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March 20 - In this essay, Pierre Lemieux explains why a geometrically increasing financial and political effort will be required to further reduce smoking in the world, and especially in the West

"One reason why government intervention against smoking becomes less effective is that smokers who were the most easily persuaded have already quit. The remaining ones are those who value smoking more, and therefore require higher disincentive before they quit (or reduce their consumption). World Bank economists admit that consumers have been exposed to information on the health risks of smoking from private sources and organizations since the 50s, i.e., even before governments got heavily in the business of information. Or is it propaganda?"

The way we see it, all the people who could be conned by the false and distorted information on the effects of tobacco on human health, have already quit, and bought their ticket to immortality. To "persuade" others, immense social resources will have to be used up for ever diminishing results, for there are still billions of people in the world who are either not easily buying what sold by the Industry of Frauds, and/or they simply value the joy of smoking and liberty more than the theoretical gain of a few years of life. The antismoking mobs will have then to level the very foundations of legal systems and constitutions to expand their persecution and propaganda. Not that they mind that; but they may be stopped by the very economy that they are pillaging.

March 19 - "Instant Addiction" Hooking Our Kids On Nicotine - Forces believes that smoking is an adult choice. We also believe that children should not smoke. So it is with both concern and tongue in cheek that we publish a recent letter from Norm Kjono to California's U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman.

Few can forget Rep. Waxman's nationwide publicity stunt on prime time television a few

years ago where he hauled tobacco executives before the House Commerce Committee, demanding that they concur with his decree that nicotine is is "addictive'. When we research authenticated youth smoking rate data published by the University of Michigan, it turns out that Rep. Waxman and his addiction theme have created more children who persist with smoking after they experiment with cigarettes than before tobacco control began its self-serving interventions with kids at school. What is stunning about the University of Michigan's data is that -- thanks in large part to the efforts of politicians such as Rep. Waxman -- youth smoking persistence has been restored to levels of the 1970s, creating a perfectly stable youth demand for cigarettes Joe Camel has not enjoyed in decades.

It should be obvious to responsible parents that teaching kids at school they are permanently "addicted" to tobacco "from the first puff" can only stabilize and expand youth smoking, teaching children they are addicted cannot help them to quit after they experiment. Not to be outdone, Washington State's attorney general Christine, "Queen of Nicotine" Gregoire funds billboard advertisements in Washington State -- just like Joe Camel -- from atop her $200 billion plus stash of tobacco "settlement" revenues, strategically locating the addiction message near schools where kids see it as they travel to and from their classrooms.

Looking at the University of Michigan's youth smoking data we at FORCES now question how much lower youth smoking would be today had Henry and Christine not so aggressively sold kids on the idea that they were "addicted" to producing tobacco "settlement" revenues forever. Responsible parents who do not want their children to smoke should write Ms. Gregoire at the Washington Attorney General's Office (1125 Washington St. SE, Olympia, Washington 98504), as well as Rep. Waxman at the U.S. House of Representatives. It seems pertinent at this point to inquire when they will stop selling addiction to kids, in order to assure stable tobacco "settlement" revenue streams for themselves and their special-interest supporters.

Then again, perhaps we should not expect an straight answer from Henry or Christine. It was tobacco executives, after all, who said they did not believe nicotine was addictive. When those who tell the truth as they see it are villains, and those who craft false new beliefs in youth addiction to line the pockets of themselves and their supporters at children's expense are heroes, just about anything that rakes in the bucks will do in that political environment.

But who would pay Christine's $200 billion-plus tobacco revenue haul five or ten years from now if kids just experimented and then quit smoking?

EMPLOYERS AND UNIONS AGAINST SMOKING BAN

March 19 - THE HAGUE - "The Employer and Union Organisations have spoken out against a legal smoking ban at the workplace. They want the ability to regulate the smoke policy in companies themselves. On March 14th they reached an agreement in the Labor Foundation (STAR: Stichting van de Arbeid)." "Some time earlier the VVD and CDA (two major dutch political parties in the Netherlands) stated they would decline a total smoking ban. PVDA and D66 (two other major parties) believe that a ban is not impossible and they are in favor of it.
Last year Minster Borst (Health Department) announced to be in favor of a total ban at work. It would be high time to take radical measures, she stated, because the social partners (organisations, foundations) didn´t do anything about the smoking problem. She would like to extend the smoking ban to NS railway stations, cabs, sport canteens and public buildings.
This means a more severe tobacco law. Non-smoking has to be normal." (Source: De Telegraaf, 03-15-2001)

Congratulations to the Dutch organizations, which still show some respect for civility and civilization. Only a few - and predictable - comments from this side of the barricade: (a) smoking is not a "problem", for that implies, among other things, the existence of a danger; but there is no danger in passive smoke. (b) Smoking (like non-smoking) is not abnormal - in fact, that very statement is proof of the narrow-mindness and stupidity of the antismokers. If we assume that "normal" is what the majority does, then that means that each one us is abnormal because he/she surely belongs to some minority - and even in that case, abnormality does not mean "problem", "danger", or "inferiority", nor does it imply prohibition. "Normal" is what a large group of people (such as smokers) does - and has done - through time, and smoking has been with the West for 500 years, and elsewhere since time immemorial. By this simple parameter, antismoking is very abnormal, because a well-paid and well-financed tiny minority of people, for a very short historical period, has been pushing prohibition basing its claims on scientific frauds - and (c) THAT is a very serious problem, which must by addressed through the investigation of the false claims by the antitobacco cons in every country where it emerges. If we were like them, perhaps we should then restore the Holy Inquisition against the antismoking heretics, and ask that they are burned at the stake by a fire of cigarettes for blasphemy against science and truth, as it happened in the times antitobacco wants to bring us back to. But, fortunately for them, we just want them apprehended.

March 18 - Get out the crystal balls, tea leaves and chicken entrails. The semi-ban in Edmonton is so convoluted, arbitrary and senseless that only fortune teller could possibly figure it out. More proof that anti-tobacco is an emotion-driven, flat-earth phenomenon.

March 16, 2001 - Virtually omnipotent, omnipresent, pulling the strings of governments, institutions, international public health organizations, medical information, medical associations, scientific studies, many universities and scientific journals; influencing media all over the world, while attempting to reshape the economies and the culture of entire nations; antitobacco is just one of their industrial efforts. Introducing a new, unrivalled global superpower: the pharmaceutical industry. It wants to run all aspects of our lives for generations to come under the flag of the "health revolution."

Antitobacco has already demonstrated that it will not stop for anything - and that includes the indirect murdering of people - to advance its agenda, and satisfy its pharmaceutical masters. This article by Wanda Hamilton shows, unquestionably, how the pharmacartel finances with heavy grants antismoking terrorism and death to bend people to quit and buy its deadly cessation products. This unethical practice is also extended to the elderly who, after a lifetime of work and social contribution, are forced to quit smoking, the alternative being injury, neglect, and death. What is most appalling is that the people continue to be indifferent to the carnage of bodies and freedoms that a well paid-off minority, the antismoking cartel, perpetrates on millions. It would be simple to stop the activities of antitobacco; all it takes is some action, powered by healthy anger coming from a sense of basic morality, a value, however, which seems all but lost, sacrificed on the altar of health and material wealth.

SMOKELESS STATES ANNOUNCES FIRST ROUND OF GRANT RECIPIENTS

USA: more pharmaceutical money going to states. The announced goals for the funding are to raise tobacco taxes, to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and to get public and private insurers to cover the cost of cessation products.

In other words, these millions are to be devoted to increasing the sales of such products as Johnson & Johnson's nicotine patch and inhaler. Sales will presumably be increased if the price of cigarettes is driven up so that they are more costly than such nicotine delivery devices as Johnson & Johnson's Nicotrol. Sales will also be up if further smoking bans result in more smokers either try to quit using nicotine replacement products, or if smokers use them temporarily, for occasions when they cannot smoke. And, of course, sales at inflated prices (and profits) for Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies' "cessation" products will certainly be enhanced if private and public health insurance pays for them.

In this way pharmaceutical product sales are promoted via a feel-good foundation which derives virtually all its billions from stock in Johnson & Johnson, and it doesn't even count in J&J's promotional and advertising budget. The institutionalisation of false medical information on the effects of tobacco on human health, combined with the taxpayers-funded free advertisement provided by servant states & institutions is the most brilliant marketing innovation any industry has been capable of. Too bad that it's based on state corruption.

EU TO FORCE ITALY, SPAIN TO INCREASE TOBACCO TAXES

"Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Luxembourg will have to increase taxes on cigarettes under European Commission plans to cut down on fraud by reducing differences in tobacco taxes in the 15-nation European Union." The pharmacartel pull the strings of Europe to force those countries that are late to comply with the directives of the multinationals: increase the cost of cigarettes so that our products can be more competitive. Not even national sovereignty is a concern for an industry that has no limits to its power, and no scruples whatsoever.

Although quite long, this article by the Foundation Watch provides massive information about how Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Johnson & Johnson's political arm) undermines parental control, forms political movements to raise tobacco taxes, and dictates public health policy. This is a must-read to realize how the pharmaceutical industry actually controls and dictates public opinion. No wonder why no amount of evidence, reason, truth, arguments about integrity, freedom and choice - even compassion - are relevant to the health nazism steam roller; the pharmaceutical giants buy everything and everyone.

"Last year U.S. pharmaceutical companies spent an unprecedented $2.3 billion advertising to consumers, up 28% from 1999 and 40 times the $55 million spent on mass media ads in 1991." "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted the recent rapid growth in mass media marketing of prescription drugs when, in 1997, it made it easier to launch TV campaigns by, for example, dropping the requirement to print pages and pages of prescribing information on the screen. Americans now see an average of nine prescription ads per day on television."

March 16 - And the winner is.......Denise Scott! News-Press columnist and aspiring spinster.

In a breathless column the prissy Miss Scott describes an encounter with an attractive, intelligent man possessing a good sense of humor. All was going swimmingly until Mr. Right became Mr. Wrong by lighting up a cigarette. Yechhh!

"I don't date guys who smoke," she told the startled man who couldn't quite believe his ears.

No real reasons are given for a policy that eliminates 30 percent of the eligible men from her life. The old kissing-an-ash-tray surfaces, an analogy as absurd as refusing to kiss someone who has eaten escargot or shrimp because, "after all, I don't kiss snails or crustaceans."

After several terminally chirpy paragraphs the true reason emerges. Miss Scott doesn't date smokers because she knows she can't make them quit no matter how much she nags. Why getting them to quit is a worthwhile goal, Miss Scott doesn't reveal.

For attempting to hide her will to control under a knee-jerk, anti-smoking conventionality and for cutting herself off from the most interesting men she could meet, Denise Scott is a lonely Jackass Of The Week.

TOBACCOLOVERS.COM
"If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go" - Mark Twain

March 15 - Blithely proceeding with its aggressive marketing plan despite allegations of deaths caused by its product, GlaxoSmithKline launched Zyban in India to great fanfare. The company hopes to persuade the government to waive duties under an exemption for "lifesaving" drugs.

And they say the tobacco industry has chutzpah! For the past several years the anti-tobacco enterprise has taken is extortion racket abroad, circling the globe screaming about the terrible American and British cigarette manufacturers' nefarious designs upon the Third World. The Parmacartel maneuvered their stooge into the directorship of the World Health Organization and in a world plagued by malaria, AIDS, hunger and diseases long eradicated in the industrial worlds, the W.H.O has made tobacco cessation its primary goal. W.H.O is now a primary player in pharmaceutical imperialism.

With the co-opting of the W.H.O. now complete, India is the launching pad for a drug that has been blamed for a spate of deaths in the United Kingdom and Canada. The financial motivation for the "war" on tobacco is obvious. Every smoking ban enacted delivers to the bottom line of Big Drugs. The aggressive marketing of what many believe to be a dangerous drug to India takes anti-tobacco corruption to a new, and profitable, level.

March 14 - "[Dr. Jerome] Giron has prescribed Zyban to about 100 patients, and only around a third have stuck with the drug for the full eight-week course, he said.

'I've found it's not very well tolerated. People have said that they feel ‘spaced out' and ‘jittery' like they were going out of their minds. There've been a lot of problems with nervousness.'"

Better late than never as the Zyban death toll finally attracts the notice of the American press. Mostly a rehash of the deaths reported abroad but the story does include some anecdotal evidence that most people who try Zyban can't handle the dangerous side effects and don't complete the prescribed program. So much for its effectiveness.

The New York Post quotes Dr. Michael Fiore who pooh-poohs any risks connected to Zyban and who manages to get in a bit of unproven propaganda. What the Post doesn't tell the reader is that Fiore has received funding from Glaxo Wellcome, the manufacturer of Zyban. He also has taken money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the cessation pimp for the pharmaceutical industry.

His recent Preventive Medicine article, "Cost-Benefit Analysis of Sustained-Release Bupropion, Nicotine Patch or Both for Smoking Cessation" (Mar 2000, Vol 30, No 3), which found that bupropion [ZYBAN] was a more cost-beneficial smoking cessation intervention than the nicotine patch, was funded by Glaxo Wellcome.

March 10 - "The drug is being investigated as the possible cause of at least four other deaths in Canada, including that of 26-year-old Montrealer David Landry in February, as well as of 18 deaths in Britain and one in Australia." "GlaxoSmithKline, the British-based pharmaceutical giant that makes Zyban, denies any proven link so far between its drug and the fatalities. So do investigators at Health Canada and other countries' health authorities." That is not surprising: the health "authorities" have stuck their political neck out on antismoking lies so that their pharmaceutical masters could sell their poison; they surely don't want it chopped by pulling the product off the market, so people die - they are goint to die anyway, they are smokers, right? And how many health "authorities" are on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry, anyway? The gem of the article, however, is: "…Was it a symptom of his withdrawing from a lifelong addiction to nicotine?" What addiction? The fraudulent distortion that enmeshes habit and addiction has been pushed by those who have a vested interest in the promotion of pharmaceutical products that kill people for real, while claiming to save them from statistical (and unproven) mortality.

March 7 - Thousands of Zyban users are reporting severe adverse reactions to the smoking cessation device. Deaths have been reported in Canada and the United Kingdom. Reports of seizures, blackouts and erratic behavior have focused attention on the drug that has been aggressively promoted by anti-tobacco as a wonder pill that stops people from smoking.

Certainly death and incapacitation tend to reduce smoking but when the cure is infinitely worse than the so-called problem, a closer look at the partnership between Big Drugs and the anti-tobacco enterprise in warranted.

Until recently, when a smoker wanted to quit smoking he quit, cold turkey. Despite the erroneous and politically motivated use of the word addiction, smoking is just a habit that can be easily broken. The greatest reduction in smoking occurred before any smoking cessation devices existed.

Now that anti-tobacco is so heavily funded by Big Drugs, the financial motivation connected to enforced cessation (smoking bans) needs a detailed examination. Each smoking ban passed means a bigger market for cessation devices, including Zyban.

March 15 - Few aspects of the Tobacco Settlement caused more revulsion than the obscene fees collected by he anti-tobacco lawyers. Supposedly acting on behalf of sick smokers and the states that care for them, the lawyers have done very well in what turned out to be the most colossal shakedown in history.

Demanding high fees because they were taking "risks", firms billed up to $200,000 per hour in states like Florida and Maryland where the legislature actually did all the work by passing laws to nullify the tobacco industries' legal defenses. In many states the law firms that were selected to pursue the suits were those that had friends or relatives in high places.

With billions of ill-gotten loot, the lawyers have shuffled huge sums to Democrat politicians and also to the party itself. They backed the failed presidential quest of Al Gore as insurance payments that tort reform will not be enacted.

Fortunately for the country Al Gore lost and George Bush won. The president has now begun the long, tortuous process of bringing some sanity to the American legal system.

A Good Tobacco Tax briefly discusses a provision in Bush's budget that will make the lawyers squawk and also explains why the huge fees are out of line with traditional practices.

For a more detailed look at the role lawyers played in the state tobacco suits and also a point by point blueprint to stick it to other industries, take a look at Can Tort Law Be Ethical?

Adding to the lawyers woes, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce takes aim at the massive fees and is calling on Congress to conduct an investigation. The chamber has used the Freedom of Information Act to request information from 21 states.

The momentum is building to rein in the predatory practices of a profession that long ago traded in ethics for piles of cash.

UPDATE MARCH 13 - University of Minnesota researchers conducted a study that discovered that wives living with smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke. Gasp! Since it doesn't take much brain power to come to that earth-shaking conclusion, the researchers postulate the harm caused to the wives based upon the fraudulent conclusion of the Environmental Protection Agency's secondhand smoke report. All over the world, press reports are stating that a new study has "demonstrated" the dangers of passive smoke. One report goes like this: "Passive smoke kills - especially women. The number of non-smoking women at risk of cancer increases (5-6 times) if they live with a smoking man. The study, published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is unique because of the approach taken, that is, the direct measurement of carcinogens in the urine of the subjects." FORCES' researchers, doctors and scientists immediately got to work to debunk this latest piece of twisted information. Click on the header for more information. Click here for scientific evidence about the passive smoke fraud.

March 13 - Shortly after the WHO study, federal Judge William Osteen of North Carolina completely destroyed the EPA findings as "corrupt science." Don't let his state bother you - Osteen happens to be an anti-tobacco jurist.

Peter Vallone shrugs off all of this. "I'm not concerned about the science," he told me during the City Council hearing the other day.

If not concern over the health risks supposedly posed by secondhand smoke, what then is the rationalization to ban smoking in restaurants and bars? Sidney Zion doesn't answer that question but point by point he shatters any pretense that the prohibitionists are acting out of concern for the health of workers and customers. From the EPA ETS report, to the WHO study and ending up with a study from the Department of Energy, there is no evidence to the contention that secondhand smoke is dangerous. Since there is no proof, Peter Vallone and his allies on the city council owe New York City an explanation.

March 13 - Edward Sweda is a big time anti-tobacco lawyer who makes a very good living shoveling you-know-what. Lately his shoveling has been so frenetic that he has shoveled himself into an ever widening hole that threatens to swallow him up. For reasons unknown, Sweda has been let off the anti-tobacco reservation to make embarrassing forays into the real world where he is encountering real people who don't follow his script.

Poor Ed. Despite his credentials, despite the unlimited resources at his fingertips, despite all the help from his anti-tobacco comrades, three woman with no letters or universities to string after their names are pummeling this tough lawyer silly. He must feel like a ping pong ball careening from one well-placed swat into the splat of another well-aimed paddle. He better give it up before the big boys who run anti-tobacco start questioning his prowess.

March 13 - Beautiful opinion piece from Canada about a society which is losing itself, its values, and eventually, its purpose. Where are we going with lawsuits, hysteria, and the use junk science to justify bigotry and intolerance? What do we hope to achieve? The frightening reality, and part of the problem, is that no one has the answer, including the self-righteous assassins of freedom and tolerance.

March 13 - Stealing From The Cartel - "Material posted at Notmilk.com. alleges milk is linked to rheumatoid arthritis, sudden infant death syndrome, TB, uterine cancer, ear infections, juvenile diabetes and heart disease.

Millions in milk-consuming countries have the intractable, debilitating, torturous Crohn's disease. It's a mushrooming epidemic."

It could be a screed about tobacco but this time it's about milk. The tone of hysteria, the complete lack of any proof and the weird respect given by the media have been seen before. It will only get worse as North America succumbs to hysterical hypochondria. Look out dairymen, your on the list.

March 13 - "Anti-tobacco lawyers contributed to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign at about the same time then-President Bill Clinton made a video praising their efforts against Big Tobacco."

COMMENTARY: THE THIRD REICH-GERMAN PHYSICIANS BETWEEN RESISTANCE AND PARTICIPATION

March 13 - Interesting treatise from the International Journal of Epidemiology on how the medical profession in Germany made the Holocaust possible: They did it for the "health" of society. Read the conclusion if you read nothing else. Though this is not about tobacco or smoking, it certainly shows that doctors are NOT exempt from political "science." Although purged of the racial element, the Nazi social system, "medicine" and public health programs have been rediscovered, and a "vaccinated" package of the Nazi state is, gradually but pressingly, proposed more and more openly - which makes reading this piece even more compelling.

March 12 - How often has anti-tobacco assured politicians, policy makers and the general public that prohibition is not a goal? The operatives are on record that their only intent is to educate the public on the dangers of smoking, curb aggressive advertising practices and prevent minors from buying tobacco.

Eliminate tobacco use by adolescents by the year 2015

Eliminate use of conventional tobacco products by adults and promote use of alternative nicotine delivery devices among the highly dependent persons by the year 2020

Eliminate tobacco related death and disease by the year 2040

This timeline is from something called the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law. Lest one regard the above as the ravings of a bunch of ivory tower lunatics consider that the financial backers of the Tobacco Products Liability Project include the U.S. government, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Johnson & Johnson Drug Company).

Smoking tobacco, of course, will never be eliminated. People will be smoking long after Northeastern University School of Law is forgotten. The timeline to end smoking will meet the same fate as Adolph Hitler's dream of a thousand year Reich but the insane drive of implementing it has the potential of wreaking havoc unless decent people demand that this madness end now and the perpetrators be brought to justice.

For those interested, the above timeline is in Section 4.2 of the Tobacco Products Liability Projects' Action Plan.