November 11, 1998

A NEW POLITICAL PARTY IS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES: THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY - Once again, the ACS proves to be a fine example of anti-tobacco political and moral degeneration, and of fascism disguised in white coats. Indeed, this organization is a Cancer for the American Society, working hard at killing its host while claiming to save it. Its self-assured arrogance is revealed in its own words.

September 18, 1998

THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY ANTI-TOBACCO COMPANY TV CAMPAIGN: THE CHICKEN THAT SINGS LAID THE EGG

CANADIAN TOBACCO COMPANIES SET TO CONFRONT B.C.'s ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL ( = GOVERNMENT) - We're delighted to see a toughening of the position taken by Canadian tobacco companies in response to the absurd demands of Canada's very own California-style dream world, the province of British Columbia. More than any other Canadian jurisdiction, the province of B.C. has been on the warpath against smokers and the tobacco companies. It has attacked the industry with demands for multi-million dollar licensing fees, unreasonably onerous product disclosure rules, and plans for ridiculous lawsuits to transfer even more money into the pockets of the principal recipient of tobacco profits -government. Like many ill-considered initiatives attempted by the province's NDP government over the past several years, this project may well be doomed to fail.

One reason: the companies are showing a willingness to fight what could prove to be illegal legislative measures. Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, for example, issued a PRESS RELEASE earlier this month indicating that they will take a fighting stance, confident that the industry will prevail in the courts. The remarks from the company's president and CEO Joe Heffernan are worth reading in their entirety. And Imperial Tobacco plans a court challenge of the province's proposed licence fee system -- which it claims is unconstitutional -- and has indicated that the ingredients disclosure requirements may be impossible to meet by the government's deadline. "...it is possible that either the cost of compliance or the practicalities of completing the tests by the prescribed deadlines will lead to the withdrawal from B.C. of some brands," Imasco president and CEO Brian Levitt was quoted as saying (Globe and Mail, July 25/98).

July 22, 1998

Infobeat, in their endless propaganda against tobacco, mentions the Washington Post reporting that the tobacco companies let Republican lawmakers and their committees use company jets for dozens of flights last year, with the implication of corruption (or at least influence) of the Republican party being influence by such an evil industry. Infobeat, however, fails to report that the pharmaceutical industry pays abundantly for the production of anti-tobacco lies and falsification of evidence, thus corrupting institutions and society far more than the tobacco industry may even conceive to do. According to the criminal mind of the anti-tobacco cartel, the tobacco industry (and the smokers) are supposed to take abuses, lies, and all kind of persecution, without ever defending themselves, and even kissing the boot of the persecutors -- keep on dreaming, bastards, those times are over.

July 10, 1998

SETTING AN EXAMPLE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES AND FREEDOM - Formula One officials have insisted they would remove races from countries that introduce strict anti-tobacco legislation in favor of Asian countries with less severe regulations. Why? Because 10 of the 11 F1 teams carry tobacco logos on their cars. Only Stewart-Ford does not (wondering why... any speculation?...). (Source: LA Times, morning briefing) -- The anti-tobacco cartel bastards must be trained to learn that there are tangible consequences for their criminal agenda, and if civilized reasoning does not work with them (it never does), they have to be made to understand with force, a well-tested anti-tobacco method. -- GOOD ON YOU, FORMULA ONE OFFICIALS!

July 9, 1998

July 4, 1998 - ONTARIO: A WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY AND AN INSULT TO FREEDOM AND SCIENCE -- The Peterboro Examiner reports in a two-third page article that Barbara Zmozynski and Diane Bestard, both veteran nurses at Peterboro's Civic Hospital, became the first hospital workers in Ontario charged under Ontario's Tobacco Control Act for the crime of smoking outside a hospital door.

Not the front door, where patients and visitors would be coming and going. Not the emergency department door. Not even a door designated as a staff entrance, though there would be nothing wrong with any of the above. We are talking about a security door which is considered an entrance even though it is usually locked. The nurses were more than the nine metres from the door that the law requires. Not only that, they were leaning against a wall, heaven forbid! The smoke cop who ticketed them, Ingrid Cathcart of the Peterboro health unit, says they were not, and she handed each of them a $115 ticket.

The whole unbelievable mess came to court a week ago and took up a whole day of testimony. You may have thought the court system was too busy and too crowded to be brought to a halt by such a trivial thing, but it isn't. Not for smokers. Cathcart testified the hospital had sent a written complaint that smoke from outside was entering doors and windows and that incoming patients, including people with asthmatic symptoms, were at risk!

If there is any good news in this putrid story is that when all was said and done - and yet another court session used - the nurses were finally found not guilty last Tuesday. Apparently, there is still some justice (and common sense) in the world . Nevertheless, this does not answer fundamental questions: how far the second hand smoke hysterical lie is going to be allowed to go? How long are the criminals who created this lie (and the ones who are spreading it) going to be allowed to walk the streets as free citizens?

June 25, 1998

YET ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR THE CARTEL - NO "FACILITATIONS!" - The last attempt of the anti-tobacco cartel to loot the tobacco industry and its customers (see: State aims to boost tobacco-suit odds) failed last week in the state of New York. "Lawmakers decided against approving a bill that would have given the state more power to sue manufacturers of tobacco products to recoup Medicaid costs spent on treating tobacco-related ailments. The bill, supported by Attorney General Dennis Vacco, was designed to boost the state's odds of winning an ongoing lawsuit against the tobacco manufacturers." (Times-Union, June 21, 1998) As usual, when the cartel wins, the big media screams, but when the cartel loses, there is hardly any mention of the fact. Well, here it is: YOU LOSE AGAIN!

June 23, 1998

ONTARIO: FASCISTS Who needs to consult the people? WE already know what's good for them, they just have to pay and obey - "Toronto health officials will avoid public consultation as they start work on a new megacity no-smoking bylaw. 'Public meetings ... are not particularly effective for obtaining detailed information or arriving at decisions,' says a report presented to the city health board by the medical officer of health yesterday. 'Given the limitations of public meetings and considering the in-depth public debate on the issue of smoke-free public places that occurred throughout the city in the recent past, this activity is not included in the consultation plan.' (Source: Canoe news website, June 24/98)"

IS THE FORTUNE OF THE ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL BEGINNING TO REVERSE?

LOOT EXPOSED BY COURT OVERTURNING AWARD - TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Associated Press reports that an appeals court Monday, June 22, overturned a $750,000 verdict won by a smoker two years ago, ruling the lawsuit was filed too late. The verdict was only the second time in 40 years of tobacco litigation that a jury ordered a company to pay damages in a smoking liability case. Grady Carter, 66, sued Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., blaming the company for the lung cancer he developed after smoking for 44 years. A jury in Jacksonville in 1996 said that the cigarettes were a defective product and that their makers were negligent for not warning people of the danger. But the 1st District Court of Appeal Monday said the lawsuit was barred by the statute of limitations. The court said the lawsuit "was filed more than four years after Grady Carter knew or should have known ... that he had a smoking-related disease.''

June 22, 1998

D.A.R.E. DOES NOT WORK, AND MUST BE REPLACED... WHAT A SURPRISE!

June 22, 1998 - The lesson that teaching intolerance and false information to kids does not work is not easily learned by the purist health nazis anti-everything. Associated Press reports that D.A.R.E, the police-taught anti-drug program used in about three-fourths of the public schools in Wisconsin should be replaced with another program, a study panel says.

Committee member Cecilia Hillard said research has raised questions about the effectiveness of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. The data were so strong that either DARE has no effect, or that in suburban communities like Shorewood, Wisconsin, it could be worse than having no program at all. The committee recommended DARE be replaced with another program. Student surveys showed drug, alcohol and tobacco use was higher in 1995 after DARE began than in 1992, before D.A.R.E.

But will the new program contain the same message of intolerance, and the same lies and rhetoric just packaged in different format? The peabrain prohibitionists/health nazis still don't accept that prohibition and repression are the most effective advertisement for what they intend to repress in the first place, and this applies not just to the youth. It follows that every prohibition has the failure built in. June 18, 1998

WINDSOR, ONTARIO: HEALTH BASTARDS HARRASS MOTHER

WINDSOR, Ont. - Canadian Press reports that a mother has been convicted of a provincial offence for buying two packs of cigarettes for her 18-year-old son. Paul Jarman of the Windsor Health Unit said the conviction sends a strong message to the community. "We know a lot of parents buy cigarettes for their kids, but we are saying it is a crime," said Jarman, who enforces Ontario’s Tobacco Control Act, which prohibits supplying tobacco to anyone under 19. Heil Hitler! "We are saying it's a crime, parents and citizens, who are you to disagree? And if you do, here is the punishment". The only crime being perpetrated here is the prevarication of the parental authority by the state, while the only strong message sent here is the kind of fascism antitobacco is capable of, and how energetically this filth must be fought before it roots itself into society. The woman will challenge the conviction in court, and she has stated that she just handed the cigarettes to the son to give to his father. Moreover, the absurdity of having legal age at 18 and tobacco age at 19 is another good example of illogical parernalism, for if a person is old enough to vote, and being asked to die to defend the country, then the person is old enough to smoke, and drink.

June 5, 1998

The Health Nazis are clearly gearing up for the next "war," the war on food. And, of course, to make the stats more alarming, they're simply changing the definition of overweight by lowering the threshold. Again, this is very much the same approach taken for the tobacco war when the definition of addiction was changed from a medical to a political one. Hold on to you hat then, the Nazis are coming for YOU, John Banzhaf of ASH, huge ball of lard! - (Added June 5/98) - WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government is reducing its threshold for defining who is overweight, determining that someone who stands 5-foot-4 and weighs 145 pounds is facing a health risk. In guidelines to be formally released later this month, a panel concluded that a person with a body mass index of 25 should be considered overweight, and anyone with a body mass index of 30 or above is obese. To determine body mass index, divide body weight (in kilograms) by height (in meters) squared. Using the new guidelines, about 55 percent of the American adult population would be considered overweight or obese, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

June 3, 1998

MORE DAMAGE BECAUSE OF THE ANTI-TOBACCO NONSENSE - BUFFALO, N.Y., May 31 (UPI) - Roman Catholics in western New York are being asked to give more money to make up for the shortfall caused by the decrease in Bingo revenues. The Roman Catholic Diocese in the Buffalo area expects to lose about $1 million to $2 million this year because of government regulations that required non-smoking bingo. In many parishes, Bingo profits are down by 75 percent. The diocese has hired a New York City consulting firm, Consumer Counseling Services, to help develop the increased giving initiative.
RELATED TOPICS: HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF SMOKING BANS

June 2, 1998

TEXAS = FLORIDA = ANTITOBACCO = CORRUPTION - Pride rather than politics seems to be at the root of a feud between the Republican governor of Texas and the state's Democratic attorney general, political analysts said Friday when examining what can easily snowball into another Florida lurid spectacle. Attorney General Dan Morales asked a federal judge this week to fine Gov. George W. Bush, marking an escalation of a simmering dispute over $2.3 billion in fees for lawyers who helped the state win a $15.3 billion tobacco settlement. Morales, a Democrat, accused Bush, a Republican, of "improper conduct" that was delaying payments by the tobacco industry to compensate the state for the cost of treating sick smokers. Bush expressed surprise and dismay at the move, saying he was only trying to defend the interests of Texan citizens. SOURCE: Infobeat - RELATED TOPICS: Texas AG Said to Want Tobacco Fund

May 15, 1998

MY GRANDFATHER DIED OF A STROKE: McDONALD RESPONSIBLE? - Cigarette maker Liggett Group Inc. -- that sold out longtime ago to the antitobacco cartel -- settled a tobacco liability lawsuit Tuesday brought by the daughter of a smoker who died last year of lung cancer. But the high-profile Florida lawyer pressing the lawsuit said he would go forward against Liggett co-defendant Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which did not intend to settle. Jacksonville attorney Norwood "Woody" Wilner, who in 1996 scored the biggest cash victory over Big Tobacco with a $750,000 judgment for a Florida smoker, filed the product liability lawsuit against the two companies on behalf of Angela Widdick, whose father, Roland Maddox, was a two-pack-a-day smoker and died of lung cancer. Kudos for Williamson, but we must notice that this putrid nonsense defies the most vivid imagination. What manufacturer in its right mind want do business in -- or with -- the United States?

May 14, 1998

WHAT A DEAL! - Under Minnesota's "landmark" $6 billion settlement with tobacco makers, reached Friday May 8, 1998, the companies have agreed not to pay Hollywood producers and studios to place cigarettes or other tobacco-related props in movies. The ban, national in scope, is sure to please organizations such as the Entertainment Industry Council, which have been advocating actors stop smoking in movies and on television. But the most recent Federal Trade Commission report to Congress on tobacco sales and advertising, which covered 1996, said tobacco companies have spent no money to place tobacco products in movies or TV since 1989!

May 6, 1998

ANTITOBACCO CARTEL KEEPS ITS OPERATIVES WELL FED - Like all organized crime, the antitobacco Cosa Nostra takes good care of its own. False cardiologist Stanton Glantz, whose "study" on the consequences of smoking bans on the hospitality industry recently has been proven to contain "spun" data -- thus leading to false conclusions -- has received another reward from the Bosses.

Tobacco Politics - Letter to the Editor (Copyright 1998 Dow Jones & Co., Inc.) - Wall Street Journal (May 4, 1998) - In an April 23 editorial you identified Stanton A. Glantz as a "heart specialist." He is not a medical doctor; his doctorate is in applied mechanics. A recent research project, for which the National Cancer Institute paid him $600,000, was to investigate voting records of state legislators of several states on tobacco issues.
Natalie Sirkin, Sherman, Conn.

May 2, 1998

UK & Smuggling - Tightening the screws and not learning the lesson The UK Government has announced new penalties for cross-Channel smuggling. These include heavy fines (250 pounds and restoration of 50% of the duty on the seized goods for a first offence, 1,000 poundsplus restoration of the full duty for a second offence) and the possibility that persistent offenders could lose their driving licence and have their vehicle confiscated. Publicans and restaurateurs caught selling the contraband goods could also have their licences revoked. The trade in contraband tobacco and alcohol is estimated to cost the Treasury nearly 1 billion pounds a year in lost revenue.
Source: Financial Times 23/4/98; Daily Telegraph 23/4/98; The Independent 23/4/98; The Times 23/4/98; Daily Mail 23/4/98

ONE MORE USE FOR WONDERFUL TOBACCO - UK SCIENTISTS DEVELOP VACCINE AGAINST TOOTH DECAY - British scientists said Tuesday they had developed a safe, effective and painless vaccine to prevent tooth decay. It is a plant-based vaccine that is painted on teeth and produces antibodies that prevent harmful bacteria from sticking to teeth and causing cavities. Dr. Julian Ma and Professor Tom Lehner led the team of researchers at Guys Hospital dental school in London that produced the vaccine by genetically modifying tobacco plants to carry antibodies to Streptococcus mutans, which causes 95% of tooth decay. The tasteless, colorless vaccine was successfully tested on people during a four-month trial.

EUROPEAN UNION: Europe set to outlaw tobacco advertising. MEPs on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Committee have voted overwhelmingly in favour, 36-7, of the text of the European Union Advertising Directive agreed by Health Ministers in December last year. In doing so, they have brought European Union member countries closer to implementing a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising, to imitate US policy, which is mainly based on falsification of evidence motivated by political interests. This Committee is the lead committee scrutinising the Directive, which will come to a final vote at a plenary session of the European Parliament in the week commencing 11 May. If the Committee's position is accepted by the Parliament, and this vote increases the likelihood of the full Parliament endorsing the ban, the Directive will become law within the UK Presidency and the process of banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship will begin. Clive Bates, Director of ASH - the fanatical US-based antismoking organization that has promoted a book describing the use of cyanide poisoning of cigarettes to kill smokers -- welcomed the Committee's decision, hailing it as a "milestone", he added: "We are absolutely delighted, it is a sound decision by pragmatic MEPs that want to get something agreed and implemented."
Source: The Independent 23/4/98; Daily Telegraph 23/4/98; Financial Times 23/4/98; The Times 23/4/98; ASH press release 22/4/98

EUROPEAN UNION: MEPs light up ad row - backing for tobacco ban triggers legal controversy. Despite the clearance of the Directive by the Environment Committee, the tobacco industry is likely to challenge the proposals in the European Court of Justice on the grounds that it violates the principle of the single market. The outcome of the German elections in September may also be crucial. In an echo of the UK last year, Germany's position may change if Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a friend of personal choice and liberty who is firmly opposed to the ban, is voted out of office.
Source: Sunday Business 26/4/98

RUSSIA - Political smarts and common sense allow tobacco companies to expand and create employment and revenue.
It is expected that major US and British tobacco concerns Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, BAT and Rothmans will produce about 260 bn cigarettes in Russia in 2002. If this happens, the Russian tobacco market will be saturated by the products of these giants. The total size of the Russian tobacco market is about 250 bn cigarettes per year, with an annual growth rate of 2%. According to the market research agency Business Analytica Europe, tobacco production in Russia is very profitable. For example, the period for returns on investment for a factory worth US$ 100 mn with an annual production capacity of 30 bn cigarettes is only two to three years. A calculated profitability of such factory is about 40%.
Source: Ekspert (ESK) 13 Apr 1998 p.60 Language: RUSSIAN No. 06614518 Source: Information Access Company 24/4/98

GUATEMELA - The Central American state of Guatemala, now completely influenced by Washington-based antitobacco cartel, is exploring legal action against two tobacco companies to "recover health-care costs associated with smoking". This action would allow Guatemala to loot the US tobacco industry and create some revenue for that unstable and poverty-stricken nation. The Guatemalan attorney-general, Mr Acsiclo Valladares Molina, has employed a US law company to examine the possibilities for litigation to recover money - around $500m - spent by the republic on healthcare, completely ignoring the enormous benefits of smoking. One of the tobacco companies that the state could file a claim against is Tabacalera Nacional, a subsidiary of BAT. The other is Tabacalera Centroamericana which is controlled by Philip Morris.
Source: Financial Times 24/4/98

April 23, 1998
GEE, THANKS! - Stadium smoke frisking reversed - BUFFALO, N.Y., April 14 (UPI) _ Erie County said today it will not require a search for cigarettes for fans attending Buffalo Bills football games. Hours after the controversial proposal surfaced, the county announced that it will not require the searches. Football fans are already searched for beer before entering county-owned Rich Stadium in Orchard Park. The county does say it will ban the sale of cigarettes outside of Rich Stadium. The proposal was revealed in a $63 million lease between the county and the Bills that expected to be approved by the county legislature later this month.
WOW!... Guess we have to be grateful that they don't perform a rectal inspection!

April 14, 1998
Cigar smoking causes cancer, heart disease: what else is new? - Daily cigar smoking can cause several types of cancer and heart disease and cigars should not be considered safe alternative to cigarettes, according to a study released Friday. The National Cancer Institute concluded in a new report that daily cigar smoking causes cancers of the lip, tongue, mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus and lung, as well as chronic lung disease and coronary heart disease - and possibly pancreatic cancer. Many of these cancers have extremely low survival rates. Cigar sales in the United States are up 50% since 1993, marking a reversal in a 20-year decline in cigar smoking since 1973. Most of the increase appears to be among teen-agers and young adult males who smoke occasionally, the government-funded institute found. The health risks of occasional cigar smoking are not known. (Reuters) ... More taxpayer money to stir the same, OLD soup...

April 7, 1998
RAISING THE PRICE DOES NOT WORK - ITHACA, N.Y., April 7 (UPI) _ A new study finds boosting the price of cigarettes has almost no impact on whether young people decide to smoke. The Cornell study finds a $1.50-a-pack increase would reduce the number who take up smoking by only 2 percent. Some researchers have estimated the tax increase would cut the number by half. The researchers say higher taxes do reduce total tobacco sales and encourage adults to cut down or quit.

March 26, 1998
ANTISMOKING SLIME TRIES TO SUPPRESS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN CALIFORNIA - HOLLYWOOD QUIETLY TELLS THEM TO GO TO HELL - GOOD ON YOU, MATES! - California health officials said they will step up the war against smoking in television and movies. They will try to convince handful of television or movie actors or personalities to put no-smoking clauses in their contracts. Our of fear, The cigar industry is voluntarily restricting the practice of putting cigars in celebrities' hands (obviously they think that celebrities don't have a mind of their own). In the meantime, Hollywood studios are not responding to pressure by antismoking groups that want to see less smoking in movies. The Wall Street Journal reported that antismoking groups are ``repeatedly getting the cold shoulder when they try to talk to industry heavyweights.'' The Journal reports that Hollywood executives fear that giving in to pressure by antismoking groups "could open the door to other crusades.'' Film director Doug Liman was quoted: "If an antismoking group lobbied me directly, I would get really offended and it would only encourage me to show smoking. I would feel like that was censorship.'' (Source: AP newswire and National Smokers Alliance)

March 21, 1998
SECONDHAND SMOKE CANCER SUIT FAILS: TOBACCO COMPANIES NOT LIABLE - The tobacco industry is not liable in the cancer death of a non-smoking nurse exposed to secondhand smoke, a jury of six decided on March 19th, 1998. Notwithstanding the spin put on by most of the press, this high-profile case could not be kept quiet in North America (unlike the WHO study, which has received precious little coverage). Antismoking gangsters and their lawyers are deeply disappointed, for they see the possibility of an immense looting orgy fade away. But this pivotal case sets the precedent for more to come. SECONDHAND SMOKE IS NOT DANGEROUS.

1 - LINK WITH MILLOY'S JUNK SCIENCE PAGE
2 - LINK WITH MILLOY'S JUNK SCIENCE PAGE

February 26, 1998
DON'T EXPECT ANY MONEY, GOVERNORS TOLD - Is the tobacco industry finally waking up? - WASHINGTON - On February 22nd, the US governors were warned by Senate leaders of both parties not to count on getting any money from a national tobacco settlement. After a closed-door luncheon session of the National Governors' Association (NGA), Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R. Okla., said he had told the state executives that neither Democrats nor Republicans were inclined to give the tobacco companies immunity from future lawsuits for smoking-related costs. Without that, the offer from the companies of $368.5 billion over 10 years to settle the issue will be pulled off the table. (Source: The Washington Post).

It's about time the tobacco industry stops offering to pay for protection the same way victims were paying the gangsters of Al Capone for "protection", especially when the money comes from smokers. Has the time to roll up the sleeves and get around to win all the lawsuits, instead of conceding to false science to achieve a political resolution? After all, it wouldn't be difficult to prove falsification of evidence of the antis, and open for them the doors of the jails where they belong.

February 11, 1998
THE CONTINUOUS PUKING OF THE BC MINISTRY OF HEALTH - The BC Ministry of Health keeps vomiting contempt and intolerance on tobacco industry and smokers. A new TV commercial, part of a volley of intolerance campaign paid with taxpayers' money, shows a "repentant" tobacco lobbyist (dead last year of throat cancer, with the implicit message that it was because of smoking) who "confesses" that the tobacco industry "lies"... and now he is (was) sorry. So, let's see... a liar who says he lied, promoted by liars! What a cocktail! But this is quite a normal approach when the parties involved, instead of watching the sky through a grid, make it to ministerial positions. Click on the toilet for a link to the BC Ministry of Health Website, and for an example of the lurid propaganda coming out of these putrid minds. Indeed, FIGHT BACK, BC!

February 5, 1998
DANKE, DEUTSCHLAND! - Some newspapers have reported in articles of the size of a stamp (no more, of course, it's a victory for choice!) the news that legislation on a proposed smoking ban that would have created the first federal restrictions on smoking in Germany was defeated Thursday February 5th in the lower house of Parliament. Germany has experienced first hand the consequences of the oppression of Nazism and its rabid antismoking politics. This great nation has proven that the value of liberty, and the rejection of the concept that liberty and choice must submit to health hysteria, political agendas and junk science are still well rooted. Thank you, Germany, on behalf of the oppressed and looted smokers of the North American regime, for setting a shining example of liberty and balance for Europe and the rest of the world. May the torch of freedom and truth always burn in your land.

February 3, 1998
HEALTH CANADA THE TOBACCONIST
-- OR --
BUILDING THE NEW RULING CLASS: PHYSICIANS & HEALTH NUT ACTIVISTS
Towards a Smoke-Free Canada: Tobacco Product Control for the 21st Century, is Health Canada's blueprint to make Canada smoke free. Interfering with business, industries, families, personal lives and behaviour, as well as the media, Health Canada wants to run the lives of Canadians. With more real power on the population than any other ministry in this country, this Ministry of Health is becoming more and more the muppet of the Nonsmokers Rights Association, an extremist organization which enjoys tax-free status while getting millions in taxpayers' money to spread junk science, intolerance, and distorted information. One of the report's proposals is to have all cigarettes sold in Canada meet exact targets for tobacco, carbon monoxide, tar and nicotine content. The report recommends there be no flexibility on these standards. The words from Rob Parker of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturer Council express our feelings exactly: "Silly. It wouldn't work in a police state, let alone in a democracy."

But when the State lies to the population, medical associations distort the facts, special interest groups run ministries, science submits to politics, and the media ignores the voice of opposition, is this really a democracy, Mr. Parker?

January 24, 1998
NICOTINE NAZIS RAID CHARITY IN SACRAMENTO
Consolidated Charity's, (A genuinely good organization) was raided this week in Sacramento. All of the Patrons who were peacefully playing bingo and smoking were issued citations. Two security guards who tried to step in and help, were arrested for obstructing justice. On a local note, the San Bernardino Sun newspaper ran a poll and when asked if smoking should be banned in bars, 77% said NO! - (Report by Tom Muller, FORCES Los Angeles)

U.S. TOBACCO COMPANIES AND CHAMBER LOBBYISTS TAKE AIM AT TRIAL LAWYERS
An Associated Press release reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with help from Republican leaders and the tobacco industry, is laying plans for an all-out battle next year against some of its most powerful foes: trial lawyers. Plans call for a multifront attack that could include legal challenges to the election of judges in Alabama and other states seen as particularly friendly for plaintiffs; lobbying Congress on such issues as product liability; and a public relations campaign to convince consumers that they in the end pay for excessive legal costs and judgements. It is about time that people begin to realize the necessity to actively fight the antismoking parasites. This, combined with the news about the Canadian tobacco industry cutting off sponsorships (above), really makes our day.

ALCOHOL NOW A TARGET: LIQUOR INDUSTRY CONCERNED - For some time, observers of the so-called Tobacco Wars have been wondering just when the puritanical fervour directed against smoking will swing to other targets -- like alcohol. It's already started to happen, and the liquor industry is becoming worried, if a recent promotion for alcohol trade publication is any indication.