Meat "Kills More Than Smoking" - Let's say at the outset that the last thing we want to do is promote a Tobacco Wars style attack on the meat industry, or another excuse for a coercive and hysterical "health promotion" fad. But this news release from a British author of books on vegetarianism is of at least passing interest, especially in view of the lemming-like single-issue health propaganda campaigns on which government and the health establishment spend millions. "Smoking kills 111,000 people every year. But that falls into second place behind the 134,000 annual deaths which the evidence suggests could be prevented by a vegetarian diet," claims author Peter Cox, who blasts the medical establishment for neglecting to focus on evidence of very substantial health benefits from a proper vegetarian diet.

Yellow Teeth and Hungry Politicians - "Most pols want to spend more tax dollars, but understand they can't raise taxes in general. They need vilified industries if they want to appease their big spending habits. Today smokers, tomorrow alcohol and fast-food. Or maybe gasoline because it causes teen car accidents. Whatever, expect the call for greater taxes to be an issue, not of spending, but of making America safer for The Children." (Debra J. Saunders/San Francisco Chronicle)

Sweden Backs Down on Cigarette Taxes - Q. Why did Sweden recently slash cigarette taxes by 27 percent after enacting big hikes last year? -- A. SMUGGLING. The tax hikes resulted in a spike of organized crime with 39.3 million cigarettes smuggled last year, in contrast to only about six million in 1995. (Reuters)

The Shame of Antismoking: the Toilet-and-Tobacco War in U.S. Schools - School students forced into the humiliation of using lavatory stalls that have no doors. Students routinely locked out of washrooms during class periods. DON'T ASK THIS QUESTION: Will this treatment infantilize and brutalize the only people in contention to become tomorrow's citizens, parents and lawmakers? DON'T COME TO THIS CONCLUSION: fundamental decency is being violated. ASK ONLY THIS: "Is there a chance that these measures will help stop students from smoking?" (Jean Mcmillan/AP)

Cigar Ads Are So Much Hot Air - Common sense is definitely -- though timidly -- beginning to surface in the press all over North America. Perhaps not in the way some of us would like to see it, that is, drag the anti-smokers in chain in the courts, convict them of all the prudery, frauds, and falsifications they are responsible of, then put them in jail and throw away the key -- not just yet. But in this nice "bring-it-all-down- to-Earth" article by Kenneth L. Khachgian (Los Angeles Times) we can see a change of perception, and the beginning of intolerance of the Big Lie. Too bad that -- so far -- the focus here is only on the Yuppie trend of cigars.

Viva l'Italia! - An Italian tourist is booted off the plane, jailed, and fined for having smoked on a Continental flight from Milan to Newark. He got into big trouble when he put his arm on the flight attendant who was trying to make him stop smoking in the washroom. (While we stress that we don't have all the facts, we just can't resist some cross-cultural speculation on this physical contact: Italian interpretation - "Listen to me, I'm trying to make a point"; American interpretation - "This man has assaulted me - let's call the police!") Congratulations, Mr. Miliani! If more people would complain as energetically as you have, the antismoking fascists would think twice before showing their fascist colors. ``It's difficult for him. He doesn't speak English and he doesn't understand anyone at all. They won't let him smoke in jail and he is evidently a very addicted smoker,'' says Kominsky, his appointed lawyer. Perhaps Mr. Kominsky does not realize that most Italians are addicted to freedom, for they've tried totalitarianism already. Welcome to America, Mr. Miliani, the land of the fascist! Are you going to be back soon?

Lawsuit Abuse - "As the system spins out of control, people are even having to go to court to assert their right not to sue... Now a group of these reluctant plaintiffs has filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals saying that they are being held "hostage" in a lawsuit that is against their interests... Like the flight attendants, as well as Ralph Nader, they must be wondering just what role clients actually have in our legal system any more."

Rough Treatment for an Honorable Crusader - Maryland attorney Peter G. Angelos is mad as hell and he's not going to take it any more. Upset that the state may not guarantee him a $1 billion cut from a possible $4 billion tobacco settlement, he's threatened to take his ball and bat and go home, leaving the state's children bereft of their anti-tobacco white knight. What does $1 billion buy these days? We're not exactly sure, but elsewhere in this article we're told that it costs the state of Maryland a mere $76 million per year to extend health coverage to 60,000 children and pregnant women under the Medicaid program. (Charles Babington/Washington Post)

RJR Head Sees Tobacco Pact As "Dead" - ...The nation's major cigarette makers declared last summer's historic tobacco deal dead Wednesday, saying Congress has twisted their offer to help cut teen smoking into a harsh attack on their industry and American smokers.

Other Industries Observing Tobacco Firms' Treatment - ". . .Goldstone's point -- that tobacco firms tried to work with Washington and were treated like a Brinks truck overturned on the highway -- is one that may not be lost on other industries who run afoul of public opinion. . . . The only people who benefit in these wars are the lawyers. The price that is usually paid is a lot of wasted motion and the violation of basic rules of the marketplace." From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, an analysis of how naked greed ruined the tobacco settlement and set a bad precedent for relations between business and government in the U.S.

Unconstitutional Tobacco Legislation - Though we disagree with its last sentence (Spreading the anti- smoking gospel is commendable), this very good article from Investors Business Daily highlights the degeneration of American politics. In the greed to loot and "punish" the tobacco industry, the US Senate blatantly disregards the Constitution, setting a very dangerous precedent for the looting and persecution of more citizens, and companies. A long way to go for the biggest lie of the 20th century.

Those Hungering for a Pound of Tobacco Flesh Will End Up Hungry - Have the anti-smokers' overheated emotions led to their defeat? They "aren't, it seems, interested in coming to some sort of reasonable accommodation. They're interested in revenge. And that's going to wind up scotching any deal."

Why the Tobacco Deal Should, and Must, Be Opposed - The New York Post weighs in on the McCain tobacco bill: "This legislation sets an absolutely horrific precedent that must not stand. . . . just because tobacco has become unfashionable doesn't give Washington the right to do outrageous violence to the Constitution or to the American free-enterprise system."

Teen Smoking Campaign Flops - "We have made it illegal for minors to acquire tobacco; we have made sure they know that smoking is unhealthy; we have jacked up the price of cigarettes with state and federal taxes. That much makes sense. Anything more - the bans on tobacco-logo T-shirts, the Joe Camel insanity, the persecution of restaurant owners - is hysteria. And as the new statistics suggest, nothing makes tobacco more alluring to adolescents than hysterical grown-ups admonishing them not to smoke. "

Take Their Dignity Away, and Pack Them Like Sardines - "Tempers were hot one recent Thursday afternoon inside the smokers' bubble on C Concourse at Washington Dulles International Airport. Officially called the Smoking Lounge, the space is a totally enclosed glass box opposite gate C4 with no amenities beyond a few knee-high ashtrays and rows of black seats lining all four walls."

Ashes to Ashes, Butt to Butt - "Like it or not, tobacco is still a legal product. Still, there is no question that the industry has been demonized to the point that anything goes: stolen documents, rigged courts, bogus second-hand-smoke studies, confiscatory taxes, anything." - Thank you, Washington Times!

Using Tobacco... to Limit Freedom - "The tobacco legislation approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last week represents the largest and most dangerous expansion of government during the entire Clinton presidency. With active support from Republicans and Democrats, the deal is going to boost the size of government, reduce individual freedom, and create frightening new precedents for further bureaucratic control over our lives." - The Washington Post

The Price Of A Cigarette (Firing Smokers) - It took awhile, but finally some of the mainstream media are beginning to catch on to one of the dirty little secrets of the anti-tobacco jihad -- outright discrimination against smokers based on nothing more than ...well, a socially acceptable opportunity to discriminate against someone! From a Boston Globe column by Mike Barnicle.