously unhinged, the communication sent by his health department threatening private physicians if they don't strap down their patients and inject pharmaceutical nicotine cessation products into their smoking patients cannot be more clear. Smoking is this mayor's number one priority. If he is not insane, the only other explanation is that he his beefing up his huge financial portfolio drumming up business for the multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Before he proceeds any further, he should make available to the public just how much pharmaceutical stock he holds.
People were smoking in only two of 33 bars and restaurants visited by News Journal reporters last week. Many tavern owners and patrons said they are obeying the law while organizing to try to overturn or amend it when the General Assembly returns in January. Several owners said they think they have lost 20 percent to 50 percent of their business since the ban went into effect on Nov. 27. Coach House owner Omar Semiz has been defying the state ban, and having customers sign their name to a yellow legal pad to instantly become members of a private smoking club. This week, he said business has been good. A sign outside the Coach House now identifies it as a "Smokeeasy," harkening back to the illegal "speakeasy" bars during Prohibition. Where are all the nonsmokers who were supposed to flock to the smoke-free businesses? The proprietors knew anti-tobacco was lying and now the politicians are beginning to realize that they were conned. Smoke-free means customer-free and the momentum is building to modify the 100% smoking ban as soon as the legislature meets in the new year.
More bilge from the Harvard School of Public Health to further the prohibitionist agenda. This time the study is a "twofer". Not only is alcohol attacked as the cause of violence but the elite gets to sneer at the lower orders known as sports fans. The anti-fat, anti-smoke and anti-alcohol full bore thrust is specifically directed at the working class both as a means to assert control and, more importantly, as a means to transfer money to the "better people." The goal of this study is revealed in the final paragraph where the sports fan is revealed to be a weak-minded victim of predatory marketing by huge corporations. Can the shakedown shysters be far behind?
In essence the 4th U.S. Circuit Court has ruled that no report or study that is produced by the federal government, no matter how flawed, biased or outright fraudulent, can be challenged in court, as long as the study or report is merely advisory. Since the EPA's report does not establish any rules or regulations, even though it has been used by state and municipal governments to do so, it is immune from challenge. The 4th did not invalidate the scientific conclusions reached by the federal judge who vacated, nullified and ruled a fraud the Environmental Protection Agency's report on secondhand smoke. That can never be done. The EPA's secondhand smoke report was released in 1993 to justify banning smoking in the workplace. The U.S. Congress immediately demanded that the Congressional Research Services, an organization within the Library of Congress, evaluate the report. The CRS evaluation was highly critical of the EPA's methods and conclusions that secondhand smoke is hazardous to non-smokers. A federal judge, in a suit brought by tobacco growers and cigarette manufacturers vacated the EPA's secondhand report five years later. The EPA appealed and, after four years of inexplicable inactivity by the 4th Circuit Court, that appeal has been granted. The EPA's report is no longer vacated but forever will be discredited. It's junk and no amount of passing the buck by a skittish judiciary can turn it into truth. ANALYSIS It is clear from the way in which the EPA has handled the ETS issue that the anti-smoking movement is aware of, if not directly involved in, using corrupted science in the pursuit of its public-policy agenda. Indeed, as Alvan Feinstein, a Yale University epidemiologist writing in `Toxicological Pathology' noted, a prominent epidemiologist commenting on the EPA's work on ETS admitted that, "Yes, it's rotten science, but it's in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and to become a smoke-free society." For an easy to understand and illuminating explanation of how the EPA cooked the books to produce its report, read Pandora's Box by John C. Luik. This short examination of the dangers of politically corrupted science focuses on the how and why a government agency betrayed is mission to advance a narrow, special interest agenda. John Luik was educated on a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford where he obtained degrees in philosophy and Politics (BA,MA,D Phil.).
Who exactly are these 1,000 New Yorkers whose deaths Mayor Bloomberg claims will be prevented by his legislation? If, as we suspect, he is referring to deaths caused by exposure to secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars, the estimate of 1,000 deaths prevented is patently absurd. Our best estimate of the number of deaths prevented is somewhere between zero and a hypothetical ten to fifteen. There is no evidence that any New Yorker — patron or employee — has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke in a bar or restaurant. As the first sentence makes clear, Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, is no shill for big tobacco. She is, in fact, an implacable foe of the industry and no friend to smokers. She refuses, however, to prostitute herself and her organization by pretending that secondhand smoke is anything more than an annoyance to some people. Her words expose the falsehood spread by the anti-tobacco enterprise that there is scientific unanimity on secondhand smoke. There is no consensus that secondhand smoke is a health risk. She fails, unfortunately, to suggest why so many in the health business, including those employed by the city's health department, are so willing to cooperate in the biggest scientific scam of the 20th century. Leaving the "whys" of the fraud aside, Whelan must be given credit for writing this simple declaration that the emperor has no clothes.
The suspension of cigarette sales in New York state next year would be the best early Christmas present ever. Before long the tobacco control industry would be shrieking for the feds to force the tobacco industry to provide its product to the state. If the tobacco industry had the spine to refuse to do business with prohibitionist states the jihad against it would be ended in a couple of months. What is most likely is that the industry will moan and groan and ultimately comply completely with New York's arbitrary and baseless demand to make special cigarettes for sale only in that state. In any case in state sales, before too long, will be a thing of the past as New Yorkers buy smuggled, black market and online smokes to avoid the obscene tobacco taxes. Sometimes it's a good policy to give the anti-tobacco fanatics exactly what they want.
Smoke-free regulations were enforced at the casino and the state's 534 pokies venues on September 1 this year - triggering an immediate decline in revenue. While Crown refused to disclose figures, the Herald Sun has been told the bans will slice more than $20 million a year from casino earnings. Total gaming industry profits are tipped to drop by $400 million next year, and the Bracks Government is expected to lose $125 million in taxes. The evidence mounts that throwing smokers out of restaurants, bars and gambling joints is not very smart. These Australian establishments didn't have a choice since all choices are eliminated once anti-tobacco comes to town. Still, the operatives who promised boom times once the smoke cleared are mighty quiet now that the consequences, obvious to all rational people, have come home to roost.
"Plain and simple, we are going to lose a lot of business," said Jean Neal, manager of the Rocker II, who saw a 75 percent dip in customers this past Sunday. Add to the never ending shoddiness of the Clinton legacy the ludicrous spectacle of the nation's fighting men and women taking their smokes outdoors from bars and restaurants located on government property. Add to the evidence that anti-tobacco is incapable of telling the truth the bankrupt businesses that provide conveniently located foods and eats for the military. Clinton's executive order ridding all government buildings on military installations, including establishments that serve alcohol, of cigarette smoke was yet another insult that draft dodger delivered to the soldiers. Now, instead of relaxing at the post bar and grill, they must trek to town to get the respect they deserve.
The Bloomberg/Council smoking ban is overwhelmingly opposed by the businesses that will be affected. The lie that secondhand smoke poses a health hazard to nonsmokers has been debunked and vacated by a federal judge. The political juice, however, is undeniably with the anti-smokers so the politicians feel safe in overruling their constituents' interests. Will the smoking ban be honored? Not likely as the current law, enacted in 1995, is wildly flouted but the harm done to society in criminalizing behavior that is normal, lawful and enshrined by tradition makes criminals of the law-abiding and engenders contempt for society. There is no doubt that in the near future, people will look back upon the insanity erupting in New York City and marvel how a few lying zealots pulled the strings and made the city fathers dance.
What won't be easy, as laid out in the plea for sanity by Mark Alesse of New Yorkers for Civil Justice Reform, is curbing the obscene excesses of the trial lawyers. In New York City alone, the taxpayers cough up $600-million a year to pay off plaintiffs and their mouthpieces while in the so-called tort tax tacked onto the prices of all goods and services exceeds $14-billion a year for the state as a whole. The economy is weak and government revenues are down. Cutting the trial lawyers off from their trough could be the silver lining that the people of New York and the entire United States need to get through the hard times.
"We now risk another generation of children becoming addicted to tobacco," Pickles said. "Over time, taxpayers will pay more to treat preventable tobacco-related diseases." - Milford Daily News, 12/10/02 Better kids addicted to tobacco than greedy anti-tobacco operatives addicted to lavish tax-funded salaries. Of course the decade-long reign of the Pickles of the world have produced more under-aged smokers who start smoking years earlier than had the state not paid one penny for anti-tobacco education. It is a matter of record that youth smoking rates skyrocket whenever a comprehensive anti-smoking program is injected into the school system. Outgoing Massachusetts governor Jane Swift deserves a medal for standing up to the anti-tobacco gangsters and serving the public. Anti-tobacco will be back next year bending the ear of the new governor selling him on restoring the anti-smoking funds. He would be wise to show them the door as Swift did. Keep the anti-tobacco programs buried. He'll save the state money and the teen smoking rates will decline.
With all the anti-tobacco nonsense emanating from Australia, this final twist in the trite saga of a smoker seeking to shakedown a business that makes a popular product is quite refreshing. Having to pay the court costs in addition to returning the award is a zinger that will give pause to others hoping for a quick buck attacking a politically-incorrect business.  A survey of people attending smokers' clinics run by Central Sydney Area Health Service found almost half were using "chop-chop" - illegal tobacco either diverted from legitimate tobacco growers or grown covertly. "There's a rampant rise in the use of it. The price of cigarettes is pushing people with lower incomes into this and I'm seriously concerned about the medical consequences," said Ms Bittoun, who conducted the survey after she noticed people attending her clinics were on average very much sicker than typical patients she had seen in previous years. If you make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs or what's some dead poor smokers to a gang of elitists who are validating their likes and dislikes with the force of law? People enjoy smoking and it is their right to smoke. When they can't afford to pay the outrageous cigarette taxes they will get their smokes from the black market, or as this story notes, from truly shady vendors. Smoking continues and people continue to die as a result of the anti-tobacco zealotry of a few power-mad haters. If Public Health wished to live up to its name it would advised the tax-happy politicians to reduce the tax. If it advocated fair taxation, public health would actually be saving lives for a change.
This article from the Orlando Sentinel is fairly balanced in its coverage regarding the upcoming legislative battles that will be fought in Tallahassee between the people affected by the ban and the special interests who advocate prohibition for financial and political ends. The article notes that, despite anti-tobacco's habit of couching smoking bans as of interest to only "Big Tobacco", the groups hoping to construct a ban that won't ruin the state's tourist industry and produce a rash of bankruptcies do not include the cigarette manufacturers. Big tobacco took a pass on the constitutional amendment fight so anti-tobacco is left without a convenient villain. Since those who oppose the ban are small business people, anti-tobacco will have a hard demonizing its opponents. It's hard to call a struggling business person struggling to make a living a "tool of big tobacco."
From the belly of the beast, San Francisco, Adam Sparks takes a look at the American tort system and is appalled. He is not alone in recoiling in horror from a system of legalized theft that costs the country billions of dollars. The drum beats are beginning to rein in the rapacious predators known as trial lawyers. Although the issue of tort reform doesn't often grab the public, the increasingly huge damage awards, the repudiation of personal responsibility and the sheer nuttiness of so many verdicts are catching the public's attention. Allocating the costs to each resident of the country makes the outrage personal. There are few issues more important than bringing the bloated tort business under control.
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