October 31 - EXAMINE THE SOURCE

• Smokers who want to kick the habit can triple their chances of quitting by sucking a lozenge, claim scientists.

• The new nicotine replacement lozenge has been hailed as a significant weapon in the fight against tobacco addiction.

• Scientists found it had a success rate unsurpassed by any other form of nicotine replacement therapy such as patches or chewing gum.

And who do these scientists work for?  Why, GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of the miracle cessation lozenge!  If the tobacco industry -- or any other industry, for that matter -- attempted to pull this stunt of hyping its own product using "scientific" research funded by and produced by itself, the guffaws from the media would be deafening.  Since the product relates directly to smoking, however, the media passes of this blatantly self-serving press release as "news".

Never forget that smoking cessation devices are 85% unsuccessful.  A failure rate that dismal would bring down the wrath of the "truth in advertising" crowd on any other industry.  Forget the lozenges and keep smoking.

October 31 - BUYING DOCTOR'S SUPPORT -  We cannot turn around in Atlanta without pharmaceutical companies trying to give us gifts, feed us at the Ritz-Carlton, or introduce us to some celebrity. This is all part of the estimated $13,000 per American physician per year the companies spend trying to influence doctors’ choices of prescription medicines for our patients

The hyper-saturation of drug ads on television and radio is fairly knew, a gift to Big Drugs from former FDA director David Kessler, while passing out goodies to doctors has been a favorite tactic for a very long time.  The difference now is that instead of a novelty pen or cheap paperweight the drug companies' bribe budget has grown apace with its massive donations to politicians.  The largesse is paying big dividends as the government's message of "you must stop smoking" is combined with the family doctor's message of "to stop smoking you must take this cessation pill, patch, gum, lozenge, drink".

October 31 - Addictive, huh? - OSU SMOKING STUDY GETS $850,000 BOOST - Smoking is supposed to be sooo addictive, according to some "experts", that it's harder to quit than heroine. So why do cessation rates rise dramatically when people are paid to quit smoking? Because money talks, that's why - and phoney addiction can be effectively "treated" with real cash incentives. We are intrigued by this latest study, in which pregnant women and - note this - their "social support partners" were given cash if the women stopped smoking. Nothing is said in the article about the socio-economic status of these women. We have a theory we'd like to test in a study of our own: the poorer the women are, the higher the cessation rate will be - and really financially desperate women will have a cessation rate of nearly 100 per cent! We're also willing to bet that with the "surprising success" of programs such as the one desribed here, we'll see rising numbers of social control freaks in support of behaviour control contracts between disadvantaged people and their kindly, wise state benefactors. Can we have a grant for further study, too? For more information about the "addiction" to smoking, click here. 

October 30 - FREEDOM SNUFFED OUT  - So forget freedom. Majority rules. Minorities submit. The parks aren't big enough for smokers and nonsmokers.  Figure freedom's just another word for nothing really learned. Or freedom is only for good people doing good things -- and Perry and Vasquez get to decide what's good.

Excellent article from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders regarding the proposal to ban smoking from every square inch of park land in Los Angeles.  One by one she addresses each of the points the anti-smoker crowd advances and demolishes them completely.  Hard-hitting and witty, this piece is a must read for those to whom freedom is not just another word. 

October 30 - ADVICE FOR MARGINALISED NON-SMOKERS: MUNCH ON SOME FRUIT OR HAVE ONE OF OURS - As this Guardian article reveals, the smoking-permitted area - even when confined to the back door near the rubbish bins - is often where the real social action is. "It's where a lot of vital information is passed," says Sarah Ridgard, who has worked in many offices. "It can make non-smokers feel insecure. A them-and-us situation can develop. As a non-smoker, you can either join in or get resentful." Here - have a smoke; smokers are beautiful!

October 30 - ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: HOW ITS GRANTS INFLUENCE COLORADO'S STATE HEALTH POLICY - "Since 1988, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has spent more than $30 million on health care policy grants in the state of Colorado. In a state with a Department of Health Care Policy and Financing that has just 166 full-time equivalent employees and a legislature that looks closely at adding even one staff position, this is more than enough money to buy policy." From Foundation Watch, an enlightening article about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, prime funder of antitobacco, and its role in shaping health care policy in just one state. We suggest that RWJ reconstitute itself as a political party (instead of pulling the strings of the public health marionettes from "behind the scenes"), so that people can have a chance to vote for - or against -- the people who are actually shaping public policy. That's what's supposed to happen in a democracy, isn't it? (… isn't it?)

October 30 - Reforming Public Health  -  In recent years, the public-health establishment in this country has occupied itself mainly with being a nuisance. When the American Public Health Association hasn't been busy harassing smokers and gun owners or declaring one or another pesticide a menace to society, it's been issuing statements of solidarity with the Communist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Instead of protecting citizens from deadly microbes, public-health workers were more and more concerned with protecting people from themselves. Instead of food safety, attention was now given to what people ate (or, God forbid, smoked). Instead of vaccination, the focus was now on access to hospitals for the poor.

No one can deny that once Public Health had an honorable place in society.  Those days are long gone as its mission changed from eradicating disease to eradicating behavior its bureaucrats found too lower class.  Like a giant sponge, Public Health, soaks up oceans of public dollars while dribbling out services the public doesn't want or need.  This time of crisis is exactly the right time to boot Public Health in its fat rear end and whip it into shape.

October 30  - SPARE THE AIR!  BAN SMOKING - "Going to a park is critical to the mental health of many residents, and they want to enjoy it without having to deal with the risks of second-hand smoke," she said. "People opposed to this made the same arguments when we were banning smoking inside restaurants and bars. They don't have a good case."

Thus speaks Jan Perry, the Los Angeles city council member who wants to ban smoking from every square inch of the city's parks.  Read it and wonder at the mentality of people who would put such a fool in power.  Perry is not to blame.  She is doing as her patrons, the pharmaceutical companies, decree.  She does not have one valid point to make but in this era of lethargy she doesn't have to make any valid points to get her way.

Should the city support Perry's vicious law, smoking will continue in the city parks.  Los Angeles is not the first city to embark on the dangerous path of apartheid.  Other cities have banned smoking in portions of public parks or even from city sidewalks.  The primary result of these smoking bans is that they provide a politically correct method to roust the undesirables.  Cities such as Palo Alto, Berkeley and Los Angeles that are soooo sensitive to the homeless would never roust the homeless from public places where they are a real nuisance.  Laws forbidding smoking in parks provide a cover for law enforcement to kick the homeless out of the parks.  The "good" people will never be ticketed for smoking.

The pioneer in outdoor smoking bans was Alfred Muller, the mayor of Friendship Heights, a suburb of Washington, DC., who attempted to ban smoking from all the town's sidewalks, streets and parks.  Muller's law never went into effect for various technical reasons.  

Alfred Muller is the poster boy who accurately represents all rabidly anti-smokers.  Soon after banning smoking in his town, the good mayor was arrested for sexually abusing a child, giving new meaning "for the children".  Miller pled guilty and is now on probation.  His case proves once again that anti-tobacco is a mental illness.

October 30  - DEAR GOVERNOR DAVIS - The state of the State of California is not good.  The huge surpluses are gone.  There is an energy crisis.  The tourists are fleeing.  Governor Gray Davis is doing what governors should do in trying to build morale and get the economy moving again.  Unfortunately the state legislature and a myriad of special interests are doing their best to bring the state down further.  A Southern California resident can see through the smokescreen and sends some simple advice to the governor.

October 29  - GOOD NEWS FROM FLORIDA - Reported by Wanda Hamilton:

Florida state legislators cut $14.5 million from the state anti-tobacco campaign despite heavy lobbying, political threats and a barrage of anti ads in state newspapers.

October 29  - PLYMOUTH SETBACK - 

• "They don't have to worry about me," Dorsey Carey of Handlebar Harry's said after the vote. "They put me out of business."
• Michele O'Connor, a waitress at the Mayflower Restaurant on Plymouth's waterfront, said the ban has cut her income by 60 percent and forced her to seek employment in another field.  I can't make it," said the single mother of two, who made up to $80 in tips for a seven-hour lunch shift before the ban. She said she made only $22 Tuesday.
• "I don't need somebody to protect me from second-hand smoke," said Marsha Wilson, a waitress at Handlebar Harry's. "I've been doing this for 40 years and I'm not about to change my profession. I'd like to make a living. I'd like to take care of my household."
• "Open your own restaurant," said Michael Pimental, owner of Ernie's Restaurant, "but let me run mine the way I want to."
• "Patriotism means much more than displaying a flag," John Bonasera said. "It means freedom. This smoking ban takes away some of our freedoms. The smoking ban is un-American. Vote yes to preserve our freedom."

October 29  - DEADLY NAILS - Demonstrating yet again that grant junkies are completely oblivious to national priorities, a bunch of them on a junket to San Francisco issued a study that finds danger lurking beneath those polished fingernails.  The veritable petrie dish of contagion hiding under fashionable nails makes the researchers gag.  The crisis must be addressed.

Vigorous washing - at least 15 seconds  - is mentioned as a solution but the nanny who conducted the study has a much better solution, more in line with America's drive to infantalize the country:  

October 29  - BAYER LOGO SHOWS DRUG FIRM, OTTAWA, "JOINED AT THE HIP, NDP LEADER SAYS - From Canada, a thoroughly modern case of confusion over where the public sector ends and the private sector begins. What was an official Canadian government news release doing displaying a pharmaceutical company logo? For New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough, it was evidence that the government and the industry are "joined at the hip." Bold - and hypocritical - words from a political party whose provincial counterparts in British Columbia led the pack in pharma-sponsored anti-smoking intolerance and junk science just a few years ago. Canucks who vote for the NDP hoping for a clean-up of corruption will get what B.C. got - a ruined economy and a legacy of intolerant legislation unworthy of a free society. And, yes -- even more new-age confusion over what is public and what is private.

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