Although DeSouza's intention was not to inform the public, she deserves a gold star for acknowledging the veracity of popular wisdom.

April 30 - Same Old, Same Old -  "Cigarette bootlegging is not a new trend, as police and state taxation investigators have been seizing untaxed tobacco for years. But the state tax has climbed to $1.50 a pack and pushed the price for a carton -- 10 packs -- to around $50 in New York. Smugglers can make more than $20 a carton by purchasing cigarettes from distributors in states like Virginia and North Carolina and reselling them in this state.

"When there's a profit to be made, somebody's going to try and make it, and there will be a market for smuggling,'' said State Police Capt. John A. Byrne. "We've had cases in the past where people have gone down to the Carolinas and come back with truckloads of cigarettes.''

The cops know what is going on.  Too bad the politicians never seem to.  When smuggling is defined as driving a car to a low-tax state, stocking up on cartons of cigarettes, then driving home and selling them to people more than happy to pay a civilized price for a popular product, smuggling will indeed skyrocket in the wake of raising New York State's tobacco tax to an unreasonable limit.  Politicians never believe that people will not pay for overpriced goods.  Economic reality means that as time goes by, fewer people will buy cigarettes adorned with the state's tax stamp.  Eventually there will be violence, extreme loss of revenue and a generalized contempt for the law and those who pass laws.  The tax will ultimately be reduced and the smuggling will evaporate.

April 30 - A Startling Admission -  Those who have doubts about the efficacy of smoking cessation therapies had those doubts confirmed by one of the major players in smoking cessation treatment.  In a study that is designed to promote over-the-counter sales of smoking cessation products, GlaxoSmithKline reports that such sales "yield smoking cessation success rates as good as when administered under a physician's prescription".  In other words, eliminating the doctor, or any other professional, from the equation makes little difference in the success of smoking cessation treatment.

This conclusion is hardly surprising since increased sales of these products is GlaxoSmithKline's goal.  Persuading smokers to buy cessation devices without the hassle of making an appointment with a doctor should increase sales for those companies in the cessation business.  What is surprising is that by comparing the stop-smoking effective rate between smokers who self-administer the products with those who obtain the devices via their doctor, GlaxoSmithKline lets the cat out of the bag.

Nicotine gum users who obtain their gum over-the-counter had, at six weeks, a verified success rate of 16.1 percent compared to 7.7 percent for those who involve their doctor.  At six months the over-the-counter crowd had achieved a 8.4 percent cessation rate compared to the unchanged rate of  7.7 percent for those who obtained the nicotine gum from their doctors.

For nicotine patches the comparisons were similar with a six-week success rate of 19.0 for those buying over-the-counter and 16.0 for physician-assisted cessation treatment.  At six months the cessation rates plunged to 9.2 percent and a miserable 3.0 percent cessation for those whose doctors supplied the patches.

A better way of looking at this is to say that the failure rate for nicotine gum treatment ranges from a low of 83.9 percent to a high of 92.3 percent.  For the patch the failure rate is 81 percent to 97 percent.  For both, the failure rate dramatically rises the longer the individual uses the devices.  Had GlaxoSmithKline reported on the cessation rates at one year, the failure rate would most likely have been nearly 100 percent. These failure rates are astonishing and would warrant an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration if any other drug or medication were involved.  Consumer groups would be screaming about the deception of the innumerable advertisements on television and radio that never mention these products' astronomical failure rates.  The news is not that over-the-counter cessation sales are as effective as doctor-initiated sales but that both are abominable failures and a monumental waste of time and money. 

April 29 - The doctor made me do it - ‘Doctors are a credible source of information about health, and they can use that credibility in brief ways to encourage patients to improve their health," says report co-author Dr. Evelyn Whitlock. "People need to understand that 50 percent of morbidity and mortality is related to lifestyle choices," she adds. ‘

Judging from what we are told about the dangers of smoking at least (never mind the rest) credibility is exactly what is desperately lacking in public health and in the medical profession – and this is probably the very reason why "studies" beg us to believe the health cartel. Think about that: an establishment that should be based on verifiable science is asking us to "believe" – a word in the past reserved almost exclusively to politics and religions. The medical profession gets to the point of telling us what kind of vehicle we have to buy, what to eat, how to run our lives in the smallest detail. It establishes moral values -- and argues for higher taxes. It tells us that living is a risk for death and disease - then it dares ask for our trust. Perhaps the most coherent doctor is Kevorkian… a nice quiet assisted suicide is certainly a sure way to eliminate all risk!

To be fair, the Indiana school district that made the decision that Mahon's non-crime must be punished, are themselves victims of the constant pressure by the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Association.  Zero tolerance is one of the doctrines sacred to anti-tobacco and as its religious beliefs have permeated the American public school system more and more students fall prey to its bigotry.  The American Civil Liberties Union took on the case of young Mahon because it was concerned that he was being punished for doing something legal off school premises.  The ACLU should also look at the font of the school's irrational policy; the anti-tobacco organizations that are imposing its religion everywhere.

April 29 - Lose Weight But Don't Smoke.  Don't Smoke But Don't Get Fat -  "The weight-control benefits of smoking cigarettes do not offset the elevated risk of heart disease associated with smoking, researchers reported Thursday at the American Heart Association's  Asia Pacific Scientific Forum in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"The risk of dying of heart disease is so much greater than any benefit from cigarette smoking," lead author Dr. Daniel T. Lackland, a professor of epidemiology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, told Reuters Health."

The American Heart Association's flack catchers are responding to recent studies that actually do say that fit smokers, namely those who aren't overweight and who exercise regularly, are better off than overweight non-smokers.  It's also no secret that smokers on the average are less prone to obesity than are non-smokers.  As the war on fat heats up expect to see a plethora of competing studies ranking which is worse, fat or smoke.  Behind each study is a special interest group that has a huge financial stake in convincing the government that its "disease" is the most deadly.  Sometimes the special interests work both sides of the street.

The paradox is that for years statistics have shown that Hispanics are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to die of heart disease, even though they have higher rates of obesity and diabetes, both major risk factors for cardiovascular problems.  Since there must be no group exempt from the upcoming shakedown, researchers have produced studies that proclaim the s-called paradox is a sham.  Hispanics, at least in the United States, are more likely to die of heart disease than non-Hispanic whites.

"It doesn't surprise me that [Mexican Americans] are having more health problems as they adapt to the American lifestyle," says Dr. Andrew Hauser, director of the cardiac ultrasound lab at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., and president of the Detroit chapter of the American Heart Association. "No one can depend on their national heritage to keep them out of the hospital or the morgue."

That American lifestyle, of course, is the panic-inducing, hyper-hypochondria that is necessary to keep the American Heart Association in business.

The results of this great discovery will be announced in New York on the 29^th and 30^th of April. Thanks to the miracle of multifactorial epidemiology we have cancer risks galore without even knowing what we have measured. The fact that this way to proceed is unscientific, false, and profoundly dishonest is not even considered. If it were, hundreds of thousands of scientific cons and bureaucrats around the world would be out of jobs - or even in jail.

At any rate, if you thought you could quit smoking by chewing gum, you may as well forget it: cancer follows you everywhere! And what do you say to those non smokers who blow passive vinyl acetate in your face? Click here to link to the article (Italian).

April 26 - High Taxes Produce Happy Smiles -  Okay greedy politicians, hike the tobacco tax to even greater heights!  Smokers love it.  They higher the tax the happier they are.  Not only are smokers ugly and the walking dead, they also are hard core masochists who want to be swatted harder.

Two MIT economists have a great future in writing satire if their recent study concluding that smokers are better off the higher the cigarette tax is representative of their inventiveness.  Not only are smokers forced to quit because of high prices, thereby launching themselves onto the path of blessedness but even those stubborn smokers who persist on puffing the overpriced smokes are happier than if cigarettes cost what they are worth.  As these to jokers note:

This is brilliance worthy of Jonathan Swift and rivals his treatise advocating eating babies to solve the hunger problem in 17th century Ireland.  Keep it up boys.  Measuring happiness in percentiles is pure genius.

April 25 - GOVERNOR:  NO NEW TAXES - "Facing the worst budget deficit in the state's history, Gov. Gray Davis said yesterday that he intends to solve the money woes without raising taxes.  Davis, faced with reports California may have a $22 billion state budget shortage, said he is planning a new "worst-case scenario."

Rest assured that the "worst-case scenario" will not include any meaningful cut in California's lavish spending on social programs that the electorate neither wants nor has heard of.  The squealing of special interests, would be heard from Chula Vista to Crescent City and would collapse the Tower of Babel known as the state capitol.

There are two chic tax proposals currently under consideration.  One would establish a tax on soft drinks to be used for anti-fat education, the other would increase the tobacco tax to provide for...anti-tobacco education.  Both are being pushed by the special interests that would spend the loot and wouldn't benefit the state's citizens in the least.  If Governor Davis manages to keep his promise he may yet have a future.

"This is very invasive of privacy and it'll just be getting worse and worse. I worry for the future."

Anti-tobacco's plan to make infants of us all is hitting universities in a big way.  As towns in Massachusetts outlaw smoking, the special interests are now targeting institutions of higher learning.  How treating young adults like children, forcing them to hide their smoking like girls in a convent school, can lead to productive, independent citizens is a problem that will be left for society to solve long after anti-tobacco has gone the way of the Dodo bird.

This story is fair and points out one glaring lie promulgated by anti-tobacco:

"Health boards in Framingham, Weymouth and Canton recently pushed for smoke-free establishments and now encourage neighboring towns to follow their lead, so as not to hurt local business."

These cities were promised that banning smoking was good for business, now, rather than admit the smoking ban is hurting the local economy, these weak-minded cities want neighboring towns to ban smoking so their residents won't cross city lines to go to smoking-friendly restaurants and bars. 

April 22 - Gender Selection -  "The decline is absolutely minuscule, but it's there. It's genuine," said William James, a researcher at University College in London who has also studied sex ratios.

The proportion of males "has declined in most developed countries. In the United States it has gone down in the white population but up in the black population," said James, who was not involved in the study. "It has gone down in Italian cities, but up in the Italian provinces. It's moving all over the place and I think nobody really knows why."

Whatever the phenomenon, in this case the supposed decline in boy births, the explanation is always smoking.  With so many possible variables, to concentrate on smoking is hardly looking a the big picture.  Although the decline may be real and is worthy of study, the researchers, always hoping to obtain anti-tobacco funding for their studies, are doing the public a terrible disservice by gearing their work towards yet more tobacco demonization.

April  19 - Choice Advocates Go On The Offensive -  Learning how not to fight watching the tobacco industry roll for charlatans and shakedown artists, food interests are reaching out to the consumer with ads educating them about the politically motivated studies cranked out to initiate the war on fat.  A series of radios make fun of and spoof the dire warnings that what we eat is killing us.

The special interest groups who hope to make a killing off food taxes and lawsuits are fuming.  The script, written during the tobacco wars, is being violated by an industry that is standing up for itself rather than hoping to placate its enemies.  Even the government is not off limits as the crazy new way of determining obesity is lampooned.  For some good clean fun, go to the website and find out what your body mass index is.  Find out what famous athletes are considered overweight by the new method that overnight rendered 30 million Americans fat.

April  19 - End Of An Era -  On of the under-reported aspects of the war on tobacco is the drive to eliminate tobacco farming in the country.  Although smoking hasn't decreased in over a decade, more of the tobacco being smoked is grown outside the United States.  What anti-tobacco hasn't been able to achieve by reducing smoking, it is achieving by bribery and coercion.

Western Maryland is undergoing an end to an honorable and productive era by rapidly pressuring farmers to stop growing tobacco.  The same people who preach diversity are inch by inch remaking this country into a sterile, monochrome sameness.  

April  19 - Expensive And Wrong -  Three years ago the Massachusetts city of Framingham passed a smoking ban that required restaurants that wished to permit smoking as long as the smoking section was enclosed and separately ventilated.  Restaurants complied in good faith, spending tens of thousands of dollars.  The restaurant owners may as well have flushed the dollars down the toilet.

The selectmen have now repealed that smoking ban so that the un-elected board of health can impose a 100% smoking ban on the city.  This has been the Massachusetts (Cradle of Liberty) pattern where the elected officials don't have the courage to ban smoking so let the boards of health do their dirty work.  Rather than let owners and the customers make their own decisions, the politicians, under orders from anti-tobacco, is bankrupting businesses and disrupting civil live in their communities.