"Why the Cost Counting Differs" - Another whitewash of the anti-smokers. The so-called "flaws in the way states calculate medical expenditures" are not just "flaws," but deliberate fraud. This fraud was initiated by the OTA and particularly the CDC, which actively distributed its fraudulent smoking cost computer program, the infamous SAMMEC, to state health departments for the purpose of creating those fraudulent smoking cost claims.

This is the predominant source of their Medicaid lawsuit claims. The states "charging smokers for their medical expenses after they are dead based on their medical costs while alive," as far as I can tell is just a gimmick to dress up press releases. The lack of demographic adjustments and failure to exclude federal payments is the fault of the SAMMEC, coupled with the greed of the attorneys general.

"Underage Smokers" - The laws are disobeyed because they were rammed down the public's throat by an anti-smoking political machine that took over our state legislatures (and federal government). And all this hullaballoo about "youth smoking" is the "problem" according to that anti-smoker political machine. But we as citizens ought to be defining THEM as the problem, not meekly sniveling in agreement. We don't want kids and shopkeepers fined and thrown in jail for laws we didn't want in the first place. Furthermore, that hallaballoo is the anti-smokers' smokescreen to distract attention from the fact that they're stealing enormous sums of money from the pockets of the 97% of adult smokers, under the excuse of stopping the 3% who are underage (whom they may not stop anyhow. Look how much drugs cost.)

"Toward a Rational Smoking Policy" - The fuss over "safer cigarettes," as usual, is primarily a concern of the anti-smokers, not of smokers. Any "rational smoking policy" will have to start by acknowledging that smokers have decided to smoke anyhow, despite being lied to by the anti-smokers, with trumped-up and fraudulent health risks. Including their fundamental lie that "smoking is dangerous," when average smokers die in their 70s, a fact which the anti-smokers take pains to conceal because it doesn't seem "dangerous" enough to scare most people.

The fuss over cigarette ingredients is likewise an anti-smoker red herring. It's primarily a peg for them to hang scare propaganda upon. Any smokers who are under the impression that additives are the primary source of smoking risks has been misled by them.

"A primary reason for such neglect is a governmental mind-set that is anti-industry. State and federal governments alike should abandon theircombative stance, take a more open-minded approach to the safety of tobacco products, and make advancement of consumer welfare their paramount concern."

It's time for smokers to kick government butt and make it clear that we're not going to take their guff any more. In particular, we must demand our consumer rights to TRUTHFUL information, not their shopworn lies about "400,000 deaths" and hysterical campaigns of deceit and defamation designed by the anti-smokers to eradicate us.

Finally, it is not really true that "Last June, U.S. cigarette companies, together with government officials, chiefly state attorneys general, drafted proposed federal legislation that would, if enacted, have a sweeping effect on the regulation of cigarettes, as well as on prospective cigarette industry liability."

All they produced was a settlement between each other. But what we actually get is what Congress eventually legislates, and several different bills have been introduced.