Recently, a new study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that smokers' health costs are not an economic burden to society. In fact, smokers have been reducing health costs from four to seven percent every year. It was reported in The Washington Times on Oct. 9, from the account by the Associated Press.

And this is no doubt the last we're ever going to hear of it from the The Washington Times. On every subsequent story relating to anti-smoker lawsuits alleging economic damages from smokers' health costs, the Times, just as before, systematically reports the Big Lie about smoking costs as fact, with no regard at all for the truth. For example:

QUOTE: Pentagon seeks a share of the tobacco deal take. Smoking-ills tab is $584 million a year. By Samuel Goldreich (TWT Oct 15 1997, pp A1, A12).

AND:The Pentagon wants a $14.6 billion cut of any nationwide tobacco settlement to pay for treating soldiers and military retirees suffering from smoking related illnesses.

AND: ... the Pentagon wants to recover [sic] the $584 million it spends each year as a result of tobacco-induced death, illness and disease.

AND: "This is not only a substantial expenditure, it attests to a significant impact upon precious health care resources," she wrote.

AND: But the amount is even higher, according to the Defense Department's inspector general, who reported in December that military health care and lost productivity costs due to smoking were $930 million for fiscal 1995.

AND LATER, QUOTE: [Sen. Ted Kennedy] is talking to Mr. Hatch about the best way to recover the $22 billion a year lost to smoking addiction,... (Hatch plan adds $1.50 to pack of cigarettes, by Samuel Goldreich. TWT Oct 30 1997, pp B7, B9).

AND AGAIN, QUOTE: And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, plans to introduce a bill... [to] compensate federal agencies for costs associated with treating smoking-related disease. (Tobacco-control bill introduced in Senate, by Samuel Goldreich. TWT Nov 6 1997, pp B7, B9).

AND STILL MORE, QUOTE: [the McCain bill] ...essentially codifies the settlement signed in June between the nation's five major tobacco makers and attorneys general suing to recover state costs of smoking-related illnesses. (Democrats seek to double tobacco deal, by Samuel Goldreich. TWT Nov 8 1997, pp A11, A14).

AND BLAH BLAH BLAH.

No one would ever guess from this serial psychopathic lying that The Washington Times calls its reporting that smoking has actually SAVED the Pentagon around 7% on its health costs because the recipients are mainly male. And the states and federal government have also saved money, particularly on Medicaid costs, where nursing home expenses account for 43% of the budget.

It's only been explained to these liars at the Times a few dozen times that those anti-smoker cost claims are fraudulent, because they pretend that non-smokers health costs don't exist. When non-smokers' costs are counted instead of ignored, SMOKING SAVES MONEY.

They've only been sent the CRS report on "Cigarette Taxes to Fund Health Care Reform" Technical Appendix a half dozen times or so. And they've been informed that the CDC and OTA have misrepresented their fraudulent smoking cost studies as complete and accurate, when they are not. They've been told that even the original project director of the OTA report has admitted its defects, but they have no curiosity about this whistleblower.

The Times' rival, the Washington Post, in its own story on the NEJM study, admitted that "That conclusion also contradicts the central premise of the 41 state lawsuits against the tobacco industry, which are seeking reimbursement [sic - "claim to be seeking reimbursement" would be journalistically correct, given the facts] from the tobacco industry for smoking-related health care costs."

The Post admitted as well that "The researchers are not the first to advance the notion that smokers save society money. Willard G. Manning of the Rand Corp., the Congressional Research Service and W. Keith Viscusi of Harvard University have generally concluded that the health care costs of smoking are generally offset by tobacco taxes [sic - it is the deliberate methodological fraud of the anti-smokers' studies which primarily accounts for their results.]

But similar admissions have never been seen in The Washington Times. It is clear that they have deliberately spread the lie that smokers' health costs are a burden, in order to incite those malicious lawsuits, to benefit their own anti-smoking agenda. And their libel has helped cause billions of dollars of economic injury to innocent smokers, not even counting the $368.5 billion the anti-smokers are seeking to extort.

This does not constitute freedom of the press. The First Amendment does not protect outright lies. And when they're told with the intent to harm innocent people, this is a criminal offense. This is conspiracy, fraud and racketeering (which the media falsely accuse the tobacco companies of engaging in), blatantly carried on before our very eyes, just as they have been doing for over ten years. And we're supposed to be so accustomed to their misbehavior that we don't even see it for what it is.

The anti-smoking movement literally could not exist without lies, fraud, corruption, conspiracy, concealment of evidence, and racketeering. But there is not a single investigation that we know of, including by the supposed Congressional defenders of tobacco, which is concerned with the massive array of crimes committed by the anti-smokers.

It is Wesley Pruden, his fellow editors and their sleazy reporters such as Samuel Goldreich, who must be prosecuted for their crimes, and sent to prison until hell freezes over.

Counterpoint by

Carol Thompson
Smokers' Rights Action Group
P.O. Box 259575
Madison, WI 53725-9575
Phone: 608-249-4568