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 1999 Archive (Click on Joe Camel for current Flash News) |
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AS YOU CAN SEE, IT IS NOT ABOUT
TOBACCO: IT IS ABOUT JOY! - Australia's
antismoking gangsters ban the sale of herbal cigarettes to minors. Not a
problem: it is easy enough to make one's own and affirm one's
independence - or get someone else to buy'em.
SYDNEY - "The state government today bowed to pressure and
banned the sale of herbal "Ecstasy" cigarettes to minors,
following fears the product could encourage drug use. They are already
banned in Queensland and South Australia. The cigarettes, which have
been freely available to children in New South Wales, were marketed with
the slogan: "It smells like POT. Looks like POT. Relaxes like
POT". The government today said it would introduce legislation to
stop people under 18 buying the herbal cigarettes which have been
promoted and sold as a marijuana substitute. Acting Health Minister Paul
Whelan said the government would amend the Public Health Act to make it
illegal to sell any herbal cigarettes to minors. Health Minister Craig
Knowles last month ordered an investigation into the sale of herbal
cigarettes in NSW when the availability of Ecstasy Herbal Cigarettes was
discovered. Ecstasy Cigarettes are distributed in Australia by Trio
Brothers Trading, a company currently based in Queensland. The labeling
of these cigarettes indicate they contain ingredients such as damiana,
wild lettuce, catnip, passionflower, mint, and other herbal
substances."
CANADIAN ALDERMAN TEMPTED TO TAKE
UP SMOKIG TO SHOW HIS INDEPENDENCE - Alderman
Jon Lord of Canada (a non-smoker) says "I have been so fed up
with the rhetoric of anti-smokers I've been tempted to take up smoking
just to show my independence." (Calgary Sun, 12-10-99,
"Smoke Scream").
Indeed. Common sense is still around. Be independent! Be
smoking! It is the biggest silent statement you can make --
especially when you do it under an anti-tobacco cartel poster or a
no-smoking sign.
LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS
ASSOCIATION CATERS TO ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL - LOS
ANGELES - On December 11th, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association on
Saturday named "The Insider," the best picture of the year.
The film also took best actor and supporting actor awards. Russell
Crowe, named best actor of the yearlast week by the National Board of
Review of Motion Pictures, got the nod for playing a cigarette company
employee-turned-whistleblower who blasted his former bosses on "60
Minutes." Christopher Plummer was named best supporting actor.
The movie bases its story on a
false representation of events to cater to an agenda of national
propaganda against the tobacco industry. The Los Angeles Critics
Association, has lowered its standards for the occasion, and it wants to
send a message to the nation and to the tobacco industry.
The message is: "The truth does not matter. We promote
frauds and slander if that makes us money."
HOW BUREAUCRACY PROTECTS THE FRAUDS
OF THE ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL - Following is a
short note from Marty Ronhovdee, reader and contributor of FORCES. It
refers to the most recent fraud
of the anti-tobacco cartel's National Cancer Institute, that has
recycled a debunked CAL/EPA "study" on the
"terrible" effects of second hand smoke as if it was a new
study.
We can see how deeply the anti-tobacco cancer has infiltrated
bureaucracy. Or should we say how the cancerous bureaucracy if
protecting the anti-tobacco frauds? Whichever way is right (probably
both) it is clear that no citizen can get a straight answer from these
gangsters, and that the only therapy against the antismoking social
cancer is to perform legal and political surgery on the affected social
tissues, and radiate what's left with negative money applications.
"Using the fact that the Cal/EPA report based its lung
cancer stats from the EPA report alone is probably the best defense
[against frauds]. Here in California, I've talked with a few Tobacco
Control offices about the EPA report, specifically its ETS conclusions
and Judge Osteen's ruling and each office told me that the ruling was in
North Carolina only and did not affect the federal EPA report.
When I corrected them, telling them that Judge Osteen ruled in a
federal court, they didn't believe me and then claimed that none of it
mattered since Judge Osteen is in North Carolina and he is obviously on
the side of the tobacco companies.
Trying to explain Osteen's background was of no use, they didn't want
to hear it. I got the feeling that their latter response was a spur of
the moment reaction and the Tobacco Control offices here are just being
told that a North Carolina judge ruled against the EPA, no further
information added."
HMOs, YOU SUPPORTED THE
ANTI-TOBACCO SOCIAL CANCER, RIGHT? -- THERE! - '
A group of Mississippi lawyers who took on the tobacco industry are now
going after five of the nation's largest health maintenance
organizations. The lawsuit claims the HMOs failed to provide promised
health care to 32 million people. The lawsuit was filed earlier this
week in federal court in Hattiesburg, Miss. The lead attorney is Richard
Scruggs, who led the lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry that
resulted in a $246 billion settlement. According to a report in The Los
Angeles Times, Scruggs says the class-action lawsuits are "to fix
the broken promises the HMO industry has made to the people who entrust
their very lives in these companies."
The lawsuits claim Pacificare Health Systems Inc., Foundation Health
Systems Inc., Cigna Healthcare, Prudential Health Care and Humana Inc.
violated the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act. The lawsuits accuse the five HMOs of offering financial incentives
such as bonuses to physicians who restricted their patients' access to
expensive health-care treatments. Alan Hoops, chief executive of
Pacificare, says litigation will drive up health care costs for
patients. Fred Laberge, a spokesman for Aetna/US Healthcare, which
recently purchased Prudential, says there's no basis for the
allegations. ' Enjoy, you imbeciles! For more information on this topic, Click here
HAS THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY FOUND SOME
BALLS ON ITSELF? - Brown & Williamson
have been taking a poll of filmgoers at movie houses who have viewed the
Insider movie in Los Angeles and 6 other major cities.
The poll will help B & W decide if they should file a libel suit
against the Disney Corporation and Touchstone Pictures. Martin Feldman,
an analyst for Saloman, Smith Barney believes the likelyhood of B &
W filing a case against Disney "is overwhelming."
Could it be that the tobacco industry has discovered some
testosterone in its evirated self? That would be welcome news, certainly
worthy of support!
THE ABSURD SITUATIONS CREATED BY
THE TOBACCO SETTLEMENT - What else but a
lawsuit about tobacco is new in the USA? A group of importers and
distributors of gray-market cigarettes is suing to overturn the $206
billion settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 states, and the
separate settlement with Texas, claiming that the agreements are
effectively driving them out of business. The plaintiffs are five
companies that buy wholesale cigarettes made by U.S. companies intended
for export. They then sell the cigarettes in the United States,
profiting from markedly lower wholesale prices outside the country. (The
National Law Journal -- For complete story, see Suit
Challenges Big Tobacco Deal).
Of course, bankrupcy of tobacco-related businesses is what the
anti-tobacco gangsters want (or claim to want). Of course, as soon as
all legal tobacco businesses are out of the picture, or fully controlled
by anti-tobacco, the (real) drug cartel will be quite interested to a
300 million dollar a day market. Since the drug cartel has the methods
and the "language" the anti-tobacco cartel can understand,
maybe the two cartels will even respect each other... especially since
the US is already losing the war on drugs!
MORE SETTLEMENT MONEY TO GO FOR
SMOKING-UNRELATED ISSUES - Republican
Governor Owens is using the loot Tobacco Settlement funds to finance his
"Read to Achieve" program -- what happened to the care of sick
smokers and the phantom "tobacco-related disease? Still anybody out
there believes that the sacking of the tobacco industry and its customer
has something to do with health?
The program is an initiative that would set aside $20 million
annually to ensure that every child in Colorado will learn to read and
comprehend at grade level by the time the child completes the third
grade. 50 percent of all students that begin grade school will not
graduate from high school. Endemic ignorance is a sad state in the US,
and it tends to explain why both public and politicians are so easily
bamboozled by the frauds of the anti-tobacco cartel. Unfortunately, the
New Slaves of the US (smokers) are passively paying this abuse as well.
(source: PR Newswire)
FEARFUL OF LAWSUITS, COLT FIREARMS
STOPS THE SALES OF GUNS - Anti-gun bullying
works. In fact, all bullies everywhere are having the time of their
lives, nowadays. Fearful of lawsuits, Colt Firearms, the legendary US
gun manufacturer, has announced that at the end of October it will stop
production of all commercial firearms.
The anti-gun activists and their lawyer bullies are making rapid
progress in the suppression/removal of constitutionally-guaranteed US
freedoms. We all know that criminals don't need to register guns and
don't care about the law - but this is not the target of the new United
States regime. The real purpose is to DISARM THE CITIZEN so that, as it
is for smoking, drinking, and many other liberties, the state can
control the citizen much more effectively -- and repress any reaction
against the forthcoming socialist state control with the force of a very
well-armed state when it deems it necessary. The contempt of the new
fascist (communist?) American regime for the US Constitution is turning
into facts -- that is, into its practical elimination.
FLORIDA: ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL TRIES
AGAIN - The anti-tobacco gangsters and
their shark lawyers cannot let billions of dollars escape their fangs.
And, in the current state of political intimidation, a Florida Court
cannot easily yield to justice and common sense.
Florida Court Will Reconsider Ruling That Favors Tobacco Firms in
Lawsuit The Wall Street Journal reports, "A Florida state
appeals court reopened the threat of huge punitive damages against
tobacco companies in a class-action lawsuit by saying it will reconsider
a ruling it made two weeks ago. The earlier decision had been considered
an important victory for cigarette makers. Florida's Third District
Court of Appeal on Friday vacated its Sept. 3 order requiring that
smokers' claims for punitive as well as compensatory damages in the suit
be heard individually. The court said it will hear oral arguments on the
issue Sept. 30. If the judges change their stance, the so-called Engle
case filed against the country's top five tobacco companies could again
pose a significant danger to cigarette makers. "In the absence of
another favorable ruling for the industry, Engle once again becomes
threatening," said Martin Feldman, a tobacco-industry analyst at
Salomon Smith Barney in New York." [News first reported in JUNKSCIENCE] THE ANTI-TOBACCO CARTEL HAS GOOD
REASONS TO WORRY ABOUT THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW - The
anti-tobacco cartel is concerned that the recent Rush Limbaugh show
concerning the Victoria MacDonald article may have consequences on its
agenda.
Victoria MacDonald, health correspondent of the British Telegraph,
published an article on March 8th, 1998 containing allegations about an attempt by
the World Health Organisation to conceal the results of a major study on
second-hand smoke. The study was the second-largest study ever
performed on the effect of second-hand smoke. After many years and
huge sums spent, the study returned a negative verdict on the dangers of
second-hand smoke. In fact, it even showed a protective effect.
Now the anti-tobacco cartel (of which ASH is a vocal operative), is
busy working to dispel the effects of the glimpse of truth that made it
through the information iron curtain existing to protect the frauds on
the negative effects of tobacco.
But in the US, Rush is not afraid to unearth this issue again. After
all, considering the monumental lie that depicts second-hand smoke as a
danger, as well as the WHO's
political agenda and integrity (ha!), the attempt by the
WHO to hide one of the proof of its frauds seems more than reasonable to
us.
For more information on secondhand smoke click here. JUNK SCIENCE CRITICIZED IN JAMA? -- INCREDIBLE!!...
WHAT'S WRONG? -- JAMA is publishing a critique
on the junk science it is popularizing. Now, this is certainly something
to remember! There is an absolute conflict of interest between
anti-tobacco corruption, its frauds, and this publication -- certainly
an aberration. What's wrong? What is JAMA doing highlighting the truth?
Meta-analysis technique criticized in JAMA A study in the Journal
of the American Medical Association (Sep. 15) throws cold water on the
use of the statistical technique known as "meta-analysis."
(Meta-analysis involves combining multiple statistically weak studies
into a single, more statistically powerful study. It gained a great deal
of notoriety when used by the Environmental Protection Agency in its
controversial, and now overturned, 1992 risk assessment that concluded
secondhand smoke was a human carcinogen.) The JAMA study reported that
risk estimates were "exaggerated" by 35 percent when clinical
trials with open outcome assessment (i.e., researchers knew which
patients received drugs and which received placebos) were included in a
meta-analysis. The researchers conclude, "... the lack of
well-performed and adequately sized trials cannot be remedied by
statistical analyses of small trials of questionable quality." An
accompanying editorial notes, "If the quality of the component
studies of a meta-analysis is poor, then a precise summary of those poor
studies in unjustified... a meta-analysis may not only be deceptively
precise, but may yield misleading results." So what does this say
about the EPA meta-analysis of secondhand smoke? The studies combined by
the EPA were case-control epidemiology studies -- a much more inferior
study design than clinical trials. [News first reported in JUNKSCIENCE] FLORIDA: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
REDUCES PARASITISM - The St. Petersburg
Times reports that the Florida anti-smoking campaign was forced to
eliminate 11 of its 31 staff positions and cut back hours for teens who
worked part-time on the program. While the anti-tobacco cartel will take
care of its own by offering to the 11 people other jobs within the
Department of Health (thus still getting the taxpayers to pay for
parasitic jobs), the budget for the program was recently cut by the
Legislature from $70 million to $32 million.
The parasites are worried: "It's troubling to see a tobacco
prevention program that is more effective than any program in the
country struggle for its life," lied Ralph DeVitto, lobbyist
for the American Cancer Society. State officials said the
"Truth" [which one?] ads would still be produced, but
they will have less money to work with. The marketing staff was cut from
four to two, and the marketing director was let go.
Good going, Mr. Bush!
(Source: Julie Hauserman, "Anti-Smoking Program Takes Hit,"
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, June 3, 1999, p. B1.)
ANTI-GUN CARTEL = ANTI-TOBACCO
CARTEL - This should make hairs stand up!
The "progressives" are now using the same tactic on
pro-gun people as they use on pro-smokers or smoking supporters. As Media Research
reports: "More Rosie vs. Tom. Tuesday morning MRC Webmaster
Sean Henry will post an extended excerpt from the May 20 Rosie O'Donnell
attack on Tom Selleck over his ties to the NRA. Last Friday we posted a
couple of news stories with clips from the show, but since then MRC
analyst Jessica Anderson managed to obtain a tape of the original Rosie
O'Donnell Show from which we've now taken a clip." To see the
excerpt in RealPlayer format, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/biasvideo.html
JAPAN TOBACCO PURCHASES RJR
- Japan Tobacco has purchased RJR International tobacco. RJR
will still have its domestic tobacco business. Apparently, this was a
necessary move not only to get cash (RJR was heavily in debt from its
acquisition of Nabisco and from the lawsuits, and lacked cash), but also
necessary in order to spin off Nabisco from RJR Tobacco. This separation
will also protect the food part from any legal liabilities on tobacco's
part. Ultimately, this is supposed not only to protect the company, but
to increase stock prices.
As a result of its acquisition of RJR International, Japan Tobacco is
now the third largest tobacco company in the world.
KALIFORNIA: THE CONSEQUENCES OF
PROPOSITION 10, AND OF TOBACCO OVER-TAXATION - CORONA,
Calif. (source: AP) - "Four armed men tied up 15 employees at a
warehouse on Wednesday and escaped in a big-rig truck loaded with $1
million worth of tobacco products, police said. No one was injured in
the robbery during which four men in hoods entered an employee entrance
shortly before 5 a.m. It was not clear whether the stolen load consisted
of cigarettes, cigars or other types of tobacco. The robbers forced some
workers to load the goods onto a truck before they were bound with tape
and robbed of personal belongings. Corona is 50 miles east of Los
Angeles."
What will happen to this tobacco? It does not take a rocket scientist
to figure this one out -- SMUGGLING! And for any smuggled cigarette
purchased, the Kalifornia anti-smoking bastards won't get their cut,
though they can alway fool the public by claiming that "a new
study shows that smoking in Kalifornia has actually dicreased"
-- and ask for more taxpayers' money to keep up the good job... YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG, PALS!
-- (Source of the original news: Associated Press/Infobeat)
- MEDIA, Pa. - 'Five friends gather to make a high school health
video about the dangers of smoking and drugs.'
Of course, what else is new? Bashing and lying on smoking is the
favorite sport today for much of the youth. It gets time off from the
already poor education in schools, and gets political grades for being
good, brainwashed citizens.
'Ten days later, the girls die when their car plows into a pole.
In the bloodstreams of four, including the driver, are traces of a
chemical named difluoroethane. Inside the crumpled car, troopers find a
can of "Duster II," a spray used to clean computer keyboards.
Its ingredients include difluoroethane. The coroner's findings put the
teens on a list of 240 people who have died from "huffing"
inhalants since 1996. But studies and doctors who treat teen-agers say
their subjects tell them huffing, also called "sniffing" or
"wanging," is the easiest high to get and easier to conceal
than alcohol, marijuana or tobacco.'
Wrong, pals! It was secondhand smoke! Didn't you know that
secondhand smoke contains 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 (the sky -- like fantasy
-- is the limit) most of them in quantities so huge, they can't even
be measured?
Now, these quantities can cause all kinds of calamities, from cancer
to asthma, from hemorrhoids to car accidents. But these huge quantities
also have tremendous advantages: they make rich dishonest, corrupted
scientists, and enable politicians and anti-tobacco cartel activists to
fool people, and implement smoking bans -- and tax smokers to death.
Obviously, the healthy, puritanical, intolerant anti-tobacco,
anti-fat, anti-alcohol youth of anti-everything America has found a new
way to cheat the system.
Proof once again that more repression and control is in order. Let's
get them! CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES: ANTISMOKING FASCISTS - Reuters reports
that in its first month of operations, the crew of the antismoking
fascists Carnival Cruise Lines' new ship MS Paradise have put nine
passengers ashore for violating the ship's repressive no-smoking policy.
The rules, which passengers must sign before boarding, say that anyone
caught smoking will be dropped off at the next port and must find their
own way home. "It's very easy on a nonsmoking ship to detect
smoke," a Carnival spokesman said. "Some of them were caught
on deck late at night. Others were caught in their cabins." To
reinforce the rule, the line is considering adding a $250
"fumigation charge" to violators' bills. Readers,
remember: Carnival cruise Lane is a fascist organization that
violates smokers' human rights. Carnival Cruise Lines has other
ships where smoking is allowed by grace of the management. DO NOT
patronise ANY cruise with this organization. Last year, they
already reported a drop in business. With some luck, we may be able to
put these people out of business once and for all.
WE STOLE IT - YOU CANNOT TAKE IT, YOU THIEF! - STATES SAY TOBACCO MONEY BELONGS TO THEM - WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers and state attorneys general said Thursday they would use both legislation and lawsuits to deny the federal government any part of the billions of dollars states won from the tobacco industry. "We worked long and hard to get this money for our respective states. Fair is fair," Ohio's attorney general, Betty Montgomery, said at a Capitol Hill news conference. The administration said in 1997 it was entitled to part of any settlement the states reach with tobacco companies because the states were trying to recover Medicaid money spent on smoking-related illnesses. The federal government pays the states for at least half of Medicaid in every state.
SOME SIGN OF COMMONSENSE, AND HONESTY? - FLORIDA TOBACCO DECISION OVERTURNED - TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A Florida appeals court has overturned a landmark $1 million award to the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer. In June, a Jacksonville jury ordered Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. to pay the family of Roland Maddox $1 million. In an unsigned one-paragraph order, the appellate court vacated the award Friday and ordered the case transferred to either Palm Beach County or Broward County in south Florida and not Jacksonville, some 275 miles away. The appeals court did not explain its decision. But two months after the $1 million award, it said the case should have been tried in south Florida, near Maddox's hometown.
MORE SIGNS OF COMMONSENSE, AND
HONESTY? - TOBACCO "VICTIMS"
UNABLE TO SUE - By Melanie Harvey - A group of lung-cancer
sufferers was yesterday refused permission to sue two tobacco companies.
High Court judge Mr Justice Wright decided not to exercise his power
to allow the action against Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco to continue
after it was brought outside the legal time limit. The plaintiffs in
eight test cases had lodged their claims more than three years after
being diagnosed with lung cancer, one missing the time limitation by 24
years.
They had asked the judge to exercise his discretion under the 1980
Limitations Act to allow the action to proceed but in a judgment at the
High Court sitting in Liverpool he refused that application.
Mr Justice Wright said: "The conclusion I have arrived at in
each case is that it would not be appropriate for me to exercise my
discretion to allow the cases to continue. Each of the applications must
be refused."
Had it been successful, the application would have paved the way for
a larger group of lung-cancer sufferers, who lodged claims more than
three years after diagnosis, to sue the two firms. Now, 14 sufferers of
an original group of 52 will proceed with compensation claims against
the firms in a trial due next year.
After the judgment was handed down, Martyn Day and Irwin Mitchell,
the solicitors representing the plaintiffs, issued a joint statement.
"Obviously many clients will be disappointed . We now have to
consider this very carefully to determine how next to proceed."
A Gallaher spokesman said: "We were always confident we would
get this judgment. We clearly welcome it."
The lung-cancer sufferers had claimed at an earlier hearing at the
High Court in London that the eight suffered injury because all the
cigarettes with which they were supplied between the 1950s and 1970s
contained far more tar than was reasonably safe or appropriate.
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DECEMBER 16, 1999