ARTICLES
FROM OTHER SOURCES
Articles logged from April 2000 to July 2000
 CIGARS TO CARRY WARNING LABEL - Added June 27, 2000
- Cigar manufacturers have reached
an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to carry warnings on
cigar packages. Although their action can be described as
voluntary, it is clear that cigar makers hope to erect a firewall
between their industry and potential litigation over the alleged harm
their product causes to society. Anti-tobacco activists, who
have been overwhelming thwarted in their attempts to muscle into the
Tobacco Settlement between the major cigarette makers and the states,
are seeking new targets to replenish their funding.
The cigar makers concern over anti-consumer litigation is signaled by their willingness to surpass the warnings required for cigarettes. The cigar warnings will be patterned after those imposed on cigarettes by Canada and Australia in which the warnings will be placed on the front of the packages with black text on a white background. The warnings will also include one which states that second-hand smoke is harmful to non-smokers. In their desire to
curry favor with anti-tobacco special interests, the cigar makers are
contributing to the second-hand smoke fraud by imparting information
that is incorrect. Their attempt to protect themselves will fail
and in the process will damage their customers.
Even in hospitals,
smokers liven up a generally somber situation and turn the smoking
room into an agreeable oasis for themselves and their non-smoking
neighbors. The empty non-smoking room is wasted space. Given a pile of cash, via a state grant, to examine the behavior of tobacco-smoking adolescents, Zakarian uncovers a maelstrom of risky business. Blaming pathologies including poor study habits, drug use, anti-social behavior, physical laziness and insomnia on smoking, she finds little to make her happy with the young dental patients but what little she does find is a howler. The hapless researcher discovers that her smoking patients are just as inclined to practice good dental hygiene as those who don't smoke. Her chagrin in finding good news from the only area in which a dental health study should be concerned, is a hoot as is her "scientific" explanation for the youngsters' rigorous tooth-brushing habits. "The relative absence of this risk behavior [not brushing their teeth] might be attributable to teens’ efforts to freshen their breath after smoking," said Zakarian. You're such a card, Joy.
Keep up the good work and you may have a future as a Vegas lounge act.
Several years ago Richard Daynard received a tax-funded grant of $1-million to devise "creative" ways to sue the tobacco industry. As a consultant-for-hire, he worked with and advised the attorneys general who concocted the so-called tobacco settlement. He claims now that one of the vultures promised him a percentage of the booty worth hundreds of millions of dollars. We all know the shortcomings of the American press on the tobacco issue. The chosen role of most of the media has been to cheerlead the war against tobacco by trumpeting negative news and ignoring any news that contradicts the anti-tobacco line. We don't expect any better from the government/media complex and get our information from the expanding independent press. It comes as a shock, however, when a respected medical journal accepts a Daynard article, in which he praises the looting of the tobacco companies and their customers, and allows this man, who lives off such looting, to proclaim that he has no "competing interest" in tobacco litigation. Read the complete account
of Daynard's deception, the medical magazine's credulousness, or
worse, and just how much cash this pure and good ideologue hopes to
receive from the rape of an American industry.
Whatever other aggravations may have impelled the man to attack his wife, the outrageous fact remains that anti-tobacco hate campaigns are taking their toll on civilized behavior not only in North American but in the United Kingdom where this sad incident took place. Anti-tobacco hate groups provide the impetus for individuals such as the non-smoking husband to demand that people close to him stop smoking. The hatefulness travels full circle by justifying violence and murder against those who refuse to knuckle under. One wonders why Action on Smoking and Health, ASH, one of the most vicious anti-tobacco hate groups in the U.K. have had no comment on this deplorable case of attempted murder. Whenever there is a story regarding tobacco the publicity hogs at ASH are given oceans of print to peddle their lies and hate. Now that their rhetoric nearly caused a woman to lose her life, the ASH is unusually circumspect.
Minnesota is on it's way to becoming California of a thousand lakes unless decent citizens and the few remaining honest politicians put a stop to the misuse of state funds. The anti-tobacco enterprise is spending a fortune, obtained from smokers from the "settlement" with the tobacco industry, to buy support for its plan to ban smoking everywhere. Restaurateurs, bar owners,
civil libertarians, smokers and non-smokers must band together to
pressure the governor and the legislature to reclaim the settlement
money and use it for purposes that benefit the state. The money
may be stolen but that is no excuse to give it to the thieves whose
fanaticism will drive the taxpayers to bankruptcy.
"The Last
Cigarette", a new documentary by Kevin Rafferty, provides an
entertaining look at the activity that has the nannies in such a snit.
The reviewer from The San Francisco Chronicle gives the
program a rave review and promises that Rafferty's treatment of the
subject is no anti-tobacco screed. At the very least, younger
people should enjoy seeing cigarette advertisements which were allowed
on televisions screens in the days when this country actually had some
freedom. "The Last
Cigarette" is scheduled at 9:00 PM 4/21 in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Consult your local television listings for the time in
your part of the country.
Well, hallelujah. The
preceding is culled from an informative page on the American Civil Liberties Union web
sit. Other information contained therein should be of interest
to smokers and non-smokers who are concerned that civil liberties for
smokers are on the verge of extinction. FORCES, as well as many
other smokers' rights groups have been highly critical of the ACLU's
apparent inaction over the most egregious and widespread civil liberty
violations occurring at this time. The ACLU has been criticized
for moving mountains to support the civil liberties of tiny segments
of society such as transvestites and traditional Nazis while ignoring
the plight of the 25 to 30 percent of adults who smoke tobacco. A close perusal of the
Lifestyle Discrimination page reveals that the information contained
needs some updating, however it is encouraging that the ACLU gave
serious thought to an accelerating problem that is daily growing much
worse. It's up to smokers to prod the ACLU into action on the
smoking discrimination issue and it's up to the ACLU to live up to its
mission of protecting the civil liberties of ALL Americans.
The condition Ritalin
supposedly helps, Attention Deficit Disorder, is one that occurs
nowhere on earth except in the Axis of Hypochondria, Canada and the
United States. The Pharmaceuticals have made a fortune pushing
this dangerous drug to gullible school districts and parents whose
coping skills break down when boys behave like boys. While the doping of a
generation occurs, the anti-tobacco cartel deflects attention from
this serious health threat by fanning the flames of hysteria over
tobacco. Although not ONE CHILD has ever been harmed by smoking
tobacco, the cartel and opportunistic politicians like President
Clinton parrot the anti-smoking line promulgated by Pharmaceutical
front groups such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. How many more children will
be killed before the rapacious Pharmaceuticals and their government
shills are called to account?
The most hypocritical
of the free speech mufflers, of course, preside over politically
correct fiefdoms in California. In San Francisco, Board of
Supervisors member Gavin Newsome came close to tears as he railed
against the perfidy of the cigarette manufacturers and their seductive
billboards. Lost in his lugubrious performance was the
interesting fact that Mr. Newsome makes his living selling booze and
at the time of his threnody against billboards a huge sign touting his
wine shop overlooked the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. San
Francisco is now awash in alcohol ads, the largest taking the place of
cigarette billboards. The City of West
Hollywood surpasses even San Francisco in hypocrisy and the city
council contemplates the return of Philip Morris to the Sunset Strip,
this time selling the product that actually does do some harm "to
the children".
Although this excellent
article, appearing on Quackwatch, does
not specifically address the anti-tobacco propaganda drowning this
nation in a flood of lies, the techniques described dovetail very
nicely with tactics used by the anti-tobacco enterprise. What
works for anti-tobacco fraud works equally well for the myriad health
scares that are making this nation the laughingstock of the world.
Just another tobacco
story in a city that still calls itself sophisticated and
tolerant. Read it and cry as the results of anti-tobacco run
roughshod over people who only want to be left alone to enjoy a lawful
product that is an integral part of American culture. San Francisco
Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross deserve kudos
for reporting the effects that logically follow when a gaggle of
politicians spit on The Constitution to curry favor with the
anti-tobacco enterprise by banning smoking from every state bar. What's missing from
this sad story is the sequence of events that led to last week's
fracas. After smoking was
banned in California's bars in 1998, San Francisco made an initial
show of ensuring the bars enforced the ban. After summoning a
bunch of bar owners before a Public Health tribunal where each was
exonerated the city considered that it had done its duty and
discretely bowed out of the lifestyle enforcement business. The law,
after all, is written so that bars are in compliance merely if they
post no smoking signs and inform the customers of the law. After over a year of
widespread non-compliance, the American Heart Association threatened
to sue the city for not enforcing the law. Enter Louise Renne, a
long-time political hack whose tenure as City Attorney has been marked
by a level of mediocrity not often seen even in the clubby San
Francisco political scene. Renne metamorphosed
into a strident born-again anti-smoker who embarked on a campaign of
harassment against selected bar owners even though the Mayor and the
Board of Supervisors have let it be known that smoking in bars is not
anywhere near the top of the list of their priorities. What's in it for Renne?
The Heart Association and its fellow racketeers have tons of money, in
large part ripped off from the taxpayers, with which a multitude of
highly paid salaries can be divvied up to their buddies. When
her overdue occupation of the City Attorney's office ends, Renne's
over-the-top vendetta against smokers will pay highly remunerative
dividends.
The facts are unassailable.
As this excellent article from Guest
Choice Network makes clear, smoking bans, in addition to being a
violation of civil liberties, are disastrous for small businesses.
In a rational world the smoking bans enacted throughout the United
States during the past five years should be falling like dominos.
That the status quo remains intact is a situation that screams for
aggressive action. Several years ago a
delegation of FORCES members met with a member of the Board of
Supervisors in San Francisco soon after the state had banned smoking
everywhere. They presented her with the Congressional Research
Services' analysis of the EPA's secondhand smoke study. The
analysis, presenting a clear indictment of the methodology the EPA
used to ignite the bogus scare of secondhand smoke, is so easy to
understand that even the member of the Board of Supervisors conceded
that the total ban obviously had gone too far. As to what she
would do about ameliorating the ban, the Supervisor, in a rare moment
of candor said, "Facts! Facts! Who cares about facts!
We're talking public opinion here." Since then the case against
banning smoking for health reasons has become stronger. No
independent scientist now claims with a straight face that secondhand
smoke poses any health hazard and yet the bans persist. Politically correct is a
euphemism for political corruption. The big money behind the
smoking bans, other than that extorted from the taxpayers, is supplied
by the big pharmaceutical corporations and their
"non-profit" front groups. Big money buys big
politicians and restaurant/bar interests have not competed effectively
with the anti-tobacco special interest groups. The U.S. Department of
Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory findings that bartenders in the
smokiest of bars are not at risk is yet more evidence that the smoking
bans are strictly political in nature. To overturn the ludicrous
smoking bans, the food, beverage and hospitality industries must
realize they are in a fight for their lives and conduct themselves
accordingly.
Never have the odds been so
good. After seven years of the lawless Clinton
administration plus billions of dollars worth of anti-tobacco
propaganda, the fix is finally in; you can take your baseless
grievances to court and win the big spin. A recent verdict in San
Francisco orders Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds to pay $20 million to a
woman who claims smoking gave her lung cancer. Since proof is as
rare as a politician with balls, it is never evident at the tobacco
show trials. The San Francisco verdict, in which the fact that
the smoker began smoking after labels on cigarette packs
warned that lung cancer may result was judged irrelevant, increases
the odds that anyone claiming any ailment may hit the jackpot in
court. The lawyers and malingerers are ecstatic.
Strangely the media
isn't reporting the precipitous slide in value of Drkoop.com.
Nor is it reporting the numerous "irregularities" that have
occurred during the stock's wild ride from its high of $45.75 per
share to its current price of $3.69 even though one of their own, Dr. Nancy Snyderman,
was embroiled in shenanigans. Strangest of all is
how anti-tobacco, in all its aspects, is always revealed to be a sham.
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