USA: Lott Declares Tobacco Bill "Dead in the Water" - "Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on Sunday declared tobacco legislation that has been stalled since last month "dead in the water," saying its many add-ons were obscuring the goal of curbing teenage smoking. Lott's grim assessment came a day after President Bill Clinton said the Senate had reached "a critical moment of truth" and should pass the measure sponsored by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain this week" The truth about the reality of antitobacco is coming out, though the obsession about "the children" seems to continue.

Lott Suggests Switch from Sweeping Tobacco Bill to Narrower Measure - "Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott suggested canceling debate on the troubled tobacco bill and moving instead to a narrower measure that would combat teen smoking and drug use. 'This bill has lost control. It's just a spending bill. It's lost its focus and it should be pulled,' Lott said Monday of the measure by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. 'I would like to see us have a bill that does deal only with teen-age smoking and drug abuse.' " - While smoking and drug abuse are NOT the same thing -- notwithstanding the propaganda of the antismoking Cartel -- in both cases a liberal and non-hysterica approach is what it takes, while repression only creates more use. But perhaps this is what the powers-that-be want, after all. If these "problems" are truly solved, how could they justify multi-billion dollar expenditures?

Workplace Restrictions Have Smokers Fuming - The discrimination against smokers in the workplace, though based on bogus figures and false dangers, is getting worse in North America, as this article illustrates. Since smoking is a right and not a privilege, total prohibition of smoking in the workplace (and in most other places) is an infringement of civil rights. The criminal antismoking Cartel is always active to suppress the right to smoke anywhere. Smokers are disgusted and fuming, but do not have the courage to fight back in ways that are going to hurt their oppressors. Unfortunately, this -- and any other fight for civil rights -- is not something that is solved by mumbling to the boss -- or to City Hall. It is something that requires courage and determination, as well as the drive to fight and hurt your oppressor until your freedoms are respected, using means such as workplace smokers' strikes, and relentless organization. Join or form a smokers' rights group in your area. Write editorials. Speak up a t public meetings. Add your own comments to "no smoking" signs. Practice non-compliance and tell people why you are doing it. Freedom and rights don't come cheap. Do you have what it takes?

In The Footsteps Of Adolf - One of the first anti-Semitic actions the Hitler regime initiated after taking power was to ban Jews from public swimming pools. The law was justified, as were so many anti-Semitic acts, by the worship of Public Health. With this petty law the Nazi's began their quest for a solution to the "Jewish problem". Their final solution followed in due course. The City of San Francisco is adhering to the Nazi model in its quest for a solution to the "Tobacco problem". Although, the bureaucrats are hiding behind the alter of Public Health, their final solution is clear . Smokers must be eliminated. It's ironic that in San Francisco, the birthplace of the United Nations and a city that still enjoys a reputation of tolerance, the tobacco-smoking Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the thousands of troops who destroyed the Nazi terror would not be welcome while the ardent anti-smoking fascist Adolph Hitler would be welcomed with open arms.

Common Sense Gets Lost In The Smoke Hysteria - "Hysteria makes great headlines, excites the public, keeps bureaucrats busy and gets politicians elected. Naturally it drives much of Washington policymaking, particularly if the hysteria can be linked in any way to children. Policy hysteria follows a time-worn pattern: advocacy groups make up or distort statistics; incomplete science is interpreted in the most alarmist way; bureaucrats magnify the risk; politicians step in to rescue us from danger; trial lawyers file multimillion-dollar lawsuits; the media sensationalizes the story; and the public gets the thrills and extremism that it clearly prefers to nuance and tedium. Ten years and tens of billions of dollars after the asbestos hysteria..."

Scions Of Joe Camel Aren't Just Blowing Smoke - This neutral article describes how tobacco companies are rebelling against prohibition and hysteria. The more they try to regulate and suppress advertising, the more the way of advertising becomes powerful and appealing. Is this true? Well, in countries where tobacco advertising has been forbidden since time immemorial, there is no significant difference in the number of smokers. It is clear that the advertisement battle has now become a battle of principles way more that a battle for market shares, or health. Do state and lobby groups have the right to suppress free speech and free enterprise?

The (New) American Way - The consequences of the sick mentality that deflects personal responsibilities onto the suppliers of a potentially harmful product is well-described in this article, where a cab driver wants to sue junk food manufacturers for his fat belly, and cholesterol level. ' "It's the American way," the cabby said. "Didn't you see where some anti-gun people are talking about suing gun-makers because people are shooting each other? Isn't every state in the union suing the tobacco companies because tobacco is making people sick? And they're hauling in serious bucks -- and balancing their budgets, too." ' ... Guess that in today's twisted morals, this is a perfectly acceptable conduct.

EFFECT BEFORE CAUSE: The Poverty of Sri Lanka Blamed on Smoking! - Without a doubt, the 90's will go down in history as "the decade where the poles were reversed". This powerful and twisted inversion of moral values and cause-and-effect serves the politicians very well, for they can juxtapose the consequences of their greed and incompetence with the causes, and look like heros. Antismoking is a prime example of this aberration. Here we have Minister S. B. Dissanayake, of Sri Lanka, blaming the poverty of the population on smoking, drinking, and drugs -- well-known consequences of poverty, not causes. But this justifies the "uselessness" of relief programs, as well as a persecutorial attitude to "help" the victims of such evils before creating the conditions to reduce those evils. North American politics are very contagious indeed.

Antismoking Do-Gooder Gets His Due - A Maryland man who elevated himself to a moral example by no longer selling tobacco and beer in his store is facing bankruptcy and a life of poverty as a consequence of his decision. "I felt guilty when I sold a pack of cigarettes," he said in an interview last year. "I didn't want to be the cause of any more young people starting to smoke." How touching! Well, now we have one more "I-know-what's-good-for-you" out of the race. Good, maybe he will learn to mind his own business (he really should have!), and not to listen to the lies and propaganda of the anti-tobacco Cartel. Here is an idea, Mr. Mosby: why don't you ask the Cartel for compensation? As concerned as they are with the well-being of everybody, they'll sure run with the money to bail you out!

Canadian Antismoking Cartel On the Tobacco Sponsorship of Sport Events: YOU LOSE! - The Canadian federal government is performing amusing face-saving antics on the question of tobacco sponsorship and arts and sports events in this country. The latest word: the feds will present the anti-smoking brigades with a TOTAL BAN on tobacco company sponsorship. Catch is -- that won't happen for five years, and no changes in sponsorship will be made for the next two years. By the time any of this has any impact, the tobacco prohibitionists of the Clinton administration will be out of office, and so too, quite possibly, the Liberals in Canada. A lot of things can change in five years. The most important thing for Canada's federal government is the knowledge that in five years, this stuff will most likely be someone else's hot potato. This is a BIG LOSS for anti-tobacco, spun so as to appease them.

BAN ON TOBACCO SPONSORSHIPS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: TOBACCO INDUSTRY - "A federal proposal to ban tobacco-company sponsorship of arts and cultural events five years from now will not survive in the courts, a tobacco industry spokeswoman predicted Wednesday. The proposed ban will be targeted in a court challenge the industry has already launched against federal anti-smoking legislation, said Marie-Josee Lapointe of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council." (Source: CP, June 3rd, 1998). Ironically, Lapointe's views coincide with those of many exponent of the anti-tobacco Cartel. They believe that the total sponsorship ban, nearly six years away, may never become a reality. Anti-tobacco Groups Screeching

FAIRFAX: ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL DEFEATED - Victory for Common Sense and Due Process - "The Fairfax County Attorney's office has snuffed out a proposal to prohibit county employees from smoking off the job. County Attorney David P. Bobzien, in a letter sent Monday to the Board of Supervisors, said the county does not have the legal authority to require its employees to be nonsmokers. The board, at the request of Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland, D-Mount Vernon, voted unanimously last month to explore whether the county could hire only nonsmokers, force new employees to stop smoking or give preference to abstainers in the hiring process." - BACKGROUND: Warning: Smoking may be hazardous to your job

$ $ $ $ - Beautiful and very informative article on the disgusting enrichment of trial lawyers on the shoulders of smokers, while riding on the lies on tobacco. "If the cigarette bill were truthfully labelled, it would be called 'The National Tobacco Policy and Lawyer Enrichment Act.' It's welfare for lawyers: a brazen model of social injustice. We assess poor and moderate-income people (smokers) to reward a few wealthy lawyers -- many of them multimillionaires and some potential billionaires. We launder the process by having the tobacco companies collect the money (through higher prices) and 'pay' the lawyers. Because tobacco companies are seen as more vile than trial lawyers, this makes the whole process seem respectable."

Nicorette at the Races: What Is the Difference? - So, now we have Nicorette racing at the Grand Prix. So strange that the antitobacco Cartel says nothing about this. After all, isn't this peddling drugs to kids? "If we can help people quit, I'm proud to be a part of it," says NicoDerm driver Dennis Vitolo. This is a nice example of the Great Deception: if nicotine is as addictive as they say, then people do not quit, they just switch from one "delivery device" to another, don't they? Well, we certainly know what team we are going to root for the next racing season, and it is not going to be the Nicoderm peddlers, kings of the Grand Prick!

Smokers Nearly Voiceless in Tobacco Tax Debate - The anti-tobacco Cartel has always tried to suppress the voice of smokers, that is, the voice of the ones that are making it possible for both tobacco industry and anti-smoking Cartel to exist. "Last spring, a group of smokers offered to give their 2-cents' worth to a Senate hearing on the proposed tobacco settlement. But a Senate aide dismissed them, saying their testimony would be irrelevant. ... 'It's as if smokers themselves do not exist,' said Wanda Hamilton of Miami, vice president of the Florida Smoker's Rights Association. ... There are a few non-industry-affiliated smoker's rights groups trying to stoke the movement, and there are dozens of pro-smoking Web sites emerging on the Internet. The most prominent independent smoker's-rights group is FORCES (Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking)."

Recipe for Greed: politicians and Tobacco Industry - "This all started with a famous victory in January: the state of Texas won a whopping, record-setting $15.3 billion settlement from the tobacco companies for all the Texans who have gotten sick from smoking and had to be cared for by the state. Nice going, team. But the thrill of victory lasted about 10 minutes before the ugly greed scrum started. The lawyers, as per their contract with the state, got 15 percent of the settlement, which works out to $2.3 billion, a very substantial chunk of change indeed."

Cashing In On Hysteria -- and Adding to It - A new survey pushes the BS of body odour further than ever before. "Among nonsmokers, a candidate who smells of smoke evokes an image of a person with little attention for detail,'' says Morem, author of How to Gain the Professional Edge. The beautiful smell of tobacco is now the latest excuse for job discrimination, as if the abilities of an employee would be a function of the way he/she smells. The new North American odourfobia is the latest manifestation of the social alienation going on these times, while very few seem to realize how much the whole antitobacco deal stinks. For smoking employers, here is a suggestion: if you need a new employee, do not forget to specify in your ad: "smokers preferred", or even "smokers only please". Several people do it already, and it is also a beautiful way to eliminate any controversy in the workplace.

Roth Tobacco Bill Amendment: A Regressive Formula - A recent public policy analysis by Iris J. Lav explains why a U.S. plan to use tobacco tax money to help those without medical plans will actually bypass the people who most need health coverage. "Helping uninsured people buy health insurance sounds like a good idea. But the families that can benefit from the tax deductions in Mr. Roth's proposal are, by and large, a very different population from the families that are uninsured."

Chinagate's Smoking Guns - "Everyone knows President Clinton hates tobacco and semi-automatic weapons, right? After all, he has waged a jihad against the cigarette companies and what he erroneously terms 'assault weapons' since he moved into the White House. Yet, the continuing investigations into the president's cozy relationship with the fascist regime in Beijing reveal Clinton's real concerns are a little more selective than we have been led to believe. In fact, the president's problems are not really with cigarettes, after all, but with U.S. tobacco companies. Likewise, his outrage over the proliferation of semi-automatics does not, apparently, extend to those sold by his friends in China."