December 4 - Lying About Passive Smoking - With the Netherlands firmly rejecting an onerous smoking ban and Duluth lightening its smoking ban, it's time once again to examine the "science" that led to smoking bans in the first place.  Henry R. Sturman examines and dissects the frauds, contradictions and political agendas manufactured by the tobacco control industry.  He discusses the studies that found no correlation between passive smoke and the health of nonsmokers and explains why these studies have been buried.  

December 4 - Huge Victory For Common Sense - Wiel Maessen, president of Forces Netherlands is pleased to announce that the Dutch hospitality industry is presenting the government with a requirement whereby bars, restaurants, nightclubs and other venues where people congregate are exempted for 10 years from pending legislation mandating a "smoke-free" work environment.  Instead the establishments will "use a system of self-regulation to restrict the smoke problems encountered in the nation's entertainment sector."

In addition to the 10-year moratorium on smoking bans the hospitality industry insists than an independent party be established to develop air ventilation standards.  This has been anathema to the tobacco control industry since any balanced look into indoor air quality as a whole exposes the flimsy contention that eliminating tobacco smoke is the only step needed to result in healthy air.  Anti-tobacco has consistently opposed conducting a truly scientific approach to ensuring a healthy work environment because to do so would reveal that tobacco smoke is only one of a myriad of factors in air quality.  The government is expected to agree to the hospitality industry's proposals.

This bodes well since anti-tobacco suffered two defeats in Europe recently.  In November the United Kingdom refused to consider imposing smoking regulations on that nation's restaurants and pubs.  More recently Scotland endorsed freedom by also refusing to regulate smoking on private property.

So what do these victories mean for the United States?  Legally, nothing but on a broader level the victories in Europe foretell good times ahead for those who value liberty and individual rights.  In Netherlands the hospitality industry countered the barrage of lies and propaganda spewed by anti-tobacco with aggressive informational campaigns that addressed the scientific frauds on secondhand smoke as well as the massive financial harm caused by smoking bans.  Utilizing the growing evidence that proves the health scares are bogus and the unambiguous accounts of economic harm caused to businesses subjected to government-imposed smoking bans, activists convinced the Dutch government that smoking bans are poison.  The tactics that are successful in Europe are the same that have produced wins in Washington State, Vermont, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

That the Netherlands, one of the most affluent, well-educated and progressive societies on earth, appears likely to adopt a policy that embraces individual choice rather than prohibition is a strong sign that anti-tobacco is running out of steam.  As the harm that resulted from the past 10 years of property rights grabs and divisive anti-smoker campaigns becomes clear government leaders are taking a harder look at agendas that contribute nothing to the well-being of society.  It may well be that the hard line taken by the hospitality industry in the Netherlands will be the turning point that we all have awaited.

We will provide more information on the details and implications of the situation in the Netherlands in the near future.

December 3 - At What Point Will They Have Gone Too Far? -  As some New Yorkers have learned the hard way, the mere existence of an ashtray in a place where smoking is prohibited can lead to a summons. It doesn't matter if the ashtray is stored well away from public areas. It doesn't matter if it is used as a decoration, or to hold paper clips or M & M's. No ashtrays are allowed, period.  The reason is simple, said Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The presence of an ashtray might be taken by some people as an invitation to light up.

"Not having ashtrays and putting up no-smoking signs are two of the strongest ways to discourage smoking and to let people know what the current law is," Ms. Mullin said.

No warrant is necessary. Mayor Bloomberg's constitutionally exempt Cigarette Gestapo is barging in all over New York City. Just owning an ash tray is a crime there today. The New Fascists will be bashing in the front door of your own home soon enough. The hell is spreading all over but particularly in the Northeast. In Massachusetts, the Revenue Department has already shown up at smokers' front doors, via the mailman, with tax bills for cigarettes bought out of state. Massachusetts reportedly coerced private carriers like UPS into revealing the names and purchasing habits of Bay State residents. The US Post Office has rules allowing delivery of tobacco and against reporting details of individual customers' deliveries. Expect that to change. The surprise tax bills in Massachusetts include interest and penalties, and friendly reminders that failure to pay can mean revocation of professional licenses, or imprisonment. Buying a pack of famous brand cigarettes within the state doles one buck to the product's producers and sellers, plus four bucks, to finance government and its harassment of smokers. That four bucks is sure to double or quintuple over a few legislative sessions unless force is brought to bear against this. Idiotic fanatical smoking bans infect all of New York, and New England, except Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Rhode Island, Roger Williams's haven for the oppressed, is teetering. How long can New Hampshire ("Live Free or Die") hold out? All this is just part of the story, but more appalling in itself, than the conditions which produced the American Revolution. Wise up, smokers, to what a vicious hysterical movement, infecting your government, is doing to you, and to the fundaments of decent society. Then choose, between masochism, and rebellion.

December 3 - Exiled From Manhattan -  In my own forays into the wacky world of statistics I've discovered that, for instance, you're more likely to die in a bicycle accident, or as a result of being left-handed and using right-handed things, than you are from passive smoking. But health officials routinely bury any evidence they don't like and cook the books. It's all part of a massive, well-funded propaganda campaign to change the public perception of smoking from something pleasurable to something dirty and antisocial.

Do you prize the simple pleasures and freedoms of life? So you're thinking of getting the hell out of the United States of America? Good idea, but be careful, where you go. The Health Cult respects no limits, of sanity, civility, or geography, either. Musician Joe Jackson fled New York for London but Anti has followed him there. No, there is no draconian nation-wide smoking ban in the United Kingdom yet, but the enemies of decency, are fighting hard to change that.

Cigarettes cost a fortune in the Kingdom. A black market is thriving. Elitists in Great Britain, such as the "authoritative" Royal College of Physicians, think they should dictate what everyone does, everywhere, every minute. Never mind that, according to published reports, only thirty-six pubs in all of Britain have voluntarily banned smoking. This, despite decades, of thoroughly fallacious "secondhand smoke peril" alarms. 

Obviously, normal people in the UK have not become hysterical, so the all-knowing Antis insist hysteria must be institutionalized, by law. They go on demanding absolute smoking bans everywhere. Blessedly, the British government has recently slapped down such calls, for officially mandated madness. Anti is indeed boundlessly mad. For example, why are those who say smoking bans are for practical or ideological protection of "the children," bringing their kids into places like barrooms and pool halls? 

The Kingdom's sin-sniffing elitists will have to have things their way, only on their own turf, for now. We suggest the Royal College of Physicians should install ale taps and dart boards in their smoke-free chambers, and invite the public, with their toddlers. Families could engage in healthful guzzling, while hurling sharp objects, right there with the jolly Physicians themselves. That will make thirty-seven puritanical pubs in Britain, more than enough, by the acute reckoning of the marketplace.

In fact, though tobacco is their current obsession, today's grotesque self-appointed social engineers are encroaching in calculated steps. Eradication of every politically incorrect pleasure, and establishment of a robotic, frightened, and health-obsessed population, would fulfill their ultimate agenda. Joe Jackson may not have to move again for a while, but after a while, he might. The simplest pleasures and freedoms in life must now be fought for, every day, all over the "free world." Lying, vilifying prohibitionist extremists use every coercive means available, to extinguish personal liberty and dignity. The situation has become pandemic. The nuts are ruling. We are at war against them now. Join us.

December 2 - Pensioners 'have better sperm than men of 20' – From Denmark, here is another good example of cheap antismoking propaganda. "In a study of 1,000 men of all ages, Professor Bonde and his team found that, on average, younger men had lower quality sperm. The average 20-year-old had half as many sperm as the average 60-year-old, and many of the younger men were close to infertile.” And what is the reason for that? Smoking during their mothers' pregnancy, of course!! “One explanation is that more and more women are heavy smokers. We need more and better studies of how the foetus is affected during pregnancy."
Blaming smoking is, for these scam operators dressed as doctors, just another way to say that they don’t have a clue of why the phenomenon occurs. In fact – and unless we are talking about gross professional incompetence – one basic thing cannot have escaped the attention of the “researchers”: those who are 60 today were born in the Forties, when there were no frauds and paranoia on smoking (except for Nazi Germany -- see: Smoking and Health Promotion in Nazi Germany), cigarettes were much more potent and often without filter, and over 70% of the adult population was happily smoking. Thus, if smoking during pregnancy really had an effect on fertility, the results of this “study” should be reversed, since smoking (unfortunately!) has decreased in the last 30 years. Only one sarcastic conclusion is therefore possible for this umpteenth piece of antismoking junk science: non-smoking causes corruption and/or intellectual disfunction. For real scientific information on smoking and pregnancy, click here.

December 2 - Taking It To The Voters  - Free Choice Fayetteville achieved its goal of calling a public vote on the city’s smoking ban, but the group faces an uphill battle to see the measure repealed.  Fayetteville will hold a special election Feb. 10 asking voters whether they want to uphold the city’s Sept. 2 ordinance, which bans smoking in all indoor public places except bars and tobacco shops.  The ban was to go into effect Feb. 1 but now is on hold until the referendum is decided.  Free Choice Fayetteville, a group that opposes the smoking ban, learned Monday that it had collected enough signatures to let voters decide the issue.

The success or failure of the smoking ban in Fayetteville will come down to how voters see the issue. Free Choice Fayetteville argues that it is a property rights issue. Smoke Free Fayetteville sees it as a public health matter.

Smokers rights advocates contend anecdotal evidence has shown that smoking bans are unpopular, said Norman Kjono, spokesman for Forces USA, a smokers rights group based in Virginia. Most people don’t consider whether smoking is allowed when selecting a place to dine, he said. "To our knowledge it’s not a material issue as to whether [most people] go somewhere or don’t go somewhere," Kjono said. If a restaurateur bans smoking "the general public is not going to suddenly flock to his restaurant because he suddenly went smokefree."

In what was generally a well-balanced story, we did find a mysterious translation of Norman Kjono's unambiguous statement regarding customer preference into a less specific generality.  

"To our knowledge it’s not a material issue as to whether nonsmokers go somewhere or don’t go somewhere."  The reporter excised "nonsmokers" and replaced with the bracketed "most people" which changes the focus of Mr. Kjono's statement.  

We include here a few of Mr. Kjono's abridged comments to the reporter in response to the story:

It is encouraging to hear that a group of Arkansas business owners apparently took the initiative to place a referendum that would repeal a smoking ban. I commend that group, based on a simple premise: we only get the quality of government that we deserve through our own action. If we the people allow special-interests to mandate their agendas without restraint that is precisely what we will have for government, special-interest agendas. While it is time consuming and often costly to do so, we as a people cannot afford to have our state affairs mandated by Johnson & Johnson's (former distributor of Nicotrol through licensing agreement with Pharmacia, and now reportedly developing a new nicotine inhaler) Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey, GlaxoSmithKline (Nicorette gum, NicoDerm CQ patches, Commit lozenges), or Pharmacia (now distributing Nicotrol and a part of Pfizer). 

Arkansas business owners should be encouraged by the facts that a bill has been introduced in the New York Assembly to overturn its smoking bans, Washington has successfully opposed expanded bans for two years now, the Indianapolis city council recently refused to impose smoking bans promoted by professional anti-tobacco activists, and in Florida there is a strong movement developing to overturn that state's Constitutional amendment to impose a smoking ban. In addition, New Hampshire has recently eliminated funding for anti-tobacco, and Massachusetts, Texas and Wyoming are reported to have reduced funding for anti-tobacco. the bottom-line message that citizens, business owners, and taxpayers are beginning to clearly understand is that smoking bans cost states and businesses to support a private special-interest pharmaceutical agenda. Despite brave and strident protestations to the contrary, anti-tobacco is clearly in the defensive at this point, and its self-serving policies are unquestionably being opposed or run out of town on a rail in more and more cities, counties, and states. It is gratifying to hear that Arkansas business owners appear to be including themselves in that expanding opposition to special-interest agendas.

December 1 - A Heavy Dose Of Lugubrious Guilt Before The Movie Begins - "I glamorized smoking in my movies," he says to the camera in his gravelly, tobacco-ravaged voice. "Then I got throat cancer. Maybe that's my punishment. Cancer isn't cool, hip or rock 'n' roll. Cancer hurts, cancer makes you cry . . . and then it kills you," he says.

He turns his head as a single tear makes its way down the side of his face.

Some unlucky movie goers will be assaulted with this tear jerking monologue by former Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.  Although he admits he was an alcoholic and drug abuser, as well as a four-pack a day smoker, guilt-ridden Joe believes that his throat cancer was caused exclusively by tobacco even though alcohol is associated far more closely with ailment.  The word of his cancer had barely hit the Hollywood press before the ghouls from the tobacco control industry came knocking making Eszterhas an offer that he couldn't refuse.

Instead of churning out scripts for diverting pot-boilers, poor Joe is shilling for notorious anti-tobacco activist Stanton Glantz who has received a bundle of grant dollars to advocate censorship in the movies.  Glantz has a loopy theory that smoking on the screen leads to minors taking up smoking.  Although the evidence for this is nil, nullity never stopped Glantz from turning a buck based on lies and ignorance.  

His latest scam does place him at odds with the moguls who produce movies.  If Glantz is successful in curbing on screen smoking then the movie industry is at least implicitly admitting that activities portrayed in film effects the behavior of those who view the product.  Drug addiction?  Caused by actors who smoke dope and shoot up on the screen.  Murder?  Caused also by films depicting all manner of violent rampage.  Sexual promiscuity?  Ditto.  Alcoholism?  Don't get us started on counting the number of beers and cocktails consumed within the course of most movies.

Eszterhas won't work again in Hollywood once he becomes identified with censorship and government regulation in the arts.  Becoming yet one more geek in the anti-tobacco freak show is a sad way to end a career.  Becoming a performing seal for such a one as Stanton Glantz is a fate worse than death.

December 1 - Showing Once Again That Tort Reform Is Vital - In what may be the first attempt to hold retailers liable for smoking-related illnesses, the family of an Agawam woman who died of a lung ailment is suing Stop & Shop and several convenience stores.  Thomas Kenefick III of Springfield, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Stop & Shop was named as a defendant because the deceased woman had bought cigarettes at its stores. Paul Martinek, editor of Lawyers Weekly USA, said he was unaware of any retailer being successfully sued for selling tobacco products.

"That is a stretch," Martinek said. "They've tried it in the gun litigation product liability cases, thus far without success. Smoking is probably more of a long shot."

Whether this suit is thrown out or not, damage has already occurred.  Stop & Shop customers will be hit with the costs of fighting this crazy suit.  On a more sublime level the public is always harmed when hyper-frivolous suits such as this are not tossed the moment they reach the desk of a judge.  This suit is modeled on the rash of law suits against gun manufacturers for selling to people who eventually misuse the product.  None of these gun suits have brought in the billions that the shysters envision but, as is shown by one suit that was filed four years ago and was dismissed last week, the clogged courts suffer when scarce resources are diverted to deal with baseless litigation.  Stop & Shop should file its own suit against the plaintiffs as well as the lawyers who egged them on.

December 1 - Selective Outrage - The Rev. Jim Thurman has launched a campaign to persuade Lexington store owners in predominantly black neighborhoods to stop advertising cigarettes on the sides of their buildings.  The Lexington man hopes less cigarette advertising will mean fewer smokers and fewer cigarette-related illnesses. For now, the focus is on outdoor advertising that is often posted by store owners.

"I think that it is praiseworthy that they have the energy and commitment to want to prevent young people from smoking," said Kentucky Action executive director Carol Roberts.

But Brown & Williamson spokesman Mark Smith wondered why Thurman is targeting its products and ignoring the beer signs that are still posted outside both Lexington stores.  "Why not go after bourbon, horse racing, fast foods, gasoline and any number of things in modern society that are communicated to consumers and which someone may have a problem with," he said.

The answer to the question posed by the cigarette company spokesman is easy to answer.  The self-righteous Jim Thurman is incensed only about cigarette ads because he was paid $10,000 to provide the "grass roots" façade in anti-tobacco's quest to snuff out tobacco advertising.  Neighborhood problems, whether black or white, are not due to tobacco use.  Alcohol causes the pathologies that the reverend should be addressing.  Societal effects from smoking are zip but bashing smokers and smoking is highly profitable for grifters and con men.  The big losers are the small store owners, all of whom in this story appear to be recent immigrants, who see their incomes reduced when anti-tobacco comes knocking.

December 1 - Scotland says no to a smoking ban - FOR once, I find myself in agreement with the Scottish Executive, which has decided to reject calls for a total smoking ban in all public places and, instead, do nothing.

This highly uncharacteristic move towards less government is probably no more than a blip, and the junior health minister, Tom McCabe, did say "a wider debate" was needed, leaving the door open for possible future action. But for now, at least, the good people of Scotland are to be trusted to harm or not to harm themselves as the spirit moves them, aware of the danger they present to society.

For as most smokers, Scottish or otherwise, appreciate, smoking is bad for the health. Passive smoking may be too, although the (scientific) jury still seems to be out on that one. And cigar-ettes are hellishly expensive - in Paris, where they are not so dear, smokers are rioting in the streets (streets, incidentally, in which they are permitted to smoke).

Why buck such authority, smokers? Why not just do as you’re told, give in gracefully and give up; or if you can’t do that, go into hiding with your filthy habit?

Why not? Because it is not illegal to buy cigarettes, therefore it cannot be made illegal to smoke them; because this is a free country; because doctors should be looking for cures for lung cancer, not preaching health propaganda; because cigarette smoking, direct or indirect, kills far fewer people annually than famine or AIDS or war or poverty, yet an inordinate proportion of global time and money is already invested in anti-tobacco lobbying.

The good news is the United Kingdom is not planning bar and restaurant smoking bans for now. The bad news is that such bans are considered in the first place. Secondhand smoke propaganda, based on idiotic statistical interpretations, is the favored ploy of tobacco prohibitionists. Rampant anti-smokers follow in the long tradition of fanatical movements, spreading hysteria and vilification, to wreak misery on those they senselessly hate. The situation has been sickening, only intensifying in the past year, beyond the point of nausea. There is nothing healthy about today's anti-smoking movement. It has become a horror. Fair minded persons  rebel against it. This article's author reacts by writing, in reference to her own smoking, "Nearly three years after quitting, I think I’ve found the incentive to start again." The anti-smoking boneheads have transformed that silly cigarette between your fingers, which you might one day have thrown away, into a virtual beacon of liberty, not so much for smoking anymore, as for waving. We're going to beat these nasty fascists, in the end, you know. There is no end to the resolve, of decency, against their kind.