Big Tobacco Wins Big - "Big Tobacco won big, no butts about it. In what Democrats hope will be a defining moment of the 1998 election season, Senate Republicans emerged from what President Clinton derisively called a ``smoked-filled room'' and moved to kill a tough-on-tobacco bill Wednesday. In retrospect, it should come as no surprise. The victory for tobacco can be traced to late April, when RJR Nabisco chairman Steven Goldstone said the industry would launch a national advertising campaign to turn public opinion against the anti-smoking legislation." -- The moment the tobacco industry finds itself with the balls to fight, the antismoking Cartel is almost inevitably defeated. We guess it is too much to hope for that the industry will continue in its PR campaign, this time educating the population on the political and scientific frauds, the racketeering and all other legally and morally wrong actions of the anti-tobacco Cartel, not stopping until these criminals are apprehended, tried, and jailed, setting an example for all time. We guess that most smokers would be only too pleased to pay maybe even up to 50 cents per pack if they knew that this is how the money would be spent.

Senate Kills Tobacco Bill - JOE CAMEL DID NOT WIN: COMMON SENSE AND JUSTICE DID - The most unfair and exploitative bill in the history of the United States has been killed today by the US Senate. "Election-year legislation to curb teen smoking and bring nicotine under federal regulation perished Wednesday in the Republican-controlled Senate. The American people 'won't like what they see,' predicted President Clinton. In the climax to a fierce, four-week struggle on the Senate floor, supporters of the measure failed on two successive votes to gain the 60 votes needed to keep the bill alive." Time to light up the cigars, folks! (Ask Bill C. for one of his -- he probably doesn't feel like a celebratory smoke today.) While this certainly does not mean the end of the war against the anti-tobacco Cartel, it is certainly a setback for the liars and the exploiters.

Tax-Free Church Supports Increase in Tobacco Taxes - It is interesting that entities like churches are advocating the increase in tobacco taxes while the churches themselves pay no tax at all, while cashing immense fortunes. Once again, the chicken that sings is the one that laid the egg. There are very many instances in recent years of abuse of tax-exempt status by a variety of churches and congregations, but we have seen very little political action against them. We guess that the marketers of Christ think they have one over the marketers of tobacco, though perhaps both of them at times deserve to go to hell.

Blood in the Water: Sharks Congregate - The anti-tobacco Cartel's recent victory in Jacksonville, Florida, where a jury has hit Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. with a $1 million verdict, has been the equivalent of spilling a pint of blood in shark-infested waters. "Poised to jump in now are a handful of California attorneys massing on the border of the next tobacco battle front: private suits on behalf of individuals. ... most of the attorneys eyeing tobacco plaintiffs work are former asbestos attorneys who think they can parlay their pulmonary-disease savvy into cases against Big Tobacco." The asbestos issue has turned out to be for the most part another EPA scam.

Hurrah for Kahnawake! (or: Grand Chief Joe Norton is no Chretin) - "The Kahnawake band council warned the federal and Quebec governments yesterday it will immediately assert its sovereignty over the South Shore reserve, taking control of highways, railways and waterways, and declaring the community a duty-free zone. Sparked by changes to Quebec tobacco-tax laws announced last week, the band council yesterday issued a sharp reaction that amounts to a unilateral declaration of sovereignty, and a pledge to back it up by taking complete control of Kahnawake territory."

C. Everett Koop, Just Kiss Our Butt! - "The victory cigar Scottie Pippen savoured after the Chicago Bulls' win in the NBA Finals drew fire from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop yesterday. Koop issued a 'call to responsibility' to sports and entertainment stars to stop touting cigars, a growing craze in tobacco use. Pippen appeared on national television with a cigar in his mouth shortly after the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz Sunday. 'I caution them that America is watching,' Koop told an American Cancer Society conference on the health risks of cigar smoking." Thank you, Scottie Pippen! And America is watching indeed, Everett. Really, who the hell do you think you are? Take your puritanical moralization and shove it. It is high time to put these nattering preachers back in the closet where they belong. Just kiss our butt with a smile, and move along...!

The McCain Tobacco Bill Threatens More Than Just Retailers - The McCain bill is dead, but it's never too soon to educate yourself about the next legislative proposal that's sure eventually to come down the pike! "Congress is now considering a grossly unfair and poorly conceived piece of tobacco legislation (the McCain bill) that, if it becomes law, would be a devastating blow to convenience stores and other retailers around the state. ... The McCain bill is so punitive and imposes so many financial penalties that it could severely damage the livelihoods of tobacco wholesalers, retailers and their employees." Yes, but destroying the industry is what anti-tobacco is all about. It is of little importance to the crusaders that lost livelihoods and financial collapse for many would follow. And then the anti-tobacco criminals will simply switch to anti-fat, anti-caffeine, or anti-something else with a lot of money attached. And they will continue to loot society that way.

Pull Down Those Disgusting Tobacco Billboards... Put Up These Nice Alcohol ones ... to Protect the Children, of Course! - The antitobacco criminals in California are hard at work to suppress liberty and freedom of choice, while promoting false information to the population. Yet another assault on the first amendment by San Francisco, a city that is rapidly becoming notorious world wide as the most intolerant municipality in North America. The San Francisco Examiner almost says it all but leaves out a most interesting aspect of one man's crusade to eliminate tobacco advertising. Incidentally, Supervisor Gavin Newsom, the bane of tobacco advertising, is a booze peddler. He has a financial stake in making the city safe for alcohol advertising by deflecting attention from the substance that actually does harm children. The cigarette ads have all come down from the billboards only to be replaced by alcohol advertising. A billboard for his upscale wine emporium now graces the busy boulevard that leads to the Golden Gate Bridge. If Newsom, a political appointee, loses his bid to retain his seat on the City Council in the November election he can continue his brilliant career as a shill for the alcohol industry.

Give Us Our Billions, the Antis Whine - The McCain Bill keeps being amended, to the point that it has become a mockery of itself. But, hold: the entire anti-tobacco is a mockery of science, statistics, health, and justice. The anti-tobacco Cartel is now very much afraid that the billions of dollars originally allocated for its programs of intolerance and scientific alteration -- as well as pocket lining -- may go down the drain in favour of income tax cuts and anti-drug programs. It is using every means at its disposal to "restore" the original looting programs, such as "smoking cessation" (read: converting the "addiction" to patches while getting rich) and children's "smoking prevention" (or: pocketing billions of dollars while teaching lies, intolerance and disrespect to children). This article describes some of the motions. But the only way to restore sanity and normality in society is to allow a return to the status quo, and reject the anti-tobacco philosophy as a whole, as unrealistic as it may seem nowadays. The posture of every liberty defender must be to destroy anti-tobacco, not just hold it back, alter it, or negotiate with it.

McCain's Ugly Joke Is On Us - "Get ready to laugh. Those rib-tickling yuk-meisters of the Washington press corps are about to apply several coats of monkeyshine on the tarnished shell of their preordained prince of presidential candidates - John Sidney McCain III."

England: a Step in the Right Direction: Return to Common Sense - "Littlewoods chain of shops to reintroduce smoking in most of its restaurants. The high street store chain said its decision to reverse a ban put in place two years ago was made after pressure from customers. Designated smoking areas will now be put into over half the restaurants operated by the Liverpool-based organization." Well done, Littlewoods! We are sure that your customers will come back now! Of course the fanatics of ASH spit the usual bunch of false information, stating that the health of nonsmokers it is "put at risk", while the rest of the health gang barks that "nonsmokers" have the right to "clean" air. Well the air is pretty clean as it is, for the emissions outside are of equal or greater value than the emission in a smoking environment. And what about the right of smokers to a smoking environment?

Australia - a Step in the Wrong Direction: Banning Smoking in Restaurants - In the most draconian anti-smoking crackdown in Australia, it will be impossible to puff away in the majority of eating, drinking and entertainment areas. While the anti-tobacco Cartel is celebrating another victory in pushing the lies on secondhand smoke, the people who have to earn a living are already worried, and legal challenges are on the way to defeat the antismoking criminals, and their irresponsible politicians in that nation. If there is something the international antismoking Cartel is achieving, is to slowly create a solidarity and an international brotherhood of smokers from the countries who have chosen to buy the package of lies, and to implement oppression. And it's this international brotherhood that will eventually defeat the Prohibition.

A Good Editorial That Misses Some Targets - This good editorial by Steve Dunleavy is one of those articles "in defense of choice" that really do more harm than good. While Steve fiercely defends the right to choose, and he is outraged by legal awards to suing smokers (or -- even worse -- their heirs) he essentially follows the philosophy of the Cartel. "I am responsible for my own actions. Am I wrong to smoke? Absolutely. But I am not going to blame someone else for my idiocy." If Mr. Dunleavy finds gratification in considering himself an idiot, that's his choice, but since he is a smoker, he is insulting all the ones who choose to smoke as well. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IN SMOKING. Nothing at all. It is a choice, like any other. Unless we are willing to call an idiot anyone whose behaviour is less than 100% safe (please show us one). Rock climbers are idiots only if you accept that there is no value to them in the risky sport they choose. "You want to sue arms manufacturers because someone gets killed by a gun? I mean, seriously, when does it stop?" How naive. It will NEVER stop, Steve, for as long as there are health nazis around, the political power to support those parasites, some industry to loot, and too many apologetic individuals such as you.

Jerry Falwell Jumps on the Unholy Bandwagon - or... anti-tobacco paves the waves the way for a good ol' temperance-and-brimstone revival - The shameful orgy of greed and opportunism in North American politics seems to have no end. Now it is the turn of Jerry Falwell, who supports the take-the-money-and-run attack on American smokers, and wants to up the ante -- to include American drinkers. Falwell said he ``would like to see concurrently equal heat put on the liquor industry, certainly beginning with a user tax. If tobacco is addictive, and it is, then so is alcohol.'' ... ``Unless we're going to come down equally hard on the liquor industry we're playing the hypocrite to beat up on the tobacco industry because they're more vulnerable.''

The Next Wave of Looters - There you go, ladies and gentlemen, the next wave of looters is coming! Individuals now launch multi-billion law suits against the tobacco industry which has turned into an easy pot of gold to grab not just with impunity, but with the blessing of lawyers, the state, and the anti-tobacco Cartel. Here we have the case of a guy who claims that his throat cancer was caused by secondhand smoke, and is therefore suing, in a class action, for 10 BILLION DOLLARS!! Who cares if SECONDHAND SMOKE DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER? Who cares about the multiplicity of causes for throat cancer, up to and including genetic predisposition, not to mention the sheer impossibility of proving any causation here? NOBODY! The cartel and the state say secondhand smoke causes cancer, "everybody knows about it", and that "there is a mountain of evidence (NOT) about it". It is illegal in some states for the tobacco industry to bring scientific evidence to court. Lawyers can make a fortune. So smile away, it's law-suit day! Just as a matter of curiosity, how much did you cut your doctor in for, Mr. Collier?

Simply Unbelievable - Simply unbelievable. This is the kind of garbage that ASH would support and instigate. We are sinking deeper and deeper in the bottomless barrel of hysteria and prevarication.

Pharmaceuticals: Propelling Tobacco Lies, False Statistics and Profits in the 21st Century - Based on manipulated statistical associations on the negative effects of smoking, the pharmaceutical industry, heavy financier of the antismoking Cartel, plans heavy marketing (and profits) with smoking cessation programs, using racketeering tactics to achieve its goal. It is always important to remember that -- even assuming that nicotine is such an addictive product - - the pharmaceutical industry is NOT offering to get people off the "nicotine drug", but simply asking them to switch from cigarettes to patches and other paraphernalia as nicotine delivery systems. "Give up the pleasure, but not the addiction", they say, "and make us richer in the process".

BC Government Wants to Impose "Licence Fee" to Tobacco Industry for Selling Cigarettes in British Columbia! - The British Colombia antitobacco cartel has the government at its head, and here is the latest and greatest: if the tobacco industry wants to sell in B.C., it will have to pay a licence fee -- that is, a Mafia-style protection fee to the gangsters in Victoria, in order to do business. The political twist is this: the price of cigarettes cannot go up! In this way, they hope, smokers (ah, we forgot: we are the victims!...) will not bitch too much. Of course, the excuse is that the revenue goes to cover the extra medical expenses to cure ill smokers, and naturally to finance more lies and propaganda against tobacco and its manufacturers. The government conveniently forgets that B.C. has the highest tobacco tax in North America. But the Victoria branch of the cartel wants more, and directly from the industry. The price of the protection fee? 20 million dollars a year. Please consider that the entire population of B.C. scarcely exceeds 2.6 million people, of which less than one quarter smokes. The tobacco industry of course says that it is going to challenge the law in court, and it probably will.

Tax Deal Revives Tobacco Measure - The Washington Times reports that U.S. federal tobacco legislation may have new life - with amendment proposals that have nothing to do with the alleged goals of the legislation. Now the politicians want from us the money to fund tax cuts, and fight the War on Drugs, with measures that would include "$10 million a year in grants to states that instituted voluntary drug testing for teen driver's-license applicants." Whether the "bill is on" or the "bill is off", the government is regressively pursuing social control and fascism.