First: The Centers for Disease Control and Office of Technology Assessment deliberately, willfully, and knowingly created fraudulent smoking cost claims, and disseminated them to the states' departments of health, with the intent of raising cigarette taxes under false pretenses as well as inciting malicious Medicaid lawsuits.

Second, the media eagerly disseminated these, and obstinately refused to publicize the truth, despite repeated efforts by our side. It is not for lack of knowledge that, in every single story about the Medicaid lawsuits, they have recited the Big Lie that the purpose of those lawsuits are to "recover smokers' excess health costs," but out of CRIMINAL INTENT:

Over a decade ago, the anti-smokers devised the Medicaid lawsuits as a ruse to sue the tobacco industry for phony "damages" that we smokers would be forced to pay. And, to perpetrate this scheme to deprive us of our rights and property, the media embarked upon a systematic campaign to spread the libel that smokers are an economic burden to the states.

Third, the attorneys general have filed fraudulent lawsuits based on those fraudulent smoking cost claims, falsely claiming economic damages when they have actually benefitted, AND WHEN THEIR STATES WOULD ACTUALLY SUFFER ECONOMIC DAMAGES WITHOUT SMOKING. They have persisted in pressing these lawsuits even after being informed of the truth, and moreover, have subsequently conspired to recruit more attorneys general to file more malicious lawsuits, and by means of this abuse of their official powers, to force the tobacco industry to capitulate to extortion, under color of law.

The OTA "report" of May 1993, which their lawsuits cite as the source for their claim of $50+ billion in smoking costs nationwide, is actually the statement of OTA staff members Roger Herdman, Maria Hewitt, and Mary Laschober to the Senate Special Committee on Aging. The CRS explicitly exposed its fraudulent methodology. So they lied to Congress, bigtime. And the media have covered it all up, and also refuse to publicize the admission of the original OTA project director, Karl Kronebusch, that the OTA methodology is fraudulent.

Our position is ironclad. The anti-smokers' claim that smoking has caused economic damage to the states is founded on methodological fraud. We have the analyses of internationally-recognized experts in economics at the Congressional Research Service on our side. We also have the admission of the former project director of one of the anti-smokers' two core studies that this is so.

We have a study done by the RAND corporation demonstrating that smoking is not an economic burden. We have another study showing that, regardless of whether smoking is more or less dangerous than supposed, smoking costs would decrease in either case.

Moreover, there are federal civil rights laws in this country forbidding the use of official powers for "deprivation of rights under color of law," as the attorneys general have done. These federal civil rights laws are supposed to apply not just to small-fry beat cops who violently abuse a suspect, but towhite collar big shots who abuse their official powers, as well.

Furthermore, we also have Congressional testimony on the admission of IAQ director Robert Axelrad to the EPA Inspector General that the crucial chapters of the report on ETS were written via illegal pass-through contracts to his hand-picked crony, Kenneth G. Brown.

The media conspired to suppress this story to deceive the American people about the legitimacy of this report, so the anti-smoking activists could ramrod their smoking bans down the public's throat. And, the media lied to the public that there was no scientific dissent, when the EPA's own scientists were opposed to labeling secondhand smoke a "human carcinogen."

And, it is the anti-smokers, not the tobacco industry, who are guilty of lying to the public about the health risks of tobacco, via the deliberate use of fraudulent and defective science, which we have now identified in specific detail, to help deceive people into not smoking, and to hurt the tobacco industry with fraudulent claims:

They have falsely blamed smoking and passive smoking for heart disease actually caused by infections such as Helicobacter pylori and Chlamydia pneumoniae; for ulcers and stomach cancer actually caused by H. pylori; for cervical cancer by means of mathematical confounding with the high odds ratio risk factor of human papillomavirus; and for perinatal morbidity actually caused by chorioamnionitis. The anti-smokers have known for nearly 40 years that chorioamnionitis is the single greatest greatest cause of poor perinatal outcomes, and all this time they have deliberately used defective studies without placental pathological examinations, so that these infections won't be detected and they can blame smoking instead.

Thus, the anti-smokers have sacrificed public health, and caused the unnecessary deaths of millions of people, by diverting attention and funding from worthwhile research.

The anti-smokers have also kept the vast majority of the public ignorant of non-smokers' increased risks of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, ulcerative colitis, and thromboembolism.

As additional definitive proof of the collusive anti-smoker / media conspiracy, NOT ONCE HAVE THE NATIONAL MEDIA CONSULTED THE SMOKERS' RIGHTS MOVEMENT FOR OUR OPINIONS ON THESE SETTLEMENT TALKS AND RELATED ISSUES. In contrast, from the very beginning, the national media and wire services have served as organizational facilitators for the anti-smoking organizations by disseminating their addresses and websites.

The tobacco companies' capitulation to these anti-smoking criminals is the biggest stab in the back ever committed upon innocent people. They literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. We believe it proves that they have conspired with the anti-smokers all along. Their supposed "battle" against the anti-smokers has been nothing but play-acting, a sham to deceive smokers that they lost fair and square and didn't sell us out.

But we know better. Tell the anti-smokers that their battle is JUST BEGINNING. Remember, we smokers didn't sign any phony settlement agreement and we are not obliged to honor the machinations of criminals.

These anti-smoking conspirators must be prosecuted, and pay for their crimes against over 50 million people.

Courtesy of Carol Thompson 08/23/93
Smokers' Rights Action Group
P.O. Box 259575
Madison, WI 53725-9575
Phone: 608-249-4568