 March
14 -
Now,
That's Presenting The Facts! - The script recited by the anti-tobacco stooges was recently updated to
include wording to the effect that smoke-free restaurants, bars, everywhere
in fact, is the wave of the future. It's progress. It's
inevitable. Now that New York City has capitulated this line of
propaganda has intensified. If New York City, the center of the
universe, bans smoking then soon the entire globe will fall into line.
Such hubris always goes before the fall.
Minnesota, not New York or California, in fact, shows every sign of being
the wave of the future and in that state anti-tobacco is losing...big
time. Only four cities in this large, generally liberal state, have
enacted smoking bans that meet Tobacco Control's specifications.
Dozens of cities have rejected smoking bans despite heavy lobbying by
anti-tobacco's finest. Lately the fate of the state's anti-tobacco
education program is in jeopardy because state politicians have had quite
enough of the antagonistic divisiveness anti-tobacco brings to every town it
infects.
Certainly the battle is still waging but the lies
anti-tobacco tells are not being accepted as gospel anymore. Property
rights are being discussed and the financial ruin smoking bans bring is
being acknowledged.
The focus is now on the city of Mora. As usual,
anti-tobacco is ganging up on the city council, putting on its dog and pony
show and spreading lies. Two letters to the editors are on display and
each distill the essence of both sides. The anti-freedom position is
taken by someone that doesn't even live in Minnesota, let alone in
Mora. There are the usual wild, unverifiable claims that secondhand
smoke kills. The usual claims that throwing out one third of the
customers is somehow good for business.
On the rational, pro-liberty side is a resident of
Mora who will be affected very adversely by a smoking ban. This letter
is worth saving. The pro-ban letter is on the top of the page (how
surprising!) while the pro-freedom letter is at the bottom.
March
15 - The
junk science study about cavities in children whose parents smoke was of
course picked up by CNN and one of Canada's biggest dailies. Junk
usually does make its way into the pages of the Globe and Mail.
Meanwhile an anti-tobacco politician finally says something with which we
can agree.
See
INSIDE
March
14 -
The
Real Cavities Are In These Researchers' Heads - As the money for loopy "research" becomes scarcer, the grant
junkies are scrambling to justify their stipends. So frenetic have
they become that their claims become more bizarre yet more irrelevant
simultaneously. This time secondhand smoke is the culprit for bad oral
hygiene in young people. The usual "risk" is touted, even
though it doesn't qualify as risk in its real meaning. Statistics are
shuffled. Cotinine is again used as a marker for secondhand smoke even
though the consumption of potatoes and tomatoes explains why this substance
is found in the body.
But the best reason to toss this study down the toilet
comes from the researchers themselves. After many paragraphs devoted
to the "link" between secondhand smoke and cavities in the teeth
of children "exposed" to secondhand smoke (or tomatoes) the whole
theory is quashed:
You'd think (adult) smokers would have a lot of
cavities, but they don't
Whoops! No more grants for that
researcher! Never, ever admit that smokers have good teeth and never
encourage logic to enter into the equation. If smokers don't get
cavities from running firsthand smoke over their pearly whites hundreds of
times per day it is a real far stretch to posit that bystanders, even if
children, get cavities from infinitesimally smaller amounts of the stuff.
March
14 -
An
Endless Supply Of Warnings - The European Union has beefed up (or dumbed down) the warnings that
describe the dangers of smoking cigarettes. Learning nothing from
Canada's ludicrous attempts to make cigarette pack warnings more meaningful
the EU's new warnings will, of course, be ignored or laughed at by happy
smokers. To show how serious the government is about fighting the most
dangerous scourge on earth, Mick Hume proposes intensifying the
effort.
March
14 -
Oh,
To Hell With It, Let's Ban Smoking Everywhere - The anti-tobacco industry has been shrieking like harpies over the
perceived efforts by the Florida legislature to weaken the state-wide
smoking ban voted in by the people. Thwarting the will of the people,
they screech as legislators, listening to the constituents, attempt to cause
the least harm to as few businesses as possible.
One legislator has had it with the
squabbling and is proposing that smoking be banned everywhere, including
standalone bars which were not touched by the constitutional amendment that
was voted in last November. The amendment does permit the legislature
to go further than the banning smoking in restaurants and office
buildings. Also proposed is banning smoking in outdoor restaurant
patios. Anti-tobacco, of course, is silent about this "thwarting
the will of the people."
March
13 -
Doktor
Gizmo And His Nicotine Machine - On Monday, David Sterling, a professor of environmental and occupational
health at St. Louis University, showed Gerard Slay, deputy director of
Lambert, the equipment that would be used to take air samples. Sterling was
selected by the Tobacco Free Missouri-Greater St. Louis Coalition, the group
paying for the $300 testing equipment. Sterling is donating his services and
those of three graduate students for the week-long testing process.
Samples will be taken in three different areas of
the airport at various times. In each case, the graduate student sits in a
chair closest to the smoking lounge. Once the samples have been
collected, they will be sent to the University of California Los Angeles,
where Sterling got the pump and filters. Results should be available about
two weeks later.
What are the odds against this crew making a final
report that the smoking lounges at Lambert Field should stay? We have
a researcher chosen by the Tobacco Control industry taking measurements of
the air outside the smoking lounges, sending the data to the University of
California, an organization that has taken hundreds of millions of dollars
in anti-tobacco money, for tabulation. It doesn't take a researcher or
prophet to predict that the recommendation is pretty much a forgone
conclusion that smoking must be entirely terminated at the St. Louis
airport.
In a move that parallels the drive to ban smoking in
restaurants and bars at a time of economic insecurity. Airlines and
the airports that support them are in the midst of very hard times so common
sense dictates that the airlines and the airports should do everything
possible to attract all potential customers. Instead, the geniuses
who run the St. Louis airport embark upon a plan to implement policies that
treat one-third of the customers like dirt. Adding to the insanity
they spend public dollars hiring anti-smoking activists to concoct the study
that will show totally enclosed, hyper-ventilated smoking rooms are
hazardous to everyone's health.
March
13 -
Rape
Of The Legal System - Closing arguments were heard in a case that could cost Philip Morris
billions. The case was brought by smokers of light cigarettes.
Although the whole "light" and "low tar" marketing
campaign was dictated by the federal government, a judge will now rule
whether the company defrauded its customers by implying that the light
cigarettes are safer than regular blends.
The legal system is now the realm of pirates who cast
their eyes to the horizon seeking plump whales ready for harpooning.
Should the plaintiffs win, a pretty safe bet these lawless days, the lawyers
will collect hundreds of millions of dollars while the people they represent
will receive nothing. The money will then be ploughed into the
political system to buy politicians to halt any chance of tort reform.
It's a system that is the laughing stock of the world and one that only the
greedy lawyers could love.
(Click bar for back issues)
March
7 - The
United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletters - Smoke
friendly spots in New York City, the animal rights zealots manage to outdo
even the tobacco control fanatics in bad taste and the protest grows in
Dallas.
(Click bar to go to section)
March
13 -
Fat
Is Good, As Long As It's Served In A Four Star Restaurant - All over the country, and especially in the
food-sophisticated Bay Area, fat, in all its glorious, slick incarnations,
is coming back. After three lean decades, chefs, home cooks and even the
nutritionists who persuaded us to board the low-fat bus in the first place
are rejecting the notion that fat is what makes us fat.
"We're beginning a new kind of balance,"
said Clark Wolf, a food and restaurant consultant in San Francisco and New
York who works with New York University's Department of Nutrition and Food
Studies. "In the '80s, we really had food phobias. People were afraid
of cheese and butter and eggs."
If you get past the self-stroking bit about the
"sophisticated" San Francisco Bay Area without busting a gut guffawing,
you will find that they, the white-coated experts, have been preaching a lie
for the past 30 years. Banishing fat from the diet, far from being
healthy, has been a health disaster that is only now becoming
apparent. Now that the consequences of extremism and the faddish
slavery to experts are known, the same gaggle of experts are saying,
"go ahead, enjoy the fat."
Of course, experts are still needed, to explain and
show us the difference between "good" and "bad"
fat. People must be carefully taught by gentle, yet firm, teachers how
to eat, how much to eat and when to eat. A whole industry of food
specialists has been created and must find ways to keep the big salaries
funded. After reading this puff piece about the "new"
information one wonders why on earth should anyone pay any attention to
experts who have been proven to be so wrong.
March
12 - Working
The SIDS Racket -
It's not smoking after all, according to the latest. No, what causes
sudden infant death syndrome is alcohol, layered baby closes and, oh yes,
being a Native American. Needles to say, none of this holds up on
close examination.
March
12 -
Ban
Lights Group's Fire - Audrey Silk, a cigarette-smoking Brooklyn police officer and founder of
Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, or C.L.A.S.H., is organizing a
boycott of all city restaurants and bars to protest the smoking ban. To
kick off the boycott, the smokers are planning a Bye-Bye New York City Bash
at Frankie and Johnnie's Steakhouse in Hoboken on the first day of the ban -
March 30.
The purpose, Silk said, is to make the
point to city bar and restaurant owners that they need to push harder to
amend the law, which the group considers a case of government quashing
personal freedom. The group's in-your-face slogan makes the point: "Stop
giving in, start taking out. Don't eat and drink where you can't
smoke."
At a time when the city is suffering financially it is
insane that the mayor and city council of New York City passed a law that
will reduce sales in the hospitality industry. The smoking ban in
Delaware has been a disaster for restaurants, bars and casinos yet the
supposedly brilliant politicians in New York are ignoring the proof that
smoking bans are bad for business to curry favor with organizations that
don't contribute one dime to the city's coffers.
The party in Hoboken may not change these blind
politicians prejudices but it does signal bad times for bars and restaurants
in New York. Patrons may not travel to New Jersey for dinner on a
regular basis but their patronage will decrease in the bars and restaurants
where they used to frequent before Big Brother snuffed out all the fun.
March
12 -
New Yorkers, Join The Party In Hoboken - Fed
up with the Bloomberg Health Reich? Get off your butts and do
something about it. One enjoyable event should be right up anyone's
alley. Drinks and dinner in a smoke-friendly restaurant with a great
bunch of like-minded people. Every protest should be so fun.
March
12 -
No-Smoking Day in the UK - But smokers are sick of it
- (press release) ‘Smokers are sick of No Smoking Day.
They are made to feel guilty about their habit and that puts them under
pressure to quit, which is the last thing they need. Smokers know if they want
to give up. They don’t need the nanny state to tell them when to do it.’
March
12 -
A debate for liberty - A debate on the
FOREST'S website
for a sad event (UK's No-Smoking Day) -
Lord Harris of High Cross,
chairman of FOREST, engages his opponent Lord Laird of Artigarvan, a former
Ulster Unionist MP in the debate for liberty. Check it out!
 March
12 - Smokers
Cough Less But Smoking Is Still Real, Real Bad - "Although difficult to prove, it also is likely that healthy smokers
have a naturally blunted cough reflex," said Umesh G. Lalloo, MBChB,
MD, FCCP, Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, Department of Medicine,
South Africa, and author of a corresponding editorial. "This may
explain why some individuals tolerate the acute effects of smoking and
become addicted to nicotine."
Where to start with this piece of
trash? Just when the tobacco control industry had convinced the public
that only smokers (or nonsmokers caught in a crosswind of secondhand smoke)
ever cough, a South African gang of junk junkies turns that around by saying
that smokers cough less than nonsmokers. Traditionally people who
cough a lot are considered less healthy than those who don't but in the
loony world of South African junk science the fact that healthy -- the
researchers' word, not ours -- smokers don't cough as much as nonsmokers is
proof that smoking is deadly.
Here's how this novel theory goes.
Smokers, by inhaling the deadly, toxic and unspeakably vile tobacco smoke
into their lungs inhibit cough receptors which, in this case is a bad thing,
since coughing is a defensive action that prevents foreign material from
entering the respiratory tract and helps to remove mucus from the airways.
The study of healthy smokers reveals that not only do they not cough as much
as nonsmokers they also don't seem to be as bothered by particulate matter.
The anti-tobacco cabal thus covers all
bases. Smokers cough because they smoke and if they don't cough it's
also because they smoke. In either case, as this article concludes,
cessation (aided by expensive cessation products) is the only solution for
the cough and non-cough condition.
March
12 -
History
Repeats Itself - Smoking among
schoolchildren has reached record levels with three-fifths of 14 and
15-year-olds having tried cigarettes, according to a new study.
The report by the Schools Health Education
Unit found that 40% of 12 to 13-year-olds and 60% of 14 to 15-year-olds
admitted trying cigarettes in 2001. This compares to 30% of 12 to
13-year-olds and 57% of 14 to 15-year-olds in 1990.
Let's see. What new variable was
introduced into Great Britain during the past decade? What could
possibly be causing the increase in underage smoking? Can't be
cigarette advertising because that has decreased dramatically over the past
10 years. What is new is anti-smoking propaganda. The same
anti-smoking propaganda that hit the United States and Canada that resulted
in skyrocketing youth smoking rates in both those countries.
To provide comic relief to the upward trend
in underage smoking Action on Smoking and Health flack Amanda Sanford puts
on her thinking cap and lets loose with the following lead balloon:
"The results of this research are
worrying. It is possibly as a result of the liberalisation in society's
attitude towards drugs in general."
At least she doesn't blame it on the impotent
tobacco industry but Amanda sounds like she's been smoking something and it
ain't tobacco. Liberalization of attitude towards drugs? Come
on, Amanda, the 1990's was also the decade of the war on drugs. In any
case equating smoking a cigarette with mainlining heroin is one of the
reasons that anti-smoking programs are being decimated in the United States
by a society that has had just about enough silliness as it can stand from
anti-smoking fanatics.
March
11 -
Obese men 'have lower IQs'
–
In
absolute lockstep with the antismoking script, here comes junk science that
“discovers” (what a coincidence!) that fat men have lower IQs. ‘Those
with a "body mass index" of 30 or more… performed significantly worse in
tests of mental ability. … However, it is unclear whether the obesity is
causing the lower IQ, or vice versa.’ Sounds familiar to any smoker? The
junk science format continues with the usual “concerns” for children
(ever heard that before?), and gets more and more demented with its mention
of a
“vascular dementia” supposedly caused by a lower supply of oxygen to the brain. The
fact that when there is a less than adequate oxygen supply to the brain the body compensates
with huge increments in the volume of the red cells and hemoglobin to keep the supply constant is totally
ignored, of course, because the public must be kept ignorant, and must be
made to feel
guilty enough to go to the drug store and buy diet pills.
In
short, the message (not even too subliminal at this point) goes like this:
“Are you an idiot because you are fat, or are you fat
because you are an idiot? If you want to be as smart as we are, lose
weight!” Insults to those who do not conform to the diktats of the White
Reich become more and more frequent. The arrogance of people with
an overwhelming lack of evidence and questionable intelligence who have too
much power comes through once again. Too bad none of the target groups has decided to rebel and demand that
the state (which is the servant of the citizen, not
vice versa) cut the public funds that feed those parasites. By the way, he body mass index
that establishes the thresholds for overweight and obesity was changed in
May 1998 by the National Hearth, Lung and Blood Institute - a division of
the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, thus delivering over half of
the US population to "abnormality", and creating another statistical
"epidemic" to allow more parasites to leech on public money.
March
11 -
Didn’t you know? If you smoke and drink tea you risk an embarrassing
accident!
- A thigh slapper was sent in by a reader who flagged us a small
junk science gem – once again disseminated by BBC. The gem is a “study”
(based on questionnaires, of course) where “Norwegian
researchers surveyed almost 28,000 women aged over 20 in the Nord-Trøndelag
area of the country between 1995 and 1997.”
 Of
course, “Those who currently or formerly smoked more than 20 cigarettes a
day were found to be at a higher risk of incontinence. The condition was
also more prevalent in older women (...really?! We needed a study
to figure that out!) and those with a higher body mass index. … Tea
drinkers were at slightly higher risk for all types of incontinence.”
Except for the novelty concerning tea, therefore, all is in perfect tune
with the propaganda of the White Reich, and soon incontinence will be added
to the long list of smoking-related “cause-effects” that have never been
proven by real science. And, of course, here is the grand finale: "Intervention studies are
needed to investigate whether a reduction of number of cigarettes smoked or intake of tea will reduce incontinence symptoms."
(read:
more money for junk science, please...). Women, you stand warned: do not
drink tea and smoke -- or else, you'll be all wet!
March
11 -
Smoke
Nazi-Free Dining Will Pack Them In - Reality hasn't been kind to the anti-tobacco fanatics lately.
When they promised Delaware that happy days would here again if only
restaurants, bars and casinos banned smoking, the gamblers, diners and
cocktailers deserted the state while the border towns in neighboring
states reported skyrocketing business. Now New York City gets a
close-up look at the unraveling lie that banning smokers (and a quarter or
a third of the customer base) is good for business.
Due to a quirk that makes Grand Central train
station exempt from New York City's anti-business smoking ban, the eateries
and bars in the old train station is poised to make a killing. Smoking
sections are being expanded in anticipation of the hoards of New Yorkers who
will be booted out of their favorite restaurants and bars at the end of the
month. The hottest place in a town that prides itself on its
sophistication will be a train station. The hospitality industry
would, if it has any sense, document the booming businesses at Grand Central
and contrast that with the declining sales everywhere else in the
city. Expect, however, the restaurants and bars that are losing money
to demand that the exemption at Grand Central be terminated. Divide
and conquer, the real success of the anti-tobacco industry.
March
11 - Let Them Smoke And They Will
Come. Ban Smoking And It's Bye Bye Toledo -
A resident reports that the Professional Bowlers Association abandoned
Toledo, after a 20-year run, as the location for its national bowling
tournament. This year the event moved to Taylor, Michigan.
Although the local anti-smoking press has ignored the snub, the word is
out that the association was skittish about continuing its relationship
with a city that is in bed with the anti-tobacco, anti-business crowd.
During the tournament last
year the city was embroiled in a court case over its smoking ban.
Although the smoking-ban law imposed by the activist health department
ultimately was resolved in favor of freedom of choice, the PBA executives
obviously realized the city government, from the anti-smoking mayor down to
the radical health department, will not rest until all the good times are
extinguished. Most people who come to town to watch the tournament
smoke and many of the bowlers themselves smoke. Better to take the
tournament to a city and state that still values property rights and where
the customers are right.
March
11 -
Subliminal
Hate - In other words, this law has been singled out for some reason. It's the
ONLY law that's consistently drummed into our subconscious, almost like
the continuously played propaganda tapes of the communists and fascists.
It's intended to penetrate at some subliminal level: "There shall be
no smoking," "We forbid smoking," "Do not smoke,"
"Smoking is forbidden," and "Smokers will be
prosecuted."
When people are continually warning you
against illegal behavior that no one is committing in the first place, you
have to wonder what's REALLY going on. Let me take a stab at it. These
non-smoking warnings have the feeling of a mantra, a ritualized societal
pronouncement that has no practical value but is considered comforting to
the bourgeois.
We have all heard it at airports. The
endlessly recited chant that the airport is "smoke-free" with
smoking permitted in designated areas (if you're lucky). On and on it
goes as if there are smokers promiscuously lighting up at will. In
many airports the decor appears to have been designed by glittery-eyed
anti-smoking fanatics so numerous are the ugly circular "no
smoking" signs. Joe Bob Briggs has noticed the strange phenomenon
and offers his take.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
March
10 - Gore the wrong sacred cow and there is hell
to play - What
do abortion, secondhand smoke and breast cancer have in common? In the
scientific realm they have noting in common but in the public arena each are
linked by political considerations that have nothing to do with scientific
evidence or even health.
Late last year Congressman Henry Waxman,
D-CA, along with 11 House Democrats,
wrote
a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson questioning "the
administration's commitment to the tradition of scientific excellence and
science-based decision-making at HHS." The letter complained
about the deletion from government web sites of valuable scientific
information, removed, say the Democrats because it did not support the Bush
administration's agenda.
One item addressed by Waxman and his
colleagues is of interest to those who recognize that the agenda to rid
so-called public places of secondhand smoke is driven by politics, not
science.
Soon after the Environmental Protection
Agency issued its famous report that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in
nonsmokers, studies showing that abortion increases the risk for contracting
breast cancer hit the news outlets. The reception these anti-abortion
reports received was far different from the massive media overload generated
by the EPA's report. If covered at
all, the tone of the news stories ranged from skeptical to highly
critical. Some papers saw fit to editorialize against the notion that
abortion could lead to breast cancer. Pro-choice politicians and
activists denounced the reports as examples of politically-motivated junk
science. And who could argue with them?
The abortion research found a 30 percent
increase in breast cancer among woman who had undergone an abortion as
compared to those who hadn't. In epidemiology, the method used for
both the abortion and the secondhand smoke studies, a 30 percent increase
translates to a relative risk of 1.3. Relative risks less than 2 are negligible.
The National Cancer Institute, various
university epidemiologists and the American Cancer Society issued statements
assuring the public that although a 30 percent increase seems high, such a
percentage indicates the association is weak and is no cause for alarm.
"This is a fight between science people
and pro-life people. It is a great mistake to start issuing warnings
about risks or possible risks when the evidence is so unclear," said
American Cancer Society vice president Clark Heath.
Despite the weak risk, the government web
site that refers to studies showing a link between abortion and breast
cancer recently removed wording noting that the National Cancer Institute
debunked the studies reaching that conclusion.
"Removal of this information strongly
suggests an ideological rather than a scientific agenda at work,"
Waxman wrote in his letter to Tommy Thompson while the American Cancer
Society warns that "the public is not well-served by false alarms"
about the causes of cancer.
Quite a different tune was sung by the same
organizations, legislators and media outlets when the EPA determined that
there is a 19 percent increase in lung cancer (a relative risk of 1.19) with
nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke. For that risk, even less than
the one finding abortion may cause breast cancer, a full front assault on
smoking was launched that has succeeded in banning smoking in several states
and countless municipalities.
Congressman Waxman and the American Cancer
Society in particular have been unequivocal in their assertion that
secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, as well as a host of other
diseases. The abortion as conduit to breast cancer report may have
been debunked by the National Cancer Institute but the EPA's secondhand
smoke report has been debunked as well and even vacated by a Federal
District Judge. Not a word about "false alarms" from the
American Cancer Society or declamations about ideology trumping science from
Congressman Waxman. That a 30 percent risk is negligible while a 19
percent risk must result in a quarter to a third of the population being
demonized for enjoying a legal product clearly shows that the war on
individual and property rights is based solely on a political agenda.
Waxman has an excuse. He is a politician who receives political
donations from the health and pharmaceutical industries, both of which make
money whenever smoking is banned. The American Cancer Society, as a
non-profit health charity, has no excuse.
SMOKER OF THE YEAR
March
7 -
FOREST
Honors Smokers - US actor Johnny Depp was today given the title
'2003 Smoker of the Year'. The award, announced by the smokers' lobby group
FOREST, is in recognition of the fact that 'Depp is the least paranoid of
all celebrity smokers.'
FOREST spokesman Jo Gaffikin said, 'This
award is long overdue. What we like about Depp is the fact that, unlike most
celebrity smokers, he doesn't feel the need to apologise for his habit. He
seems to enjoy it, he allows himself to be photographed doing it, and he's
happy to talk about it. He is the most normal, least paranoid, of all
celebrity smokers.'
Be sure to check out the new look of this
dedicated rights group's web site. Always lively and informative, Freedom
Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco, is keeping the
barbarians at bay in the United Kingdom. FOREST exemplifies the joie
de vivre of smokers and the dedication of those who love liberty, always
displaying good humor especially in the face of adversity.
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