These articles illustrate the philosophy and the reasons for the smoker's rights movement, and provide an insight into the spirit of FORCES.

We encourage anyone in possession of, or willing to write good articles and essays to send them to us for publication.

December 12, 2002 - Tool Of Big Tobacco - How easy is to be Big Tobacco's shill? Just own a restaurant in Chicago and pay a visit to the mayor asking him not to endorse a law that will put the restaurant out of business. It also helps to be a famous person who gained his fortune and fame in a field completely unrelated to the cigarette business.

Mike Ditka, the legendary Bears coach, joins the legions of people who are slandered as shills of the tobacco industry for exercising their rights as citizens to protest an act by government. Ditka, now an owner of a Chicago restaurant, not pleased to hear about a plan to ban smoking in the city's restaurants, took his concerns to the mayor. For sticking up for property rights, Ditka is a shill. For opposing the Tobacco Control juggernaut, Ditka is a shill.

Anti-tobacco doesn't have the facts on its side, it doesn't have morality on its side, its agenda runs counter to everything this country stands for so it is no surprise that it can only muster sneers and slanders to advance its cause.

No, this excellent commentary about the relentless chipping away of personal freedoms is not specifically about smoking. It is, however, a powerful warning about the long-term dangers facing this country at the hands of a judiciary that interprets the U.S. Constitution to suit personally held political agendas. The particular case having to do with the Second Amendment is not nearly as important as is the philosophy behind the ruling. A philosophy that has slowly and almost imperceptivity transformed the guiding principles of the country from individual rights to collective rights. The collective, of course, as defined by the judiciary.

Having grown up under German National Socialist, and under Russian Soviet Socialist occupation, Balint Vazsony fled Hungary after the 1956 uprising and came to the United States. Vazsony knows first hand about life under political systems where "collective" rights override and annihilate individual rights. He rightly fears that the country to which he fled, seeking freedom is on a dangerous course. Smoking is indeed about freedom. Balint Vazsony is right to be very worried.

December 9, 2002 - Smearing The Opposition - "There's one thing about the zealot anti-smoker, they only lie when they move their lips." - California Assemblyman Brett Granlund to Stanton Glantz, PBS News Hour, 12/31/97.

That encounter revealed the unsavory face of anti-tobacco to a nation that couldn't believe that a state would attempt to ban smoking in bars. Sadly, the California experiment, failed though it is, has been imported to a handful of intolerant cities and to the state of Delaware. On that New Year's Eve five years ago, Stanton Glantz, an anti-tobacco activist operating out of the University of California, gazed into the television camera and lied to the viewers. Brett Granlund of the state legislature immediately called him on his lie and reduced the garrulous Glantz to an unaccustomed silence.

Since that night, Glantz has conducted a perpetual anti-smoking road show that takes the anti-tobacco lies to every corner of the country. He is not the only one making big bucks pushing big lies but because he is employed -- inexplicably since he is a mechanical engineer -- as a professor of medicine, he is quite adept at pulling the wool over the politicians' eyes.

In Delaware, this anti-smoking Californian, is interfering in local politics as he assures the politicians that the recently-enacted smoking ban will save lives, bruise "Big Tobacco" and benefit the businesses that are now compelled to throw their smoking customers into the street. In a newspaper article Glantz outrageously posits the smoking ban controversy as a battle between the people of Delaware and "Big Tobacco". Worse, he smears an organization set up to bring about an equitable reworking of the smoking ban law, claiming that it is run by a former tobacco lobbyist. Such slander doesn't serve the anti-tobacco cause very well and those who sincerely support "smoke-free" goals, if such genuinely exist, should demand that Glantz henceforth tell the truth. Such a demand, if met, would clear the air and spare the public any more ramblings from this highly-paid anti-tobacco thug.

fast food industry. Bursting onto the scene several years ago, CSPI mimics the slash and burn

Right of the bat the rabidly anti-tobacco BBC shows its ignorance and bias. "Toxic" for cigarettes is the "tars" that are part of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is not "toxic" so equating nicotine levels with "more toxic" is like comparing apples with oranges. Starting out with this bit of confusion, the article moves forward predictably parroting the talking points of the tobacco control industry.

Smokers who have heard an endless litany of hazards connected with smoking, including all the sinister "additives" the tobacco industry craftily adds to the leaf, are seeking out "additive-free" cigarettes. Now the tobacco control industry must demonize the additive-free cigarettes.

It's strange that anti-tobacco can't seem to realize that smoking is with us forever and trust the smokers to make their own decisions. Of course making decisions depends upon being given correct information and anti-tobacco has a monopoly on the distribution of information. The tobacco industry has been muzzled and any dissenting views to the government-sanctioned anti-tobacco line is severely suppressed.

If the tobacco industry devised a tobacco blend that prevented heart attacks and cancer the anti-tobacco crowd would move heaven and earth to prevent its use. It's not about health, it's only about control.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, has a vision of utopia that gives chills to the most ardent Puritan. Denial of all the good things in life is the goal for all. Vegetables and fruits, without butter or sugar, whole grain bread washed down with water is the diet that Jacobson would impose on all. He does allow meat substitutes which is the focal point of a fascinating exposé by Michael Fumento.

Jacobson is in a lather because the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new meat substitute to be distributed in the United States. Produced by a company in the United Kingdom, the new product is Europe's top-selling meat alternative. The FDA subjected the meat substitute to its usual five-year approval process, a time-frame that Jacobson calls woefully inadequate.

CSPI has demonized the meat product by alleging that it causes health risks to a significant amount of people. As proof, CSPI offers testimonials by anonymous individuals who blame the meat substitutes for all sorts of ailments, including hangovers. In addition to unsubstantiated accusations, Jacobson and his organization offer a bizarre reason to withdraw the welcome mat from underneath the meat substitute.

"...considering the plethora of tasty, nutritious meat alternatives on supermarket shelves, there is absolutely no need for [the new meat substitute]"

So there it is. The American people don't need another choice! Even from CSPI, the admission that it is anti-choice didn't quite ring true with Michael Fumento. He did some digging and presto, the real reason for Jacobson's opposition is unearthed. It's doubtful that anyone will be very surprised that CSPI's deceptive and vicious campaign was prompted by the financial considerations. The financial considerations of an American competitor in the meat substitution business. A competitor that has been very good to CSPI. What a surprise.

Although Dennis Prager concedes a bit too much to the anti-tobacco maniacs on the health issue, he nails them hard on the absurdity they bring to the culture. He certainly has it right when he notes that anti-tobacco is a true crusade, namely an effort to impose their made-up religion on an entire society.

Modern liberals are not culturally inclined toward courtesy. They are inclined toward knowing what's good for you and passing ordinances to make sure you get the picture. The first Thank You For Not Smoking sign I ever saw was in 1976, on the desk of Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis. I thought: I have seen the future, and it is puritanical.

Peggy Noonan is not the first, but is certainly one of the most poetic, to remark upon the peculiar fact that anti-smoking as an agenda was born and nurtured on the far left of the political spectrum. Even now, although the right's position is hardly acceptable, whenever a smoking ban or tobacco tax is imposed, rest assured the leftists are behind it. Until the left wing embraced anti-tobacco common courtesy and personal responsibility dealt effectively with smoking. There is no reason for the issue to be a part of the political process while Peggy Noonan's linkage of liberalism with anti-tobacco crassness provides a good reason for the right to take up the cause of the most oppressed minority in America. It would be good for votes but, more importantly, it would be the right thing to do.

November 8, 2002 - Saving the Kiddies, Enslaving Adults - By Sean Gabb – “Where should we draw the line?... The truth, I suspect, is that most health fascists are not actually worried about children. Their real concern is to stop adults from smoking. When they started their war on tobacco in the 1960s, they were openly authoritarian in their assertion of the right to act as our guardians. Since then, they have been put on the defensive by the reply that adults should have the right to do with themselves as they please. Therefore, starting in the 1980s, they began to manufacture statistics about passive smoking. This allowed them to claim that smoking was not a purely self-regarding act, and so could be regulated in public to prevent harm to others.”

October 24, 2002 - Logical And Moral Inconsistencies - And what of promoting rape and gun crime? If a cinema advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes is said to “promote harm” by its artistry, what is the sex-and-violence film doing? The BBFC yesterday explained that rape scenes pass muster if “harrowing and vivid” rather than titillating or “shown repeatedly”. Yet there is abundant evidence from America that violent criminals have a high propensity for watching violent films. There is such a thing as imitative crime. It defies credibility that crime imitates real life but not drama. If the cinematic portrayal of smoking is dangerously imitative, why not the portrayal of drinking, shooting or raping?

And there's the rub with the bizarre notion that an actor smoking a cigarette in a movies compels the viewer to smoke. If that were true then seeing an actor fornicate, steal, murder, work miracles, get drunk, shoot up, surf and on and on will ignite a frenzy of such activities. One can forgive the politicians for using any excuse to crack down on liberty but what of the show biz types who, by their silence, go along with the notion that what is seen on the screen has no effect upon the viewer with the one exception of smoking.

Simon Jenkins has written a rollicking rant against the nannies that seem to multiply like rabbits. His topic is a recently enacted law in the United Kingdom that treats smoking on screen as beyond the pale while ignoring salacious mayhem as artistic expression.

October 16, 2002 - Purging The Political Correctness Within - Political correctness is not just an ideology; it is an attitude. And although the ideology may be dying out, it can live on in the attitudes many of us have absorbed from our culture -- a culture that has been ravaged and dominated by political correctness for decades. We need to exorcise its spirit. As an ideology, political correctness says that some ideas, attitudes and peaceful behavior are unacceptable and should be legally discouraged. Acceptable ones should be encouraged by law.

Although not specifically about smoking, this thought-provoking article by Wendy McElroy, editor of ifeminists.com, research fellow for The Independent Institute and member of the FORCES Honour Committee, addresses the growing threat to to liberty from the rampant intolerance practiced by those whose adherence to the politically correct is a mindset that approaches psychosis. McElroy lists the major components of PC coercion - zero tolerance, politicizing personal quirks, victim hood, etc. -- explains their purpose, demolishes the pretense behind them and suggests cures for the PC pathologies.

October 14, 2002 - Restaurateurs Should Decide Smoking Issue - To put it bluntly, the owner of the property should be able to determine - for good reasons, bad reasons or no reason at all - whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, neither or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government violates his rights.

That's the controlling principle. Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff or providing services to lots of people is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the workforce.

Robert A. Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, writes clearly about a major American principle that is being torn asunder by anti-tobacco activism. Private and public are purposefully being blurred in order to increase government control over all our lives. As the purported health risks from secondhand smoke have been invalidated, there is no reason for the government to interfere in matters best left to the owners of bars, restaurants and work places.

not only for the reasons usually stated, but also because prohibition expands police powers,

October 10, 2002 - The Secret of Worldwide Drug Prohibition: The Varieties and Uses of Drug Prohibition - "Governments prohibit drug use not only for the reasons usually stated, but also because prohibition expands police powers, creates enticing campaign rhetoric and can attract foreign aid. Therefore, although criticism of worldwide drug prohibition is on the rise, don’t expect retrenchment anytime soon."

These motivations should concern all tobacco smokers in the world. The pharmaceutical and political impetus against tobacco with the use of false scientific, statistical, and medical information, as well as hate propaganda is, clearly, a prelude to an eventual world-wide prohibition, orchestrated by international gangs such as the World Health Organisation. The wild increment of taxation is one last step to squeeze a few more trillion dollars from the pockets of smokers and tobacco industry before what is the only logical conclusion of this sad farce: make tobacco illegal. No drug in the world is as widespread as tobacco; the false propaganda against it has the purpose to establish the mindset for eventual acceptance of de-legalisation, which would then deliver the tobacco market to the same criminal organisations that distribute illegal drugs. That would create a permanent, lavish income for the anti-tobacco gangsters, already institutionalised, who would herald the “sanctity” of ridding the world of an illegal drug – and with the same “success” obtained so far against currently illegal drugs, but on an immensely larger scale. Tobacco prohibition may inject new “life” in the war on drugs, a war in disarray which is an indication of its colossal failure. Ironically, in fact, many of those who are in favour of legalisation of drugs such as marijuana, are foolishly in favour of tobacco prohibition as well.

The perverse logic of drug prohibition as an exponential expansion of the grip of the state on public life, is described in this excellent article by Harry G. Levine, published by The Independent Review.

September 13, 2002 - Bloomberg Blowing Smoke - Although it may be convenient for lawmakers and moral do-gooders alike to target smokers as detrimental to society and label them with persona non grata status, it seems as though innocent entrepreneurs may be the ones who will ultimately be punished. Unfortunately, Mayor Bloomberg has decided to use his bully pulpit to appeal to the majority rather than defend the principles of capitalism that he, as both a public official and a veteran of the private sector, should have an ardor for protecting.

One correction is needed. Bloomberg is not appealing to the majority in his quest to eliminate all smoking in New York City. The vast majority of people in that city and elsewhere do not care if restaurants and bars allow smoking. His constituents for this one issue are a very tiny group of complainers who hate freedom.

Otherwise, Matt L. Ottinger of the Hudson Institute, has laid out the moral bankruptcy of government imposing prohibition on private property very succinctly. He is especially eloquent about the obscene interference in businesses matters that is no business of the government.

July 19, 2002 - Junk Science and the New American Myths - The junk scientists, for reasons which headshrinkers or the FBI might look into, have been doing a scam job on America's people and government, all damaging to the national welfare. Along with the envirocrats, the educrats and the propaganda end of the medical profession, they work night and day, aided and abetted by the liberal media, to shut down economic activity and return us to the spinning wheel.

Ralph de Toledano examines five gospels of the therapeutic state, each dogmatically intoned by a mainstream media that is impervious to facts. He cites the harm the unquestioning acceptance of these bogus beliefs has caused the country. The blind panic the hysterics are imposing in their quest for power and control has severe consequences on personal liberty and the economic health of the nation.

July 9, 2002 - The New Intolerance - The social virtue of tolerance means that individuals might not like one another's beliefs or lifestyles but they leave each other free to believe and live as they see fit. Intolerance means individuals seek out the nearest government judge, politician or bureaucrat to impose their vision of a "good society" on one another. The war against smoking is a classic case of intolerance translating into government policies that run roughshod over liberty and property rights.

It's hardly news that the anti-tobacco movement is the most significant source of intolerance in America today. It's coercive agenda cannot be enacted without a heavy dose of divisive hatred but until recently its motives were obscured by a general belief that anti-smoking activists were concerned only with promoting good health and protecting nonsmokers. That benevolent façade has been shattered with reports of children being taken away from parents and smokers being denied employment. The hatred in the faces of anti-tobacco spokesmen such as Stanton Glantz and John Banzhaf as they belittle smokers has been a wake-up call for decent people who see a health agenda being transformed into a pogrom before their eyes. The more people see the true face of anti-tobacco the less they like it.

May 16, 2002 - High Tobacco Taxes - A Boone For Terrorists - No one but news readers and newspaper reporters believes that raising cigarette taxes reduces smoking. Smokers merely buy their cigarettes out of state or on the black market. Each time California raises the tax, for instance, the number of cartons sold in Nevada skyrockets. The latest round of tobacco tax hikes is billed as a means to provide money to the states as well as reduce the number of smokers. Such a contradiction is taken seriously in the lunatic times brought to the country by the anti-tobacco enterprise.

The ills to society caused by widespread tax avoidance include the growing contempt for the law and the insertion of the criminal class in the cigarette distribution business. Each increase is a blow to the law-abiding retailer and a welcome mat for the black marketers. Add terrorists to list of criminals ushered into our society by anti-tobacco.

Michelle Malkin traces a Hezbollah terrorist cell operation that made a mint by buying cigarettes from low tax states then selling them in high tax states. Millions of dollars were converted to guerilla activities before the FBI put a stop to it. Rest assured with easy money to be made there are many other such schemes operating throughout the country.

The only way to end this insanity is to lower the cigarette taxes to a reasonable rate. Since reasonableness is in as short supply as honesty, the short term financial fix provided by raising tobacco taxes will blind the politicians to the Frankenstein monster they have unleashed upon the citizenry.

April 3, 2002 - Tax 'til you drop - Great idea. So, as long as we're calling for new taxes on things we don't like under the pretense that the tax makes sense because of government costs incurred by a minority of practitioners, why stop there?

Debra Saunders then proceeds to list taxes that are on the same lines as those recently proposed in California on tobacco, bullets and soft drinks. The list only ends due to lack of space. With hyper-active politicians eager to achieve their 15 minutes of fame at an endless supply some of the taxes she jokingly proposes will probably be proposed. All by one, that is:

"Let's tax bills proposed by busybody politicians who feel it's their job to single out activities they don't like for extra taxation."

March 27, 2002 - Smoke And Lose Your Son - "How did Justice Julian justify his taking over the role of a parent when there is a parent present? By arguing, the Law Journal reports, "that courts have not been reluctant to interfere with parental authority when the risk to a child is great, as he found it is here" (emphasis added).

There you have it. In what will surely be one of many candidates for Scariest Ruling of the Year, a judge will not allow a son to visit his mother if she smokes, despite the fact that the boy is perfectly healthy."

One scary ruling is right. Dennis Prager examines the recent ruling of a judge who forbade a mother from smoking in her own home during visitation with her son. Should she not comply she will lose visitation rights. He ends his analysis of the extreme danger to us all posed by this ruling with some well-chosen words about the links between Hitler's war on tobacco and America's mad embrace of that insanity.

February 5, 2002 - Anti-tobacco Blitzkrieg Hits Europe - "...the governments of both Ireland and Italy have announced plans for vicious new laws against smoking in public places. The enemy is closing in on us from east and west. Ireland, once one of the most easygoing countries on the planet, will become as insufferable a hell-hole as Los Angeles."

Without a shred of evidence, countries as different as Italy and Ireland are embarking on paternalistic anti-smoking schemes that can only fail. The word from Italy, we assure the author of this angry and amusing piece, is that the anti-smoking laws are widely ridiculed and openly ignored. Ireland has not yet been Californicated so it's anyone guess whether the same people who fought the British for centuries will knuckle under the decrees of a moronic health minister.

January 30, 2002 - Tobacco Control Can Wait - "Instead, we hear that people will die if these ads don't run. Innocent people will unknowingly grab a pack of cigarettes, immediately become addicted and be on the road to cancer, so the argument goes.

In other words: If Swift or any other state lawmaker proposes a cut in these ads, there will be blood on their hands. Opponents will virtuously save lives, like a modern-day Joan of Arc.

Hogwash."

Hogwash. A good adjective for the bilge anti-tobacco special interests are peddling in every state capitol in the country. The outrage is particularly harsh in Massachusetts where Governor Jane Swift's budget features a decrease in the exorbitant funds allocated to anti-tobacco propaganda. As this editorial from the Herald News points out, lean economic times demand tough choices. Since the anti-tobacco lobby, loud though it is, represents no one, cutting its funding rather than curtailing programs popular with the voters makes sense. Swift is on the right track and her courage should be an inspiration to politicians across the nation. Anti-tobacco is a house of cards. One well-placed blow and down it comes.

January 24, 2002 - Drug Addiction as Demonic Possession - "The notion of addiction suffers from major conceptual, definitional and empirical problems. These problems have been detailed in the scientific literature but they remain almost totally ignored. If the criticism is misguided, the errors should be exposed. If the criticism is not misguided, it suggests the need for a radical revision in the way drug problems are approached. Instead of resolving these core issues in a rational and informed manner, addiction advocates simply cover their ears and press on. They convene consensus committees that attempt to legislate the truth. The addiction hypothesis is based on assertion and faith, not evidence and logic. The belief in addiction exists, not because of scientific information, but in spite of it. It is old-fashioned demonology, thinly disguised as science."

This evaluation of the "addiction hypothesis" was written by a respected and experienced neuropsychologist and researcher who is clearly fed with a drug war which has taken on "the trappings of religion" and with the politicizing of science that has come with it.
Dr. Dale Atrens holds a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology from Rutgers University. He has held a number of academic positions in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, and is presently Reader in Psychobiology at the University of Sydney in Australia. Academic appointments have included that of Visiting Scientist at Rockefeller University, New York, and Scientific Fellow at the Collège de France, Paris and Visiting Professor at New York University/Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Atrens has published extensively in journals of neuroscience and pharmacology, and is the author and co-author of many books, both academic and popular. His most recent (with D.M. Brown, L. and S. Feldman) is The Neurosciences and Behavior, to be published by Blackwell, Oxford, this year. Other books include The Power of Pleasure (2000), Reclaim your body/Reclaim your life (2001), and Don't Diet (1988, with subsequent Danish and Swedish translations).

January 18, 2002 - Society has made a virtue of vice - . Western culture views the act of sinning only as a symptom of a regrettable psychological disease – Smoking is not even mentioned in this piece by Frank Furedi, but it reflects so much our position against the Therapeutic State.

"That is why Western culture can only make sense of the act of sinning as a symptom of a regrettable psychological disease. Actions that were once denounced as a sin are no longer interpreted through the vocabulary of morality but are diagnosed through the language of therapy. The deadly sins have become behavioral problems that require treatment rather than punishment. There are no longer sinners, only addictive personalities."

This system that wants to cure everybody offers no alternative to the "diseases" – only "cures," leading to a foggy concept of "health." As living itself becomes a disease in need of "therapy," what the proponents of the Therapeutic State cannot see is that they themselves are terminally ill in their destructive pursuit of "health," and in their destruction of liberty. As Dr. Szasz puts it so well, "When health is equated with freedom, liberty as a political concept vanishes." We may add that when the soul is dead, the only thing we have left to worship is the mortal body.

January 14, 2002 - SALSSO Bars in Ottawa? - The advantage of private property and freedom of contract is to allow minority tastes to be catered to – provided of course that the minority is willing to pay for satisfying its own preferences, as opposed to forcing others to subsidize them. On the contrary, political and bureaucratic processes arbitrarily and coercively handicap some individuals in order to favour others.." Libertarian economist and smokers’ rights watchdog Pierre Lemieux comments on the importance of the fight by bar owners in Ottawa, Canada to retain their smoking customers -- and why it matters not to just to smokers but to EVERYONE interested in a free society.

January 10, 2002 - Who May Harm Whom - "In a free society, as opposed to a dictatorship or mob rule, the matter is resolved through private property rights. If you own property, be it your house, restaurant, airplane or workplace, another does not have the right to smoke on your property without your permission. Alternatively, in the house, restaurant, airplane or workplace that I own, another doesn't have the right to prohibit smoking.

An excellent take on the immorality of smoking bans. Walter Williams demolishes any pretense of legality used by the prohibitionists to impose their will on property owners. A country that claims to be fee should hang its head in shame over the property grabs of the past 10 years.

January 9, 2002 - A Non-Problem In Search Of A Solution - "Here's the skinny: If businesses lost money by allowing smokers to light up, doesn't it stand to reason that few restaurants would permit smoking? What does this mean? As hard as it is to believe, there really are people who don't mind eating near a lit cigarette or six. Of course, those who would ban cigarette smoking in public places don't care about the concerns or rights of these folks."

Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of non-smokers have no problem patronizing restaurants and bars where smoking in permitted. If it were left to the public, the marketplace would sort things out satisfactorily.

January 6, 2002 - Virus Quarantine - Interesting ruminations by Norman Kjono on a species of individual that occurs in an environment that encourages, rationalises, and even funds hatred and intolerance. Authority figures, media, and activists put great resources behind pseudo-scientific rationalisation of hatred; they lie to their own people to purge society from "disease"; they teach health and hatred to children, and show them how to snitch on their parents to get rewards; they encourage humiliation and segregation of their victims, who are portrayed as aggressors – and they stand complacently silent when the worse abuses are perpetrated. We are not talking about Stalin’s USSR, nor do we refer to Hitler’s Germany. While the players have changed, the spirit has returned: welcome to America 2001, the new Fatherland of the Therapeutic State. Click here to access Norman Kjono's Corner.

Anti-Psychology - October 26, 2001 - Not so long ago there was basically one type of person in the United States: that type was called an American. You could go to a restaurant, advertise for a lover, apply for virtually any job, and even run for President without further differentiating yourself. But about 30 years ago, under pressure from a small but vocal pressure group and some lawyers, this basic indivisibility of our identity as Americans began to change.

Why do some people toil diligently to undermine their fellows? What motivates them to devise the means to deprive their neighbors of dignity and self-worth? Why are so many intelligent people willing to devote their lives making the lives of strangers miserable? These questions have been pondered throughout the ages. It's time they were asked specifically about those who created and now conduct the war on smokers.

Michael McFadden examines the psychology of the anti-smoker. Mr. McFadden graduated from Manhattan College in New York City with a Bachelor’s Degree in Peace Studies and Psychology. He received a university fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania for their doctoral program in Peace Science. His areas of concentration were statistical and linguistic propaganda analysis.

Now is the time to end the federal suit - September 27, 2001 - "...the government's lawsuit against the tobacco industry was front page news for a long time. The fact that two thirds of the lawsuit was thrown out also received substantial coverage. But the fact that the federal government is now set to pursue this case despite the fact that it raises grave Constitutional questions is now receiving no coverage at all. Unfortunately, governments can get by with murder when no one is watching."

The author of this commentary, as well as constitutional scholars, express grave concerns about a politicized Justice Department making an end run around legislators to pursue former President Bill Clinton's anti-tobacco policies. However serious those concerns, the primary reason to dismiss immediately the federal suit against the tobacco industry is that the United States has far more important items to address. The President says we are in a war against terrorism and has marshaled the resources of the nation to root out and punish those responsible for the September 11 attacks against this country. The Justice Department is a key player in this vital task and cannot afford to deal with the trivial distractions of a lawsuit against an American business. Anti-tobacco became irrelevant two weeks ago. Stop wasting the country's resources on anti-tobacco's selfish agenda.

What lessons does terrorism teach about freedom? - September 17, 2001 - Regular readers of FORCES know that our organization is not "just about smoking" and the fight against tobacco prohibition and junk science. We aim to stimulate critical thinking about the increasing success of a new model of public health, shot through with all sorts of political agendas, that seeks to customize our behaviour "for our own good". (Think not? Then you haven't been keeping abreast of the research into behavior control vaccines - scroll down in this page - to cite one instance). We are being invited to be absolutely safe; to be taken care of. Even if our traditional liberties - whether explicitly enshrined in a constitutional document or not - are trashed. And people are up for it, apparently. This is a political matter - not something "just about health". How can people, especially in "the land of the free" succumb so easily to the siren song of trading liberty for security? The events of the last week prove that absolute security is illusive. That shake-up can begin lead us down one of two different roads: to an acceleration of the erosion of liberty, not just for an emergency period but permanently, or a reawakening of the spirit of freedom. The choice is ours. For two very different perspectives on the issue, we suggest the chilling scenario Envisioning the Future in a Fortress New York from the New York Times and The Lessons of Terrorism by Canadian libertarian economist Pierre Lemieux.

The Weed Of Evil - September 11, 2001 - "Close examination of these latest salvos against tobacco punctures the anti-smoking movement's self-serving myth that it represents the common good. Their bold-faced assault on individual rights - in this realm and others - is disguised as a non-partisan crusade to protect the health of innocent bystanders. But the real issue is personal preference, not health."

A great little article pointing out the hypocrisy of the health hysterics screaming in panic over the thought that somewhere, someone may be smoking. The niconazis are seeding their own defeat as their escalating demands become more ridiculous and more completely detached from any real health concerns.

Personal Decisions Cannot Be Mandated - September 5, 2001 - As part of the crusade against smoking, few states have been as vigilant as Massachusetts. And few states, unfortunately, have created as many silly anti-smoking policies as this one.

In their never-ending battle to save us from ourselves, the Bay State's lawmakers and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health have become partners in crime, raising cigarette taxes whenever possible, and funding sometimes shrill anti-smoking ads on television. By now, it's hard to imagine that few people living in this state don't fully understand that smoking is risky for their health, and is getting more expensive every year

It's always heartening when a mainstream publication's editorial cuts right to the chase about tobacco. The Herald News, of anti-tobacco Massachusetts no less, condemns the wild excesses of the anti-tobacco enterprise, and points out the dangers in allowing a special interest agenda to run roughshod over freedom.

The Doctor, it seems, is everywhere - September 3, 2001 - Canadian economist Pierre Lemieux tackles the subject of how the state - both the national and supra-national versions - are tightening their lovin' embrace around us all - just to keep us healthy and happy, of course. In WHO's Social Agenda, he sketches the early history of the World Health Organization and its recent metamorphosis into an aspiring global lifestyle police force: "Financed by compulsory levies on taxpayers of member states, staffed by bureaucrats selected for their authoritarian busybodyism, it [the WHO] was bound, if unchecked, to become as much interested in alcohol, smoking and political correctness as in malaria, tuberculosis or sanitation.". In Label Ban a Smokescreen for Government Agenda, he looks at the Canadian government's recent ban on the labeling of cigarettes as "light", and attacks the common but sadly erroneous assumption that government bureacrats are more trusty-worthy and disinterested than executives in private companies: "There is no such thing as a light tyrant."

Schubert, Scheese and Schigars - August 31, 2001 - When they told me I would be hiking up one of the Austrian alps for the first time in my long, mountain-avoiding life, I gave them the short answer, similar to the one Mariah Carey had used, when the producer of one of her recent concerts in London asked her to make an entrance by descending a tall flight of stairs on stage. "I don't do stairs," she replied. "And I," I politely told my Austrian hosts, "don't do mountains."

Smoke-free Or Free To Smoke? - August 27, 2001 - For starters, any law that bans smoking on a private playground -- much like the existing ban in private restaurants -- should be scrapped. Offended parties need not patronize private places that permit smoking. Public property, on the other hand, belongs to all of us. Citizens, through their elected representatives, should ordinarily be able to decide what is permissible on that property. Still, there are limits to the exercise of political power. Non-smoking majorities cannot arbitrarily stamp out the rights of smoking minorities. For a regulation to be valid, there must be a close connection between the regulation itself and the goal it seeks to accomplish.

Robert A. Levy, Reason Online, clearly elucidates the glaring problem with the hysterical smoking bans multiplying like a malign cancer throughout the United States. Any law that bans smoking on private property such as restaurants, bars, hospitals, offices and private school playgrounds, is a diminution of all of our rights. Smoking bans covering government property is a different story although every law should have a rational basis, which California's latest, silly smoking ban lacks. The far left, the most ardent supporter of anti-tobacco, is slitting its own throat by supporting the social engineering of anti-tobacco. From smoking to eating, to scent, to guns, to thought.

Oregonians who find smoking detestable need to lighten up about lighting up and remember that smoking is legal and that smokers have rights, too - August 9, 2001 - or: Some anti-smoker begins to get it - In the Aug. 5 edition of The Oregonian, anti-smoking reporter Doug Bates wrote a thoughtful piece about Oregon's anti-smoking zealotry in which, while he clearly excepts the unfounded claims about second-hand smoke, demonstrates that he is beginning to see the light about the very dangerous state-sponsored rationale for hate and intolerance that anti-smoking has unleashed. Here are some quotes, made in the context of a description of Oregon's "baffling patchwork of local and state laws" and whopping losses by local businesses.

"... this particular lifelong nonsmoker sees something unsavory going on. Our long war against tobacco is being turned into a war against tobacco users. It has gone far beyond a serious health concern and become a moral issue. " [...] "It's personal now. We're no longer merely annoyed at smokers. Today we despise them. In some Oregon communities, we've even begun persecuting them." [...] "... when the mullahs stray from regulating health to legislating morality, we're all heading for trouble. "

BATTERING DOWN YOUR DOORS - August 1, 2001 - "Taking all this a step further leads us into the realms of communist and Nazi techniques of state oversight of the people, of the state "reaching into people's homes". In this scenario our own children might well tip off the smoking Gestapo. Who would ever know it was them who told?"

What Stephen Mulholland is talking about is the irritation of one zealot who is thwarted - for now - in her desire to barge into people's homes to enforce smoke-free policies. It is becoming clearer each day that the adjectives of Nazi, fascist and communist are very appropriate modifiers for anti-tobacco.

PRESIDENT BUSH, END THE WAR NOW - July 26, 2001 - The calls to end the tobacco wars are becoming louder as it becomes obvious that only those who have a financial stake want this war to continue. From using doctored data on mortality rates to out and out fraud on secondhand smoke studies, the financial recipients of the tobacco wars seek global policies that will bring them billions of dollars per year.

President Bush must stop the bleeding of a legal industry and its customers. He risks almost nothing by doing so since the vast majority of the American public are opposed to the tobacco war.

This article by Robert A. Levy spells out the perils should the insane persecution of the tobacco industry continue. The costs of the tobacco war are enormous both on moral levels and on the basis of national sovereignty.

ALWAYS THE VANGUARD - July 23, 2001 - "Yes, we are a little bit chilly as we sit drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes on the footpath but you needn't be concerned. The work of cafe society goes on. We will continue our investigations into the important questions of style, taste and philosophy. We will pass down our judgments and you will be provided with behaviors to ape in two or three years' time, when they trickle down"

Ever notice that all the real cool people smoke? From the most popular of movie stars to the crème de la crème of the intellectual and artistic worlds, smokers far outnumber the non-smokers. This is one thing that anti-tobacco cannot abide. No normal person wants to be like Stanton Glantz or Donna Shalala. The Revenge Of The Nerds should have been about the impotent and fear ridden anti-tobacco hustlers. Their attempts to snuff out spontaneity and creativity will fail and in a few years hence people will ask Stanton Who?