ARTICLES FROM OTHER
SOURCES
ARCHIVE 51
Articles logged from August to August 2000
 FEDERAL DRUG PUSHERS - Added August 29, 2000 - The University of Arizona has launched a program in Tucson to bribe
teenagers to join a study on the effectiveness of Zyban, a stop-smoking drug currently
only available for adults. As reported in the August 27 edition of the Arizona
Daily Star, the university is offering 14-17 years old cash to hook themselves onto
Zyban to see whether the drug makes them stop smoking. The goal of the study, funded
by the National Cancer Institute, is to build the case to approve Zyban for teen
use. The University of Arizona has an extensive history of collaboration with
pharmaceutical interests. In 1997 it accepted a $3-million grant from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, a front for Johnson & Johnson, the distributors of Nicotrol
patches. Rarely has the partnership between anti-tobacco and the Drug Industry been more blatant. In this instance the state of Arizona, as well as the federal government, are doing the bidding of Glaxo Wellcome, the manufacturer of Zyban. Local citizens have been recruited to provide other inducements for hooking the kids on drugs. Scott Cassell, owner of a local movie house, is donating 1,200 two-person passes to his theater to attract test subjects. As quoted in the Arizona Daily Star: "I think it's good for any business to help out in the community. If we can help curb teen-age smoking, that would be great," opines Cassell. When helping out the community equates to pimping for Big Drugs and parents don't scream to high heaven over federal peddling of useless drugs, it's clear that anti-tobacco is a mental illness.
The latest analysis from the Centers for Disease Control, as reported by the Associated Press, is of interest in that the anti-tobacco crowd admits that teen smoking rates sky-rocketed during the 1990's, the decade in which anti-tobacco education, coupled with smoker demonization, entered the national scene full tilt. Sensible folks draw the conclusion that anti-tobacco education results in higher minor smoking rates. Anti-tobacco operatives are belatedly wising up and have changed the tone of their message. The slight decrease in smoking rates reported by the CDC are proof that anti-tobacco education works and what needs to be done is - hold your breath - spend more money. Wanda Hamilton sums it up best: "...the anti groups in EVERY state always want MORE MONEY. If the smoking rate in a state goes up, the antis say that shows they need more money; if the smoking rate goes down, they say that shows they need more money because they have been so "successful"; if the smoking rate stays the same, they say they need more money because it's not going down. The one constant with these people (and "these people" are always professionally headed by the American Cancer Society and/or the American Lung Association) is the cry for more MONEY. And they will do anything to get it--spend tons of money on ads against politicians, pay tons of money to their PR firms, lie, lobby, threaten, sue--anything to get the MONEY. I think the legislators and the public are finally catching on. I think maybe legislators and the public are even realizing that while the anti-tobacco industry is wasting millions and millions of dollars on ads, travel, meetings and parties, kids are going hungry and being abused and not getting decent educations because there isn't enough money for programs on these really important issues. Of course, the antis are also getting big bucks from the pharmaceuticals to push their cessation products and raise the price of cigarettes, so why should the taxpayers have to give them additional money to market Big Drugs' products for them?" Oddly enough Ms. Hamilton's contention is confirmed in the third to the last paragraph by a flack for the American Cancer Society. It's not about "kids". It's not about health. It's only about big money.
Councilman Paul Koretz introduced legislation that permits landlords to refuse to rent to smokers and evict those who do. Since these days all political action is personal, Koretz drafted this law because some relatives contracted lung cancer and some constituents have complained about a neighbor who smokes his cigar on his balcony. He is aided by the state's Tobacco Control Section which has recently begun placing advertisements in "progressive" newspapers advising landlords on how to throw out smoking tenants. Although anti-tobacco comes as naturally to left-wing politicians as a bleeding heart and jerking knees, Koretz' comrades on the city council are troubled by his proposed law. Concern with the high number of AIDS sufferers who smoke medical marijuana as well as the large number of tobacco-smoking recent immigrants has hampered what should have been a slam-dunk, screw-the-smokers drive to "send a message" to the tobacco industry. Concern over the hard-working, tax-paying tobacco smokers who fund the city's abundant social programs has not yet appeared. What doesn't seem to have occurred to Koretz and the other city council members is that writing discrimination into city code is a very slippery slope on which to tread. With such a law bigots of all stripes could refuse to rent to those groups - racial, religious, sexual-orientation - they don't like as long as the landlord believes that the prospective tenant smokes. Welcome to 1930's Berlin.
Opposition to Schiff's bill included arguments that cigarette-fire deaths are declining, cooler burning cigarettes would require harmful chemicals, federal interstate commerce laws preempt state legislation and that such cigarettes wouldn't taste good. The only biggest laugh was generated by the California Taxpayers' Association which contended that the altered cigarettes might cause smokers to buy their smokes out of state. Since the dramatic rise in the state tobacco tax a year ago, millions of dollars have been diverted from the state's coffers as exasperated smokers flock to purchase their cigarettes out of state.
Very quickly the gloss on drkoop.com began to tarnish. Allegations of insider trading involving TV doc Nancy Snyderman as well as a sharp plunge in share value frightened investors and caught the attention of regulators. Last month a complaint was filed in United States District Court alleging violations of the federal securities law. On Monday drkoop.com, Inc. announced that the SEC is conducting an investigation into whether the company violated securities laws. Quite a turn of events for the man who thundered from the pulpit the sins of the tobacco industry. One could shed a tear for a man who is discovering that it's much easier to destroy corporations than it is to build them but considering the harm he has wrought on America's smokers, the ducts dry up.
Americans for Individual Rights (AIR) brought a pre-trial motion on behalf of John Johnson, owner of Lucky John's and an employee who had been issued citations issued against both individuals. Local authorities welcomed the court's ruling. As bar customers continue to widely flout the smoking ban, it is growing clearer that the state law needs an overhaul. Businesses that comply loose money and those that don't face fines and persecution by officious public officials. AIR is to be congratulated for relieving some of the unwarranted pressure on tax-paying businesses.
"I feel like I need to zip my jacket in a plastic bag every time I go out to a restaurant." Thus whined Serena Chen, an anti-tobacco operative from Oakland, CA. Years of living in California, the NO SMOKING state, have so sharpened Serena's nose that her sensitivity to smoke is ultra-sensitive. So sensitive is dainty Serena that she has forgotten the old, and useful, adage of "when in Rome, etc.". Serena's fortunate that Chicago, smoky though it is, is not the Chicago of old where whiny complaints of a smoky jacket may have resulted not in a plastic bag encasement but in an encasement more useful; a cement overcoat.
The Ohio law is ripe for circumvention but the mere fact that adults allow their legislators to crank out laws such as this is proof that Americans accept their status as confused infants who must be tightly controlled. People get the sort of government that they deserve but do Americans really want laws that give law enforcement the right to search a keg party without a warrant?
These disgraceful squabbles are becoming common as the anti-tobacco fund junkies face a hard political fact. Legislatures and executive branches of the state governments from coast to coast are showing they are far tougher than even the most hard-boiled tobacco funding shakedown artist. When faced with turning over funds they can use to run their states, and make themselves look good to the voters, politicians of all stripes are telling anti-tobacco to take a hike.
Bush's comments about Clinton's suit reinforce his desire to reform the out-of-control U.S. tort system. The trial lawyers are mighty worried that their ride on the gravy train is coming to an end and are pouring piles of cash into the campaign of Vice-President Al Gore.
The relentless harangue has produced the predictable result of people concealing information from their doctors or worse, not seeking medical attention at all, to avoid the relentless nagging that the war on tobacco has wrought. In a win for the good guys, a particularly odious practitioner has been forced to retire. The lesson from the sacking of the anti-tobacco doc is that complaints carry weight with hospital administrators. Whenever confronted with a doctor who ignores the Hippocratic Oath, who pretends that smoking is the font of all ailments or expresses a moral disapproval for tobacco, make it plain that this sort of conduct is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Fortunately, whining government do not seem to be heard favourably by US courts - yet - but that may change with the appropriate political intimidation by the antismoking gang. Why is this happening in Europe? Because the antismoking cancer is instigated mainly by the World Health Organisation, strong arm of the US government and of the pharmaceutical multinationals. For a documented review of the level of corruption of this organisation, and its plans for the future, click here. To specifically see how the WHO is divulging litigation and false information on tobacco, click here.
However, according to the Center for Disease Control (which is accusing tobacco of being such a killer), the SAMMEC (Smoking Attributable Mortality, Morbidity and Economic Costs) program shows that: The average life is 70 years, while the average life of the 400,000 + smoking "victims" dying "prematurely" is 71.9 years, while 70,000 of them die "prematurely" at ages greater than 85. "By age 75," says the "study"?… Now, since one has to die of something, it is quite possible that if you are a smoker you have a greater chance of dying of lung cancer, while if you are a non-smoker you have a greater chance of dying of something else – and at a younger age, according to the CDC's own data! Perhaps Peto and the antismoking cartel mean to imply that if you don’t smoke you don’t get sick, thus if you don’t get sick you don’t (ever) die? Just how old do you have to get before they stop logging your death as "premature"? Well, if Mathusela were a smoker, they would log him too!
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" For example,
men who smoke five or fewer cigarettes a day for a lifetime have a 10 percent chance of
dying of lung cancer by age 75," trumpets the Washington Post, whose BOD member
James E. Burke is also a BOD member of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and former CEO
and Chairman of the Board of Johnson & Johnson from l976 to l989. Unbiased
information?! Imagine what would happen if Mr. Burke were on the BOD of Philip Morris!