Colorado

Smoking ban is in, business is out.  Smoking ban is kicked out, business comes back in.  It’s that simple.  Those who promote smoking bans promise that businesses will not be affected by the ban, or even that the ban will increase the business.  Of course it is a lie – just like the lies about passive smoke.  The tangible facts prove a direct relationship between presence of business and presence of smoking – everywhere in the world.  Anti-tobacco operatives and the ministries of “health” will tell you that smoking bans are welcome and that they are a financial success, using “studies” that they themselves conduct or finance!  But what is to expect from the mouths of people who have made careers out of a fraud?

A question the politicians who pass the smoking bans should ask themselves is why would business owners, who after all know their clientele best, resist smoking bans.  Why do the owners after the smoking bans have gone into effect say that business is way down.  Do the politicians think the owners are lying?  For what purpose could the business owners be lying considering most of them are not ideologues but merely working stiffs who want to make a buck so they can support their families?  For too long elected officials have paid heed only to the well-oiled special interest lobbyists while condescendingly patting their constituents on the head, then kicking them in the rear end and out the door.

Pharma Cartel

April 27 [02:15 GMT] - Pharmaceutical industry says that smoking can be used as indicator of alcohol misuse - Here is another application of smoking which – as we all know by now – can ONLY be discussed if associated with negative things, since (and we know this also) smoking is such a killer that not even one death or disease can be scientifically proven to be caused by it.  So, now smoking can be used as indicator of alcohol MISUSE – but, obviously, not as an indicator of alcohol use, because that could make smoking “look good”.

There is a graver ideological implication, however, in this umpteenth pronouncement of charlatans paid off by (who else?) the pharmaceutical industry, and it is this: "This means cigarette smoking status can be used as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse, which presents an opportunity for intervention."  The word “intervention” then gets repeated through the piece as if “public health” intervention on the life styles of citizens were normal and even demanded or expected.  Stop and think for a second: what guarantees (or even indicates) that the “intervention” of “public health” is morally or politically superior to the free choices of the individual citizen? What guarantees do we have that state intervention will bring arguably “positive” results in the first place? And what referendums or otherwise expressed popular will do we have which indicates that the people want the state to engineer their lives?  The answer to all those question is: nothing.  Who are these people to establish how many drinks are risky for thee and me?  And where is their democratic mandate to do so?  The answers are nobody and nowhere.  It is just a self-awarded and vague faith in an abstract “collective” represented by appointed health “authorities” provided with strong executive powers that are supposed to “know better” than thee and me, thus they can impose it.  The failed, all-Marxist concept that 100 fools are wiser than one represents itself, once again acclaimed by fools who can’t see that 100 of them just make a 100 times bigger fool.

But we do have the answers on the “why” all this is happening: “The NIAAA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported the study”. Enough said. Now it is time to act.

Behavior control

April 27 [02:15 GMT] - Doctors want 10-cigarette packs banned in UK - Idiots never learn - that's why they are idiots in the first place. And that’s why the British Medical Association wants the 10-cigarette packs banned in England.  The excuse is “the children”, and there must be some inane "study" saying that cutting the trips to the store in half and doubling the supply available cuts down the consumption!

In reality this is the umpteenth manifestation of hatred and prejudice against smoking by the BMA which – like everyone else – cannot scientifically demonstrate one death from smoking, and that confuses epidemiology with science. Stupidity once again, or plain old bad faith?  The temptation is to dignify the BMA with bad faith, but further evidence of their stupidity is that these “doctors” think that young people, who can easily spend $300.00 on a cellular phone will find it more difficult to buy a 20-pack than a 10-pack.  What can one expect from those who believe in the crystal ball of epidemiology?

The Theatre of the Absurd

April 27 [02:15 GMT] - They tell you how to live. Why not tell you how to die? – Yes, if you smoke you will die.  And when you die you will be “liberated” from your “addiction”.  Finally you can be cremated and gloriously turned into smoke.  WRONG – and coherent, for a change.  After spending a life being forbidden from smoking by pyrophobic fanatics, how can you be allowed to turn to smoke after your death?

Here comes the latest “expert” junk scientists to tell us just that: cremation increases global warming!  No-no, don’t laugh yet, read this through:

“…The [cremation] practice contributed to global warming. … people could instead choose to help the environment after death by being buried in a cardboard box under a tree. … Why waste all that carbon dioxide on your death? “ — Statistical references cannot be missing, of course — “...the cremation of the average male in Australia, during which the body is heated to 850 degrees Celsius (1,562 degrees Fahrenheit) for 90 minutes, produced more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of carbon dioxide. And that doesn't include the carbon cost of fuel, or the cost of the emissions released during the production and burning of the wooden casket.”

Dr. Short and the rest of the enviro-healthists really should cremate themselves.  Once inside, recycling themselves (and their beliefs) in the sanitation system, the ecological health, not to the mention mental health, of the planet would rebound, which would benefit greatly the general public health.

FORCES Business

April 26 [03:45 GMT] - Last Sunday, April 22nd, FORCES International held the general BOD elections.  The new Board of Directors is now composed of eight representatives from three nations: United States, United Kingdom and Italy. As we thank the exiting members for their dedicated work and commitment, we welcome the new BOD. members:

Maryetta Ables, U.S.A. - President; Gian Turci, Italy - C.E.O.; O'Dessa Geary, U.S.A. - Treasurer; Capri Lione, U.S.A.; Colin Granger, U.K.; Loraine McGregor, U.K.; Lynda Farley, U.S.A.; Steve Cross, U.K.

These members have distinguished themselves in the fight against prohibition and institutional corruption in their countries with great professionalism and dedication.

This is a year of great change for FORCES.  New technologies and multimedia capabilities are now at hand thanks to the generous donations of an ever-growing number of supporters around the world.  New committees of dedicated people, turned to transforming our website into a real audio-video medium with far greater reach are working hard to “beat the clock”, so to speak, and deliver to our donors and supporters a far better product, and especially an effective weapon in the fight against fraud and oppression – a medium that cannot and will not be controlled by special interests such as Big Pharma and Big Tobacco.  An ever-louder voice that will not be silenced and suffocated by politically correct media intent on convincing everybody that “smoking is bad for you” and that smoking bans and healthist propaganda are “right” after all.

FORCES International – a TRUE grass-root movement from the people for the people – has grown from its origins and is coming of age, posed to become the focus and reference point for all those groups and individuals around the world who are determined to defeat not only the world-wide wave of smoking bans, but also and especially to destroy the political power that the ideology and mentality of healthism has gained, thanks mainly to the ineffective opposition and mental posture of its victims.  For an antismoking-free world, for the freedom to choose, for institutions based on truthful information and liberty.  For a healthy and free society that puts liberty before “health”, truth before distortions, and that does not measure its health in statistical years through junk science.

And for the punishment of those who are responsible for the greatest fraud in history.  That's not a threat.  It's a promise.

--- FORCES International

Population Control

April 26 [03:45 GMT] - Colonizing the great outdoors - “Without question it’s very legitimate.” Cowardly, mendacious, self-serving cant like that will pave the way towards an outdoor smoking ban in the Victoria area of British Columbia. As usual, a lazy and obsequious media will help. First they’re going for the outdoor patios in restaurants, then they’re planning to hit parks.

Of course, we get the obligatory outraged citizen quote from a woman who’s concerned that a whiff of cigarette smoke on a beach is going to harm the health of her children.

Then, for “balance”, we get a remark from the usual concerned business owner: "How many bylaws do we need? Shouldn't we let the public decide where they want go?"

The answer to the first question is, we need as many bylaws as an out-of-control bureaucratic machine can generate in the interest of its own self-perpetration. The answer to the second question is, “no”, since the machine requires public obedience, not citizen freedom, if it is to fully realise its ambitions.

Junk Science and Propaganda

April 26 [03:45 GMT] - Environmentalism and healthism: ideologies based on fraud – Years ago, we heard a statement about passive smoke.  The statement went like this: “It may be junk science but it’s for a good cause.  We’re getting rid of cigarettes.”

FORCES followers know that in these inverted times, we are paraphrasing this motto to make it straight again: “It's the truth and it’s for a good cause.   We’re getting rid of antitobacco.”

Be that as it may, the following is an interesting collection of citations that demonstrate how public frauds and misrepresentations are an essential part of the “pro-planet”, “pro-health” doctrines.  Those quotes (just a few amongst very many) also make clear why our enemies have no compunction whatsoever of publicly lying and building on those lies, even when they are as evident as they are blatant.  As governments now embrace the same philosophy, we also have to stop being flabbergasted when we see that ministries of environment or health have no problem whatsoever in falsifying and misrepresent information to alter our behaviour.  It goes without saying that the constellation of groups that are lackeys of the powers that be look the other way and kiss buttocks as, to them, survival and gain are by far more important than truth and honesty.

This squalid scenario confirms the correctness of the FORCES intellectual position that such a state of affairs can no longer be fixed, dealt with or compromised with, but must be destroyed first and rebuilt straight later.  But where is the power?  The power is in YOU – and in the hundreds of millions of smokers and non smokers who find the current situation not just intolerable, but unacceptable.  If that is the case with you, come on board, for we are not just about smoking.

Quotes from an ideology of fraud

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill..." ^[1] Club of Rome, an elite think-tank working with the UN.

 "...We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination.. . So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Stanford Professor Stephen Schneider

"The earth continually warms and cools. The cycle is undeniable, ancient, often abrupt, and global. It is also unstoppable. Isotopes in the ice and sediment cores, ancient tree rings, and stalagmites tell us it is linked to small changes in the irradiance of the sun." ^{[2, page 4]} Atmospheric physicist Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." ^[3] Christine Stewart, then Canadian Minister of the Environment

1. Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), 115. 2. Jonathan Schell, "Our Fragile Earth," Discover (October 1989); 44.
2. S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007).
3. Christine Stewart, then Canadian Minister of the Environment, before the editors and reporters of the Calgary Herald, 1998, and quoted by Terence Corcoran, "Global Warming: The Real Agenda," Financial Post, 26 December 1998, from the Calgary Herald, 14 December 1998. Cited Fred Singer, page 4.

Unintended consequences

April 26 [03:45 GMT] - Children are victims of smoking ban, says "study" - Ah, the twisted and manipulative logic of tobacco control. Once you have smoking bans that allegedly protect the health of children, it is of course time to make your next revelation, namely that smoking bans are actually BAD for the health of children. Yes, you can do it! Just make sure that the science granting system has produced a piece of junk science to back up your claim (this is never difficult).

Why, as a Machiavellian political operative, would you want to question your own assertion, the one you’ve been pushing down everyone’s throat for years – that smoking bans help protect children?

Because it’s time to move on to the next phase of your manipulation of the public, and to the next arena for your ban plan – private homes. For if smoking is banned in various places of public access, that means that some parents may smoke more AT HOME, or at least that’s your argument. “The findings have emerged as Scotland prepares to mark the first anniversary of the smoking ban in three weeks,” notes this uncritical Scottish news report. Well, anniversaries are significant, and often the best time to prep people for new developments. In this case, the new development will be proposals to ban people from lighting up in their own homes.

It’s interesting that the ASH spokesperson in this article seems to disagree with the idea that smoking bans expose children to more smoking. Don’t believe it for a minute. It’s a rhetorical tactic that simply signals that the anti-smoking movement may be a bit nervous about home smoking bans at the moment. If there is a backlash, they want to be able to take their distance.

Spain: the passive smoke fraud

April 26 [03:45 GMT] - One out of five deaths is due to passive smoke.  Laugh or cry, your choice – Soon, laughing or crying may be the only choice left in the world.  Truly there is no limit to the delusions of the pharma-funded antismoking grifters.  Try this: after death caused by 30, 20, and 5 second exposure to passive smoke, reported in the past by Dr. Michael Siegel, here comes this piece of epidemiological trash science from Spain.  Did you know that in Spain one out of five people dies of passive smoking-related disease?  It's true, just believe the "authoritative" words of the Spanish Epidemiology Society mafia. They know what they are doing when it comes to the production of fraudulent science that is anything but scientific.

To have an idea of how dangerous Spanish passive smoke really is, let us consider that Spain has a population of 43 million, and an adult death rate of  158,000/year.  If one out of five is "killed" by passive smoke, that means that 31,600 people a year die of it.  That puts the American passive smoke death toll of 55,000 to shame.  A simple proportion, in fact, seems to demonstrate that statement.  The proportion allows us to compare the claims of the American and Spanish antismoking bozos:

43,000,000 Spanish population : 31,600 passive smoke deaths = 300,000,000 American population : X

According to the Spanish ETS study, X (the American passive smoke "dead") = 220,465!!!   Furthermore, by dividing the 220,465 “deaths” by the  55,000 currently claimed American “deaths” the ratio is = 4.008. There is only one possible conclusion: Spanish passive smoke is four times more deadly than US passive smoke!

“Carlos Ariza of the Barcelona Public Health Agency who presented the report said that more anti-tobacco measures and campaigns must be launched and especially those addressing the risks of passive smoking.”  Of course.  What is really needed is a world-wide mobilization to disable this criminal industry. Multifactorial epidemiology must be made illegal as a base for policies everywhere in the world.  It is not only the foundation for the frauds on smoking, but also for that of the “obesity epidemic”, part of the of global warming scare, and so on.  In short, multifactorial epidemiology is the non-science tool for the 21^st century politics of oppression.

Incoherence

April 25 [02:15 GMT] - The Dutch: Cigarettes no, drugs yes … and more here - The Netherlands has long been famous for its “coffeeshops”, establishments that serve up marijuana, often in different “gourmet” varieties, to customers. The shops have functioned for decades now under a controlled and tolerant regulatory regime. Of course, it goes without saying that the marijuana is smoked.

Meanwhile, in many other parts of the world where the War on Drugs rages unchecked, bolstering the budgets for local law enforcement, encouraging police corruption and enriching international drug lord kingpins beyond all imagination, the same dope smoking that is routinely enjoyed in a Dutch coffee shop often means jail time – sometimes major jail time – and a criminal record for anyone who might care to indulge. 

So what’s the Dutch response to the new War on Tobacco? Well, since the World Health Organization and all the other operatives of anti-tobacco are concentrating on the persecution of tobacco smokers and don’t seem much interested in marijuana smoking, the logical thing is happening.

The new wisdom of the Netherlands essentially says, “dope smoking is ok, but ordinary cigarettes are more dangerous than a nuclear plant meltdown.”

"’It is ridiculous to think that a smoking ban would be the end of coffee shops,’" one politician and coffee shop owner is quoted as saying in this article. He’s probably right. After all, everyone knows that marijuana smoke in the ambient air does no harm, while tobacco smoke EST kills on contact. Right? Of course right.

John Luik

April 25 [02:15 GMT] - Is dieting good for you? - The myths about health are as old as the myths about immortality, but our generation is the first to believe that some sort of immortality can be actually obtained on condition that we surrender basically any and all joys – along the lines of the way such deprivation was once preached for spiritual immortality.  If you suffer today you’ll get the reward tomorrow.

Today, however, we no longer believe in “that kind of stuff”.  Instead we bring eternity much closer by computing statistical years of average life expectancy.  As the expectancy (thus the expectation) moves ahead, what was normal and healthy yesterday becomes “denormalized” and “unhealthy” tomorrow because it is said to chew at the back end of your life.  And we keep on building myths.

Diet is certainly not a new myth, as losing weight through diets precedes by far the myth that quitting smoking makes you live longer.  However, up to a few years ago this obsession with diet was seen, sensibly, as that of certain women who strove to reach the ever-changing models of perfection of the latest fashion show.  Things changed when the statistical trash methodology and mentality used for smoking was applied to food.  All of a sudden there was an “epidemic” that justified the umpteenth state intervention in our lives for our own good.  In this article, the authors of Diet Nation John Luik and Patrick Basham argue that efforts to lose weight are generally doomed to failure - and may possibly cause more harm than good.  They are certainly right.  Diets are just like smoking cessation: because of an indemonstrable evil yesterday you seriously risk being demonstrably damaged today in the name of an indemonstrable good tomorrow.  A hell of a deal.

Business

April 25 [02:15 GMT] - Wiping out the competition - The Wisconsin Restaurant Association also backs the statewide smoking ban, reversing its previous position.  Mark Dougherty, owner of Mark's East Side, an Appleton restaurant, did the same. Dougherty, speaking at the Capitol hearing, said he had rethought his previous strong opposition to the ban.  "We looked at the big picture and decided this was best for the restaurant and hospitality industry," he said. — Appleton Post Crescent, April 20, 2007

While a restaurant supporting a statewide smoking ban appears counterintuitive there is nothing unusual going on at all.  By and large, restaurant associations have backed smoking bans in the USA. For example, the Washington Restaurant Association did not oppose the smoking ban in Washington State and in fact refused to consider environmental tobacco smoke issues or rebuttal. The theme of the alleged opposition to the smoking became “Smoking bans are fine, this ban is just too extreme.”  In several states where smoking bans have recently passed or are currently pending restaurant associations quite consistently state no opposition to or support for the bans.

You are observing business as usual at work. Many large franchise chains have gone ”Smoke Free” voluntarily. As they did so customers migrated to small, independent restaurants and bars that accommodated smokers.  Restaurant association membership is to the greatest extent large franchise chain establishments. Smoking bans therefore predictably hurt small, independent bars, taverns and restaurants while benefiting already-smoke-free large franchise establishments. This is simply a use of political agendas to advance regulatory measures that predictably benefit large franchise operations at the intended expense of small, independent neighborhood establishments.

Special update: Alice in Slanderland

April 24 [02:45 GMT] - Aside from pushing fraudulent data and slogans, antismokers never engage their opposition’s arguments.  In fact, they don’t even acknowledge the existence of an opposition.  Smoking is such a terrible thing that nobody in his right mind would conceive of defending it.  So, goes the line.  If you defend the right to smoke, you must be a tobacco industry stooge – those are the only ones who can disagree with the idiotic ideology of antitobacco, thus they must be “exposed”.  Here are some recent examples.

Prominent anti-smoking advocate accuses Rest of the Story reader of being Big Tobacco lackey –  In a letter to the editor recently published in the Edmonton Journal about tobacco funding to the University of Alberta, Irvin Mayers, past president of the Canadian Thoracic Society, clearly implies that the reason Mr. McFadden argues about the prohibition of funding of university research by the tobacco companies is that he is a Big Tobacco front – working for an organization (The Smoker's Club) which receives major funding from tobacco companies.  The issues brought forward by McFadden, needless to say, are not addressed.  Beside the fact that both McFadden and The Smoker’s Club are not financed by Big Tobacco, would the validity of the arguments change if they were?  Would 2+2 NOT make 4 if the tobacco industry or one of its consultants stated that?

That is exactly what is not acceptable – morally and ethically – in public policy and in a democratic debate.  An argument is true or untrue regardless of its funding.  In reality, of course, that is an excuse routinely used by the antismoking mafia to avoid facing and debating the frauds of which it is responsible.  The arrogance of Mayers in particular (and of antitobacco in general) becomes even more contemptible when he himself does not disclose that he is (what else is new?) a stooge of Big Pharma.  Using his script, therefore, we can easily infer that his position is neither valid, credible or sincere as he is probably paid off to say what he says.  That is certainly his implication about McFadden.  Considering the long history of public lies and frauds of the antismoking movement, Mayers should really shut up.  It’s all a matter or credibility, isn’t it?  Who do you believe?  McFadden who has no relationship with Big Tobacco or Mayers who has a relationship with Eli Lilly producing Prozac and smoking cessation?

More antismoking trash accuses FORCES of being a tobacco industry front group – Thank you, Dr. Siegel, for discovering this latest piece of false information by the Industry of Fraud.  On its website the Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control lists FORCES as a “proven (and probable) front group”.  The play on the equivocal and on confusion, so typical of antismoking propaganda, is clear right off the bat: are we so “proven” to be “probable”, or so “probable” to be “proven”?...

FORCES readers need not to be told that we get no money from Big Tobacco; on the other hand, we certainly need not justify ourselves to antitobacco trash that has no moral stature to judge us – or anyone else. There is a glaring proof, however, that we are not financed by Big Tobacco: too many antismoking crooks are still out of jail – and they would be certainly incarcerated if we had the dough to put them in, as there is certainly proof of where they belong.

Enough said on that. What makes this piece a must read is not Siegel's customary display of integrity by pointing out our unfortunate lack of Big Tobacco funding, however.  It is his description of the fanatical brainwashing of antitobacco activists, further described in the related piece Brainwashing in the Anti-Smoking Movement: #1 - Smearing the Opposition.  Like the brainwashing of the Nazi SS, both are based on absolutes, admit no objection or opinion, and are utterly closed to any form of dialogue.  That kind of mentality demanded a dear price from history.  And if it is not stopped while it’s still possible, and with whatever it takes, that price is going to be demanded once again –  for this has nothing to do with smoking and health.

Hysteria

April 24 [02:45 GMT] - Funding drives alarmism – Interesting piece by Surreality Times on commercial alarmism.  What drives the global warming hysteria are the same things that drive antitobacco: money and junk science.  Alarmism is a very addictive element with a mobile tolerance threshold.  People get used to the hysteria and the nonsense they hear, and thus more and stronger hysteria is needed to attract public attention – and funding.  This socially irresponsible and dangerous practice could be eliminated if only the funding fix could be broken.  In that case watch how fast environmentalists and “tobacco control” advocates would lose their love for the planet or their interest for your “health”.  Without funding there would be no anti-car, anti-tobacco, anti-fat, anti-freedom movements; freedom and general economy would flourish again, and people would settle their own business amongst themselves.  No one can hear you, so answer honestly: if it was not forbidden, would you really give up your car, your cigarettes, your drinks or you food because you “care” for the planet or you “believe” that you are “harming” someone else?  Of course not, let’s be real. That means that you don’t really want it, but that you are forced into a behaviour because of… funding to propaganda groups.

If only the funding could be removed… But the “if only” has always been the gateway to wishland: what are we prepared to do to make wishes come true?

Straightening up eaters

April 24 [02:45 GMT] - Perverting the language - The health establishment purposefully corrupts the language as a tactic to further its control over the population.  Epidemic no longer refers to a terrible outbreak of infectious disease but is unethically used to describe voluntary behaviors such as smoking and eating.  Addiction has been watered down to include smoking, shopping, gambling as well as other behaviors that used to be described as habits.  "Proof" quite some time ago joined the words that Big Health perverted for its own ends.

"Scientists prove that salty diet costs lives" screams the headline in the Times Online introducing a story about salt consumption.  Within not only is there no "proof" but a close reading provides evidence that the researchers, along with the media, have completely abandoned the epidemiological standards that should govern research such as this.

People who ate less salty food were found to have a 25 per cent lower risk of cardiac arrest or stroke, and a 20 per cent lower risk of premature death.

Add a zero to these percentages and this study would have warranted a news story.  Ethical epidemiologists are looking for at least 200% (relative risk 3) as the base to justify concern or intervention.  These puny percentages warrant nothing (especially when the data is gathered with questionnaires!), as the researchers well know and reporters covering these issues should know.  The reporter, a Health Editor, no less, should have informed his readers that 20 and 25 per cent indicate... nothing.  He does, however, midway down remark that the number of heart attacks and deaths supposedly caused by a salty diet are so small that they could have occurred by "chance."

Considering that the researchers are rehashing previous studies conducted one and two decades ago a more pertinent analysis should focus on why old research is dubbed "proof" of anything.  Obviously the researchers are cashing in on the obesity "epidemic", a fertile ground for profitable grants.  The United Kingdom, like other countries, is badgering its citizens to shape up and behave themselves.  Anti-salt messages there are becoming increasingly strident and this study will bolster the campaigns to alter consumption.  Like studies regarding the supposed bad effects from smoking tobacco, the salt and diet studies have proven only that Big Health long ago forgot why it is supported by a highly taxed population.

Media bias

April 24 [02:45 GMT] - Pushing the agenda - In what is now a rite of spring, beach communities from coast to coast are celebrating Earth Day by picking trash up from public beaches and coastal parks.  From Dover New Hampshire comes a report that on first glance seems to be following the template provided by anti-tobacco special interest groups.  While the volunteers filled 33 bags of rubbish weighing 650 pounds the only refuse mentioned, with a slight comment about beer bottles, was cigarette butts.  This is a common trope and often is a prelude for a smoking ban on a beach even though the trash bags were filled with of all sorts of disgusting items, most of it not cigarette butts.  Garbage may be garbage but treading on a cigarette butt buried in the sand doesn't produce the disgust that would erupt if instead of a butt the item were a greasy, gnawed chicken breast or a gooey glob of dog doo-doo.

The story veers towards a refreshing candor when the reporter notes that last year 100,000 cigarette butts were retrieved from a neighboring beach prompting the town to install ashtrays.  Since no scary totals are reported this year it must be assumed that the ashtrays solved the cigarette butt issue on that beach, which should compel officials responsible for all beaches to do the same rather than banning smokers.  When litter is a problem it is obvious that providing an adequate amount of trash containers is the right way to go.

England: the passive smoke fraud

April 23 [03:00 GMT] - Deadlier than DDT is for mosquitoes, worse than nuclear radiation, puts mustard gas to shame: it’s passive smoke! – This may as well be the title of the latest advertisement of the United Kingdom Department of Social Frauds (Oops… sorry, we meant to write “Health”) warming against passive smoke.  In his piece "New Anti-Smoking Advertisement Suggests that Secondhand Smoke Kills Instantaneously", Michael Siegel dissects the ad and its social consequences.  We comment more below, but for now we say this: let it never be said that the British “public health” idiots be overtaken by their American or Canadian counterparts when it comes to hysteria and false information on smoking! After all, are they or are they not the centre of Commonwealth?... It's a matter of principle!

April 23 [03:00 GMT] - Swindler exposed: click here to see it in another window – “Mr Huginkiss was in tears, as he commented: ‘It’s hard to stay passive.  This has left an indelible stain on our family.’”

This is the punch line of the antismoking ad mentioned above that constitutes the latest attempt to convince British citizens that passive smoke is the hidden killer in this tabloid-style piece of propaganda.  We agree with the closing line, although in a different key: it’s hard to stay passive when the stain of fraud has soaked all the way up to the top of public institutions. The United Kingdom’s Nation Health Service is now engaged in full-scale misleading propaganda knowing full well that there is absolutely no evidence that passive smoke is a killer – none whatsoever.  Furthermore, they know that all the studies on passive smoke are statistical trash.  The knowledge that our readers may have of this, however, does fix the fundamental institutional problem about institutions knowingly lying to taxpayers to control their behaviour.  The swindler is exposed: but the problem of what the Brits are going to do against such a powerful one remains.

April 23 [03:00 GMT] - Smoking ban adverts to be investigated -  The United Kingdom’s Nation Health Service is clearly responsible for the crime of false advertisement, let alone misuse of public money to that end.  Honest Brits are doing something by alerting the Advertising Standards Authority, which will ask for proof to substantiate claims made on the dangers of passive smoking.  Donna Mitchell from the ASA said: “We would expect them (the respondents) to provide evidence to support their claims.”

And here is where the problem may begin.  What is the evidence?  The junk studies on passive smoke that are considered valid in the opinion of the same mafia pushing the false information in the first place?  The mafia that says that the studies say passive smoke is a killer, while instead the studies say in black and white that the risk is too low to be considered as a suspect causality?

Where is an independent body that has power over "public health", which is part of the government itself?  Truthful advertisement laws and standard sure apply to private industry or individuals, but we have never seen them applied to "public health".  The problem, in England and everywhere, is that antitobacco has infected the centres of power with its ideology.  The ideology believes that false representation (fraud) is a moral and legitimate tool to fight smoking, and that smoking is to be eliminated from society on the grounds of further misrepresentation of active smoking in order to engineer cultures and promote pharmaceuticals.

Needless to say, all that has nothing to do with health, as the issue is both mercantile and political.  The fight for the elimination of antitobacco (and of the fraud it is synonymous with) must be instigated at the political and individual level, through widespread education on the truth of ETS.  To paraphrase the NHS' motto, "public health" needs to be told to "stop lying and start living".

Pharma Cartel

April 23 [03:00 GMT] - Footnotes to nowhere - Smoking is often incorrectly referred to as a habit when it is in fact a serious addiction. Studies have shown that nicotine addiction can be as difficult to overcome as heroin or cocaine addiction.(4) — CHAMPIX(TM) Smoking Survey, conducted by Leger Marketing.

Note that in what is essentially a press release from Pfizer, Inc. touting its antismoking drug "the facts" are carefully footnoted in the references.  Now if a reputable organization made a statement that started with "Studies show..." and footnoted it one would expect it to be backed up with a reference to those studies.  Not in the Antismoking world!   The fourth footnote, for instance, takes the reader to a Health Canada page which simply REPEATS the same assertion with NO footnote!  This is a beautiful example of how the Antismoking Lobby has managed to get fundamental beliefs about smoking and secondhand smoke completely entrenched as unquestionable fact in the public mind WITHOUT ANY FACTUAL BASIS.  It's purely a matter of having the money to repeat, repeat, repeat the lies.