How will the tobacco agreement affect us?

The rate of teen-age smoking has been going up over 10% each year, in spite of the millions of dollars granted to anti-smoking groups and the professional charities. (Cocaine and marijuana usage is going up even faster than cigarettes.) Obviously the recipients of grants have no knowledge of how to get kids to quit smoking. Now millions more will be poured down the drain under the false impression that these people are experts; when in fact they actually hate smokers, and it is shown by their activities.

When the State of California grants $745,000 to determine if doctors can be trusted, $590,000 to determine why Latinos can't refuse a cigarette, $812,000 to discover why women who quit smoking gain weight, then you must know the anti-smoking taxes are not going where they were intended to go. We don't expect that to change.

When will it change? Perhaps when we get a government with integrity, or when the majority of do-nothing Americans begin to speak, write or vote out the imposters. Meanwhile each of us has to keep at the battle. We must be the leaders.

Stephen Handman
President, American Smokers Alliance