History and stupidity repeats themselves -  Everywhere in the world honest citizens are forced to break laws based on a fraud to exercise their liberty to consume a legal product. Political antismoking idiots think that, by not making tobacco illegal, they are not repeating the historical mistake. But, in reality, this mistake is worse than that of the 1920s for both scale and social damage.

August 31 [13:05 GMT] - This ain’t no “overreach”:  it’s an overture - Smoking bans as part of an anti-crime strategy? That’s the party line in Palo Alta, California. And  like the delusional deniers they are, “concerned” commentators just can’t understand what it’s all about. It feels as if the government intends to be oppressive and deceitful, but since that can’t possibly be true – the whole thing must surely be just an “overreach”, some sort of odd-ball mistake. Instead, those of us who have followed the issue for years understand that it is instead an overture to the criminalization of the possession and use of tobacco. Get it? Meanwhile, Palo Alto is waging the war on another front: against its tax-paying businesses who are forced into the position of being smoke-easies.

August 31 [13:05 GMT] - Speak-easies make a comeback - Scottish pubs are breaking the smoking ban, following in the footsteps of Dublin, New York and California. Speak-easies reminiscent of the 1930s prohibition on alcohol are just popping up all over. After hours, doors are locked, curtains draw and the ashtrays so carefully hidden during the day are brought out. Cigs are lit and a good time is had by all. Where there's a will there's a way. Hats off to the rebels and have another pint! Cheers!

August 30 [13:05 GMT] - Scottish anti-smoking politician whimpers over rejection by brewery company - This article is about how a Scottish MP who supported smoking bans got her feelings badly hurt when a local brewery in her constituency apparently “barred” her “from speaking to staff …because she thought the smoking ban was a good thing.” If it’s true, God bless the brewery -- and where can we place an order for some of their fine products? After all, staff who share this lady’s views can always chat with her on their own time – why should the company she’s damaging put up with her presence? That would be as obnoxious as letting a pub owner welcome smokers as customers! This MP is surely a bad role model for local economic development – not to mention civility -- and the brewery has the right to have a prohibitionist-free workplace in order to protect everyone.
The best thing about this piece, however, are the lively comment postings that follow. 
One reader notes that at his local, “pub takings have dropped because you can't get into the place for the crowd of smokers blocking the door.”
 
“If it's anything like it was in Bugsy Malone, I for one cannot wait for prohibition,” crows another, who is obviously either waiting for an economic opportunity or wants to try a new adventure sport.

August 28 [17:00 GMT] - Hospitality industry: fight hard now, wherever you are - A reader sends FORCES these reflections on the strategy of the smoking ban brigade:

“The first targets are usually the largest cities in the county (Illinois profiled here): Chicago in Cook county, Springfield in Sangamon county, Champaign in Champaign county, etc. If successful, they will then attempt to go county-wide with the ban, knowing full well that the majority of county board members represent portions of the cities where the bans have already passed. These city-residing county board members are under pressure by their constituent bar and tavern owners within the city limits to "level the playing field". This, of course, has the effect of forcing the hospitality businesses within the city to change their original stance, which is almost always opposition to the bans.

“ Once some major cities and counties are smoker unfriendly, and the adverse economic effects of the bans become apparent, these cities, counties and their wounded hospitality businesses will support state-wide bans as their only apparent avenue for prosperity and survival.

“ I don't know if this strategy is universally employed, but, to give them their due, it's worked in Illinois so far. For this reason it is vitally important to oppose smoking bans everywhere they are proposed. Just because you aren't immediately affected by today's ban, you will be affected by one soon enough.”

FORCES’ comment: This strategy IS universally employed, so pay attention!

August 28 [17:00 GMT] - Another Day, Another ASH Lie  - ASH spokeswoman Maureen Moore has claimed to the British Press that Irish bars have experienced no sustained loss of trade as a result of the smoking ban. The fact that over six hundred bars have closed in Ireland since the ban (and are continuing to close at a rate of one a day) is irrelevant to the antismoking minions, who hope that smokers "get used to it" and that the economy, eventually, will "compensate". It's not working: smokers DON'T get used to it, and the economy only suffers. One again, these health Nazis of Marxist inspiration want to bend not just the the rules of science, but also the laws of economics to their lurid agendas. Indeed history teaches nothing to the fools.

August 28 [17:00 GMT] - More stupidity from Ireland - In order to bend the laws of economics first you have to get rid of common sense - and this too has hauling precedents in history. So, in order to fight smoking, the idiotic Irish government will forbid the sales of 10-cigarette packs effective October 1st! This is the paradox that happens when governments become marionettes of tiny, wacko groups such as ASH. Ironically, groups like that get to rule nations in their areas of "competence" without paying any of the political consequences a normal politician would. We have to admit that they are smart: they know an idiot when they see one. And what else is there for the most part in governments and especially in ministries of "health" - other than crooks, that is?...

August 26 [21:00 GMT] - Strong reactions of the EU unions to the shameful discrimination against smokers by the EU Commission - With statements such as: "The European Commission has a totally formal and wrongheaded interpretation of the EU law. In the future could somebody not be hired on account of their weight, the color of their hair or their clothes because these characteristics are not in the list?" (Fulvio Fammoni, Italy's CGIL union) or: "The European Commission is perfectly right that the (EU) anti-discrimination treaty does not say anything specifically about smokers. But I don't think that because it's not in the treaty, you can do whatever you want." (Tom Jenkins, European Trade Union Confederation), European trade unions have firmly condemned the European Commission and its condoning of employment discrimination against smokers.

Even antismoking groups have joined the choir: "We never asked for it, it's ridiculous and totally useless in the fight against smoking. Smokers are victims of addiction and they have to be helped" (Gerard Dubois, head of a French anti-smoking association).

To this gentleman, however, we reply as follows: thank you for your compassionate position, sir. However, your help has never been asked for, nor is it welcome. We know that we don't have any addiction. On the other hand, we are convinced that people such as yourself are in need of MUCH help, as they are terminally ill with the Missionary Syndrome - a condition suffered by the mentally handicapped in search of a cause. Those affected torture their victims because they are  incapable of minding their own lives. However, since we are not without compassion, our hand is out to try to help you all back to the health of the mind and - especially - to that of the soul.

August 24 [15:30 GMT] - A significant step on the road to criminalization - In  South Carolina, a significant step towards prohibition has been taken by introducing penalties for minors found in possession of tobacco, specifically, “a $25 fine, community service and forced enrollment in an approved smoking-cessation program.”

Anti-smokers love to use the term “de-normalization” to describe their quest to remake public opinion so that people will acquiesce to rolling tobacco into the War on Drugs. One way to do this is graduated prohibition: smoking sections one day to “accommodate everybody”, smoking bans the next to “promote everyone’s health” and criminal penalties, one step at a time, until a full-scale criminal prohibition is in effect. Although not all slopes are slippery, only the obtuse would deny the evidence that this is the direction of the tobacco wars.

August 22 [14:20 GMT] - A win for common sense! Smoking or non-smoking gives bar owners and customers a choice - In St. Louis, Missouri, the smoking ban issue was recently resurrected after a defeat, leaving local bar owners feeling betrayed. But in a surprise turn-around, the bill that eventually passed will give the hospitality industry the choice of going smoking or non-smoking, with appropriate signage posted. Courageous Councilman John Campisi, a sponsor of the bill, had this to say: "I just feel that the freedom of speech and the freedom of choice should be everybody's choice when they walk into an establishment, whether it be a bar, restaurant, casino or any kind of public mall," Campisi said. "I think everyone should have the choice of whether or not they want to smoke or not smoke. I don't smoke but I still feel as though we should have a choice."

August 22 [14:20 GMT] - More fuel for the fight against smoking bans - From the Clear the Air blog, here are some fascinating figures on the very high cost of smoking bans and the emptiness of  claims about the health threat of second hand smoke. Included is a long list of hospitality industry closures since the start of the Minnesota smoking ban and a fascinating analysis of the American Cancer Society’s own air quality testing is included, with the conclusion that “the American Cancer Society air quality testing proves secondhand smoke levels are up to 25,000 times safer than OSHA indoor air quality regulations.” Check it out!

August 22 [14:20 GMT] - …and calls for a full scale congressional investigation into the pharmaceutical nicotine interests which fund smoking ban efforts - FORCES wholeheartedly supports such an investigation, in light of the real evidence about health and smoking bans, and with years of mounting concern about conflict of interest in connection with the sources of anti-tobacco activist funding. Start putting pressure on your lawmakers!

August 20 [19:00 GMT] - Smoking bans: the financial toll continues to tell the story  - A revenue downturn of 36 percent is an enormous hit, but that’s just what happened to charitable gambling revenues in Minnesota in the first two months of a new smoking ban. A spokesperson for the state’s Gambling Control Board notes that "officially, the board is neutral on the (smoking ban) policy, but we have seen the impact." Once more, the anti-smokers’ cynical assurances about the positive financial impact of smoking bans have been contradicted by the facts.

August 20 [19:00 GMT] - Prohibitionists target the stars - Here we have it: an unintended consequence of California's smoking ban: Hollywood stars caught smoking outside and influencing young people to smoke. The anti-smoking brigade first insists that people be forced to smoke outside -- then wring their hands because well-known people who are forced to smoke outside are then recognized and photographed and editors actually PUBLISH such photographs. This song and dance, this staged outrage is, of course, yet another “public spectacle” enacted as a “normalization” of intolerance and as a prelude for a criminalizing smokers. They can’t say that they want smokers in jail – but that’s what they want. They can’t say they want strict censorship based on the criteria they provide – but that’s what they want. Why can’t these people just creep out from under their rocks and be honest for a change?

August 18 [18:00 GMT] - Smoking Ban Crippling Local Casinos - The very old joke about the used car salesman applies perfectly to antitobacco. It goes like this: Q.: "How do you know when an antismoking activist lies?" A.: "As soon as he moves his lips". All over the world, fraudulent antitobacco propaganda keeps saying that smoking bans are a blessing for businesses, and that prohibition does not hurt them at all - with "studies" to prove it! But the statistics about happy businesses and smoking bans are no different than those about the mortality of tobacco: they are a fraud. News come from everywhere that smoking bans hurt businesses - badly.

Here is the latest from Washington state: "Non-tribal casinos have already lost tens of millions of dollars because of Washington’s new indoor smoking ban. A new financial study, conducted by our own KIRO Team 7 Investigators, discovers taxpayers could loose millions as well. Card-rooms, charity bingo halls, and some bars and restaurants are required to report financial information to the state every year. The state hasn't had a chance to look at the figures since the smoking ban took effect. I have. It looks like "no smoking" means economic devastation for the non-tribal gaming industry."

Now we have another one: Q.: "Why has Man been able to fish successfully since time immemorial? A.: "Because fish are too stupid to tell each other about nets and bates". Now, the fishermen are the antitobacco cons, whose "experts" promise great business with prohibition and "level-plane fields".

August 11 [11:44 GMT] - New York businesses reeling from smoking ban losses - Here’s the real scoop from the street on losses from smoking bans. And although they’re careful not to publicize it, authorities in New York are quietly tolerating smoking in thousands of places where it has been officially “banned”. The era of the smoke-easy has apparently arrived.

August 5 [16:30 GMT] - House's own smoke-filled room - Smoking on private property is illegal in the capital of the free world. The concept of private property is forgotten in the nation's capital. The very same town where US Presidents and decision makers from Truman to Reagan once planned the strategy to tear down Socialism and Communism. Just like that, those failed ideologies reappear in DC, in the form of private property bans and state control of private businesses.

While it would be easy to read this article and howl with righteous indignation about how our elected public serpents are exempt from the social engineering experiments that they perform on their subjects/human lab rats, we take a different view. Here is somebody who is powerful and influential enough to tell the same anti-smoking vultures who forced smoking bans down their own citizens throat to "shut up and get out of my office" as he smokes his Kentucky brand Barclay cigarettes.

It's nice to have power. Regular people will realize that they have the same power if they join together.

August 5 [16:30 GMT] - Ohmigawd! Duluth is being buried by mountains of cigarette butts! - Duluth, MN has come up with an innovative way to spend some tax dollars. It's called the "Clean and Safe" team. Seems their main job is collecting and counting cigarette butts and documenting which building they were adjacent to. This "team" even has an Operations Manager.

It’s probably expensive, but when you’re trying to drum up hatred and intolerance in anticipation of new legislation directed against a segment of the population, it’s always considered money well spent these days.
 
You can bet there's a nico-nazi in this woodpile somewhere. Only confirmed antis are this enthralled with the minutia of tobacco and all its trappings. Who else would bother classifying  garbage in this manner?
 
A couple years back in, of all places, California, they had school kids collect garbage off the beach. They then made them separate out the cigarette butts, bag 'em, and drag 'em down to city hall. Today we have beach smoking bans.
 
There's no doubt the antis see Minnesota as ripe for the plucking. Wouldn't be surprising if the Duluth butts were hoarded, hauled down to St. Paul and dumped in front of the State Capitol Building.

August 2 [16:20 GMT] - Smoking rates continue to increase in Ireland after the ban - To any sane person this seems logical because what’s forbidden attracts. Far from us, of course, to imply that, since “smoking is bad”, governments should reverse policies of prohibition to obtain a decrease of smoking. What must be noted is the fanaticism of ASH and the like. Faced with the unarguable reality of the increases in smoking rates because of prohibition (there is no other reason), ASH now advocates bringing the price of cigarettes to € 8.50 a pack (over $10.80). Why not ten? Why not twenty? Of course, ASH will be ignored until the after the Irish elections, because politicians know that smokers vote. So the increases will kick in later. Why is it that politicians are NEVER asked to declare their position on smoking prohibition before the elections? Democracy doesn't work if the politicians are always allowed to set the agenda themselves. IT'S HIGH TIME THAT SMOKING PROHIBITION BECAME A NUMBER ONE BALLOT BOX ISSUE.

August 1 [13:57 GMT] - Rocky Mountain Low -  “They call me. What am I supposed to do, I ask? Write about it, they respond. What has happened is a state-wide tragedy, sponsored by the government. And where are all of the people, they all want to know, that the government promised would flock to their now-smoke-free bars?”

Just one month after a smoking ban went into effect in Colorado, some bars are already on the verge of bankruptcy, having lost 50 per cent of their business.  A Denver-area newspaper columnist visits a formerly profitable local bar and its desperate owner. Other reports (click here for story and video link) further detail the destruction of the area’s bar businesses and the price being paid by ordinary hard-working people for the prohibition dreams of others.

August 1 [13:57 GMT] - American Legion Post 149 challenges ban on smoking in private clubs - We wish these veterans well in the fight to have their own haven exempted from the prohibition hit list, but unfortunately we see all the symptoms of same old, same old. Again we find attorneys more than willing to take the hard earned money of people to represent a case that is guaranteed, by all legal precedents, to lose. Anyway, here is the text of the full complaint.

When will the business owners ever learn that there are no “rights” when the topic is legally defined as a “health issue”? The prohibition agenda must be tackled at the root – it is politicized junk science that must be attacked, and the top-down social engineering model that says – as the Nazis did – that the maximization of physical health is one of the primary goal of government, to which other values must be subordinate. It is the ideology of healthism, being pedaled with soft words and a big bat – as is happening in both the UK and the United States – that is the enemy. People have to have their consciousness raised about this, and then fight it relentlessly.

July 31 [19:30 GMT] - Politicos and anti-smokers scratching each others’ backs in D.C. - Now that the Washington D.C. city council has passed a total and mandatory smoking ban for all  at D.C. nightclubs, bars, and the bar areas of restaurants, the antis are celebrating.

The American Cancer Society, oblivious as usual to anything apart from its own obsessive, totalitarian agenda, recently gave a special award to the authors and supporters of the bill  . David Catania, one of the chief crafters of the bill, is already scratching the back of his political masters by giving money to the anti-smoking campaigns that are giving him help with his political career  .

But for those who make their living in the hospitality industry are having a wake as they contemplate the effects of the new law, slated to go into effect in January. Already at least one nightspot, the Lizard Lounge, has announced its closing, blaming the smoking ban for the demise of the popular gay locale.

“Regrettably and painfully, we find ourselves in the position of being left with no choice but to heed the publicly-offered and now infamous advice to hospitality industry professionals made by gay D.C. Councilmember and mandatory smoking ban bill author David Catania … urging workers to … either change careers or at least have a good head start on saving some money.” said nightclub producer Mark Lee.

The bill was pushed through earlier this year despite rigorous lobbying against it from all sectors of the hospitality industry, and despite Mayor Anthony Williams’s refusal to sign it because of the economic damage it would cause.

July 15 - Build more prisons: smokers are the new enemy - Smokers as criminals? You don’t believe it? Some readers have told us that tobacco will never become like heroin, part of the drug war, criminalizing people all over the nation. No responsible person in government would sanction it.

We’ve got news for you. Roll back the tape to 2003. The Surgeon General of the U.S., who occupies that chair mainly to be influential and to set a “tone” for future developments in policy, has already done it. 

The U.S. Surgeon General has called for prohibition of tobacco products, so prohibition is not far behind. And that means that smokers will soon be part of the burgeoning an underclass of despised “substance abusers”. Part criminals, they’ll be paying out fines, taking up jail space, and pushing into the headlines, as respectable people bolt the doors and shut the windows, having been enlightened as to the real threat among them. Part sick-and-in-need-of-our-help, they will be entered into that unholy category, the “mentally ill.”

Ah, and what a strange ride it’s been for that category of fellow human in the western world. In the nineteenth century and indeed for much of the twentieth century, when female sexuality was so threatening and unspeakable that virtually everyone felt threatened and no one spoke, we had female circumcision of children right here in the west (that’s right folks, it ain’t just for Muslim fundamentalists). That was to stabilize and treat “abnormal” children. Then, when Freud reigned supreme, gays were ill (as well as criminal), women who were dissatisfied with the limitations in society had “penis envy” and were ill, and the list goes on. Now Freud wouldn’t even rate a free cup of coffee in the cafeterias of the hospitals and universities that once unquestioningly wielded the sword of his orthodoxy. We have other, trendier forms of social control to meet the perceived needs of a new age, and careers being built upon those perceptions. The once-idealistic baby-boomers will retire having built not a better or more enlightened anything, but having wrought only a few cosmetic changes to a system that seems bound to stigmatise, condemn and make miserable some element in society – blacks, gays, women, minorities, drug-takers, smokers, the overweight, Catholics, divorcees – the players change, but the bad faith remains.

And no, the Surgeon General and his army are not fighting a war against tobacco, they are fighting a war against people.

June 15 - Compromise better than nothing - When members of the food service committee opened the meeting to public comment, Cheryl Bratcher, a local waitress who opposes the ban, presented the group with a photocopy of a book called "The ABCs of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke)" she said provided evidence the risks of smoking have been exaggerated. The book is produced by a group called Forces International, an organization opposed to smoking bans.

"If you look in here, you see that whole milk is five times more likely to give you cancer than secondhand smoke," she said, opening the packet and pointing a passage out to committee chairman William Schroeder.

Bratcher, who said a smoking ban would affect her livelihood, said bans are less about public health than currying favor with non-smokers.

"It's trendy," she said of smoking bans.

We admire Ms. Bratcher's restraint in labeling the ugliness of smoking bans "trendy" while we applaud her use of our publication The ABCs of ETS.  What could have turned into yet one more cookie-cutter smoking ban in Corpus Christi Texas may evolve into an ordinance that both smokers and nonsmokers can embrace. That prognostication looks good and the compromise is a definite improvement over the zero-tolerance of smokers approach favored by anti-tobacco interests.  Of course any law that regulates smoking on private property, such as restaurants and bars is not needed when market forces will very efficiently protect the paranoid from even a whiff of tobacco smoke.

June 15 - Coping with oppression - Six months after Washington voters decided it was their business to tell other people how to live their lives, smoking continues in the neighborhood bars throughout Seattle and all other points in the state.  The scene is reminiscent of the speakeasy phenomenon that sprang up after the country banned alcohol consumption in the early years of the 20th century.  What is different now is that there are well-financed non-governmental organizations who are prepared to spend whatever it takes to ensure that prohibition reigns in "liberal", "tolerant" Washington state.  Despite the professional snitches who scurry from bar to bar seeking verboten tobacco smoke, the smokers and the businesses who must cater to them or go out of business defy the law and make a mockery of anti-tobacco's bogus contention that banning smoking is good for business.

June 15 - Smoking ban suspended - (Note, this story is best viewed in Netscape or Mozilla Foxfire)  A Kenyan court has suspended that country's ban on smoking in "public."  Surprisingly the law was challenged by a cigarette manufacturer but not surprisingly the company is narrowly focusing only on one aspect of the ban that specifically affects its bottom line.  Rather than challenging prohibition on the junk science that is used to persuade legislators that secondhand smoke is deadly to nonsmokers, the cigarette company is miffed that part of the law that requires cigarette packs carry "Cigarettes Kill" in huge print immediately.  Claiming that it will loose millions of dollars recalling cigarettes with the smaller warning labels, the cigarette makers are asking for time to phase in the new warning label.

Such shortsightedness is typical of the industry and indicates just how much it values its customers.  Rather than address the real problem, unjustified smoking bans, the industry wastes time and money plugging a dike with its little finger.  Punishment, by the way, for the poor soles who violate the smoking ban, is horrendous ranging from six-month jail terms to fines of over $600, a fortune in poor countries like Kenya.

May 30 - Antismoking strategy - Suppress public comment. Refuse to hold hearings. Disseminate highly selective propaganda. Gain silence from special interests by rewarding them with exemptions. Order your own Health Department to lobby you for a ban-- but don't call it a ban because it sounds too much like...a ban. Publicly "shame" anybody who might vote against it. "Go for the jugular." Call them Anti-health. Call them lackeys of Big T. Does this sound like a paranoid vision? Well, sorry, it's precisely how Arkansas got its ban-- and likely other places too, where the banners were simply smarter about what they put in their emails. Obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under Freedom of Information, this article spills the beans. Here's a tantalizing sample:

“Why give the bill more shots and more public airing ?” [wrote Deputy Chief of Staff Kelly Boyd to the Governor who'd instigated the ban.] “All you are going to get is folks who oppose the bill coming in and giving legislators something to think about. You have enough resources at your disposal to visit with each individual legislator numerous times during the next week. You only want legislators hearing your side of the story and going to committee is about as opposite a way to do that as I can think of.” 

May 30 - New Hampshire: ban rejected - A proposed ban on smoking in restaurants and bars came up one vote short in the Senate yesterday, failing 12-11. The bill had passed the House by 33 votes last month. Senators said the bill was the subject of one of the most intense lobbying efforts they could recall. Sen. Carl Johnson, R-Meredith, said lobbying on the bill crossed the line. He complained that he was harassed at his home by telephone and with massive e-mails written by lobbyists. “This movement has done nothing to further its cause and — in my opinion has taken a giant step backwards,” he said.

May 30 - South Carolina: ban rejected - House members narrowly defeated a bill Wednesday that would ban smoking in restaurants. After nearly two hours of debate, the House voted 55-52 to send the proposal back to committee, killing it. The measure would have prohibited smoking in restaurants, bars, lounges and recreational facilities but had exceptions for cigar bars and private clubs, such as the American Legion. There's no such thing as safe cigarette smoke," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia. He said he introduced the bill last year after learning of a report that linked secondhand cigarette smoke to breast cancer. "Anyone who says secondhand smoke doesn't kill people is burying one's head in the sand," he said.

May 30 - England: a Welsh council has banned its staff from smoking at all during working hours -The true intent of this latest twist on a ban is clearly seen by the prohibition of council workers smoking outside as well as inside. It has nothing to do with "protecting non smokers" and everything to do with increasing persecution of smokers to pressure them into quitting. The requirement that smokers clock out breaks if they'll smoke during them shows the same sort of mean-spirited intent: are workers forced to clock out for breaks if they do NOT smoke? There's far too much lying and Big-Brotherish manipulation going on with these antismoking campaigns: smokers and the general public need to stand up and just say NO to Nanny. - Michael J. McFadden, author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains.

April 17 - Vive la France! - Ever hewing to an independent course, the citizens of France knocked down an outrageous governmental plan to ban smoking in the country's restaurants and bars.  Back to the drawing board say the chastened bureaucrats who thought they could pull a fast one on a people distracted by car burnings and employee rights upheavals.  Kowtowing to the multi-national pharmaceutical corporations that bribed the government to ban smoking on private property proved to be a bridge too far for the freedom loving French to cross.  Will anti-tobacco be back with another proposal?  Of course but probably not until the next election cycle is complete.  Until then the French can rightfully enjoy their irritating but, in this case, well-developed sense of superiority.

April 3 - A softer, reasonable approach - The small nation of Denmark has been much in the news of late because of the so-called controversy erupting over a newspaper's decision to print images of Mohammed.  The country, so far, has bravely faced down an onslaught of threats and condemnation while newspapers, particularly here in the United States have cravenly buckled under foreign pressure.

Lost in all the hubbub is the news that Denmark is again countering the mob by enacting smoking regulation that seem downright reasonable these days.  Our correspondent from Denmark fills us in.

March 29 - Justifying the unjustifiable - KGO radio in San Francisco featured a discussion about the city's latest proposal to persecute smokers.  Anchors Rosie Allen and Greg Jarrett hosted Maryetta Ables, representing Forces International, Cynthia Hallett of the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Phillip Matier, reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.

After a short spot of news the program begins with background and a series of bizarre statements by an anti-tobacco flack named Alyonik Hrushow who works for the city's health department.  Hrushow's generous salary is provided courtesy of California smokers who are taxed to finance "tobacco control sections" in each of the counties.  As you listen to her pedantic statements realize that her comfortable lifestyle is provided by the very people she works eight hours a day to demonize.  Needless to say, every word she spews about secondhand smoke is a flat out lie and that she knows full well what she says is untrue.  The only truth she does utter, and utter it she does proudly, is that one primary goal of the outdoor smoking bans is to further the "denormalization" of smoking.

Points of interest include Ms. Ables forcing Ms. Hallett to admit that the ANR receives funding from the pharmaceutical front group, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Ms. Hallett's inept attempt to tar Forces as a tool of Big Tobacco; Ms. Ables pointing out the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's refusal to ban smoking; Ms. Ables putting Ms. Hallett's fear-mongering to rest regarding the "dangers" of a minute component of tobacco smoke into perspective.

In all the segment was fair with each side getting equal time.  Ms. Hallett, as a highly paid anti-tobacco professional, is poised and smooth, performing as well as can be expected considering that she surely knows that smoking at a bus stop poses no hazards to nonsmokers.  Ms. Ables, as reflects her unpaid status as a volunteer for freedom, is a slightly less polished but held her own with the pro, often scoring points at the expense of the programmed anti-tobacco operative.  The hosts and the newspaper man seemed in the end to sympathize a bit more with the plight of the smokers than with the rigid ideology of the professional kill-joy.  The public is well-served when the foolishness and downright hatred of anti-smoking zealots are exposed.

March 27 - Mercantile social engineering - The spate of new restrictions in the United States and abroad is being driven by business interests, according to Maryetta Ables, president of FORCES, or Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking. Ables said she believes smoking bans are being promoted and funded at least in part by pharmaceutical companies that sell stop-smoking products.

"It's going to take the American people to get righteously indignant and force our legislators to stop allowing commercial industry to purchase social legislation to promote their products," Ables said.

There is no doubt that the pharmaceutical industry is a prime mover in the anti-tobacco movement.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's billions came directly from Johnson & Johnson.  The foundation has spent hundreds of millions of dollars financing anti-smoking "research" and aggressively lobbying politicians to enact policies designed to switch customers from the tobacco products of Big Tobacco to the smoking cessation products of Big Drugs.

March 27 - Religious fervor - A new statewide ban prompts newspaper man Jay Ambrose to list the legitimate reasons for banning smoking from private property such as restaurants and bars.  There aren't any but he does list the garbage that is used to promote prohibition.  Smoking bans have become an article of faith for the ignorant and a club for the social engineers to increase their power.

March 27 - Refusing to bend over - While much of the United States and Western Europe should hang their heads in shame, the Spanish are showing that they at least learned some lessons from the decades in which they were oppressed by a fascist regime.  The socialist government passed a nationwide smoking ban and the people are refusing to comply.  America needs a spine transplant but it appears Spain is using its spine to great effect.

March 22 - Petty vindictiveness - An establishment designed specifically to accommodate smokers in comfortable climes has got the antis panties bunched into a tight little wad. The fact that those “slimy tricksters” at Big Tobacco own it only serves to compress that ball of cloth and push it northward.

Marshall McGearty clearly qualifies as a “tobacco retail shop” which is clearly exempt from Chicago’s latest version of prohibition. Alderman Burke’s answer? Close the loophole by redefining what constitutes a “tobacco retail shop”. God forbid the dirty smokers enjoy any creature comforts while sucking on coffin nails.

Annie Tegen of the ANR displays her keen nose for business:

"I'd expect this business model to flop," Tegen said. "People in Chicago are excited about the smoke-free law. And many smokers I know in Chicago don't mind stepping outside for five minutes to smoke. I don't see them as a trend that will continue."

Providing a warm atmosphere, plush chairs and a crackling fire for a huge but much maligned segment of the population is surely the road to ruin.

March 22 - Hell freezes over - Action on Smoking Health says that the Calabasas outdoor smoking ban is going to far!  That ASH-UK, of course, since ASH in the USA is perhaps the most rapid hater of smokers in the world.  Good for ASH-UK, now please butt out from indoor private property smoking bans.

March 20 - Passing out false information - New Jersey, as Washington State, recently imposed a smoking ban on the politically unconnected.  Greasy spoons, local watering holes and sit down restaurants are forbidden to allow their customers to smoke.  The politically connected, such as the massive Atlantic City casinos, including their restaurants and bars, are free to cater to their smoking customers.

Michael Siegel has written previously about the hypocrisy of the New Jersey ban but in this articles focuses on one anti-smoking group that seems to have a hard time telling the truth.  The Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights is crowing about the New Jersey ban and bragging to its supporters how all so-called public places will be smokefree in April.  Dr. Siegel is awaiting ANR's correction with bated breath.  We advise him, rather, not to hold it too long.

March 13 - New Salem - The ban's backers see smoking as a shameful vice that must be kept out of sight, an indecent activity from which adults must shield children's eyes as well as their noses. The logic of forcing people to set a good example for the kids—which also would justify banning fat people and motorcyclists from public places—reduces adults to the level of children whenever they venture out of their homes.

Salem Massachusetts, even now, is best known as an intolerant, hysterical colonial settlement where innocent people were killed as witches.  Three centuries later the religious hysteria is erupting in California where municipalities are competing to see which can be the most punitive to smokers.  Calabasas is currently winning that contest and, like Puritan Salem, revels in its role as enforcer of morality.  Jacob Sullum details the hatred wrapped up in its newly passed smoking law and points out how public health has nothing to do with the persecution of innocent citizens.

March 13 - Lying to push a smoking ban - Action on Smoking and Health is bullying New Hampshire legislators into passing a comprehensive statewide smoking ban.  This out-of-state special interest group claims the smoking ban in crucial to the health of nonsmokers because breathing secondhand smoke, even for brief periods, is deadly and even one half hour of exposure renders the nonsmoker as susceptible to heart attack as a pack-a-day smoker who has smoked for decades.  One honest tobacco control advocate labels ASH's claims as false (and worse).

March 8 - Clinic protests smoking ban - In an unexpected twist an Ohio medical clinic has asked a judge to exempt it from an upcoming smoking ban.  Pleading that it receives most of its funding from bingo fundraisers, heavily patronized by smokers, the clinic is the 10 business to ask that it not be subject to the smoking ban.

March 8 - Divide and conquer - New Jersey recently enacted a smoking ban to protect all workers from the deadly effects of secondhand smoke.  The huge casinos in Atlantic City are, of course, exempted.  Unlike casinos in New York and Washington State, however, the Jersey casinos are not Indian enterprises that operate as sovereign nations.  A coalition of bars and restaurants are suing over the obvious double standard.  If the casino loop hole is closed then expect the rich casino owners to finally recognize that they are in the same boat and mom and pop business people.

February 27 - Us versus Them - William Utz, an Arlington attorney and a nonsmoker, said he enjoys socializing with friends who smoke and they should be free to choose a restaurant that allows smoking. People should be "tolerant of others and their social pleasures and accommodating of their lawful activity," Utz said.

The recent victories in Virginia, Maryland and Galveston Texas highlight the anti-tobacco's false dichotomy that society is composed of a majority of nonsmokers who not only refuse to associate with nonsmokers but also feel smokers must be curtailed from enjoying a lawful pleasure.  Testimony in Virginia shows that citizens who choose not to smoke choose to support their friends' and family members' right to do so.  In this day and age no one is forced to inhale secondhand smoke, including employees.  Patronizing and working in establishments where smoking is permitted is a matter of choice, something we all value.

February 20 - Anti-tobacco sent packing - The non-nonsense senators in South Dakota decisively told anti-tobacco where to go by killing a bill in committee that would have ushered in widespread smoking bans.  The level of defeat for anti-tobacco corresponds to the sparse coverage given this story.  Had the vote totals been reversed the reporter, with the ardent help of anti-tobacco operatives, would have produced a multi-paragraph paean to the glory of tobacco control.

February 17 - England imposes prohibition - Reneging on an campaign pledge, Labour imposed a 100% smoking ban on England.  The vote wasn't close as MP's fell over themselves to proclaim a new era of better health. 

Despite claiming that the country welcomes this bit of nanny state interference compliance will be obtained only by levying huge fines on those who have the temerity to cater to their smoking customers.  The Magna Carta is a gift from England to democracy.  It's hard to image a like document ever originating from such a frightened nation of hysterics.

February 15 - Good news, bad news - On the plus side Oklahoma declined to enact a total smoking ban, leaving bars free to determine their own smoking policies.  On the minus side restaurants are prohibited from allowing smoking unless various hoops, often expensive, are jumped through.  Restaurants may set up rooms on their premises where customers may smoke.  This scheme is similar to that in Italy, which despite anti-tobacco's propaganda is not a "smoke-free" nation.

FORCES finds the whole thing silly, a waste of money and effort but is happy that prohibition is not complete.  Michael Siegel, an advocate for workplace smoking bans, is not happy with Oklahoma's awkward compromise.  Since servers will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke such a smoking ban is useless.  Worse than useless, according to Siegel, since the separate smoking rooms pose a greater hazard than the situation that existed before the smoking ban was imposed.  Siegel's concern is focused on the ventilation of the smoking rooms, a consideration that needs to come to the fore in any discussion of indoor air quality.  We agree.

February 13 - Tripping up on the contradictions - Lacking the courage (or political savvy) of their so-called convictions, the anti-tobacco operatives who guide legislators in smoking ban legislation often write in various exemptions to what is advertised as a total smoking ban.  Some good examples are the smoking ban in Washington State, which specifically exempts Indian-run restaurants, bars and casinos, the California ban that specifically exempts Indian-run restaurants, bars and casinos, as well as bars that have no employees.  In Utah "private" restaurants and bars can allow smoking.  States and cities that haven't yet enacted "total" smoking bans like the aforementioned states often exempt bars and even restaurants that derive a small percentage of their sales from food.  Apparently secondhand smoke is harmful only in the presence of food.

These contradictions are endemic to anti-tobacco thought and will eventually bring the whole rotten edifice down.  Michael Siegel, himself an advocate for tobacco control, presents an insider's view of these contradictions by analyzing the exemptions that riddle Scotland's "total smoking ban."

February 13 - No exceptions! - The committed anti-smoking fanatic cannot sleep for fear that somewhere, somebody is enjoying a smoke.  After banning smoking nearly everywhere in Chicago an alderman named Ed Burke is already willing to modify the just-passed law to tighten the screws on tobacco shops, currently not effected by the ban.

It's possible that Burke's hissy fit is due to the high-profiled smoking lounge, the object of his ire, being owned by R.J. Reynolds rather than concern over protecting nonsmokers.  After all no nonsmoker need every visit a tobacco shop.  It would be nice if R.J. Reynolds, a company that has undisputed standing to sue over the smoking ban law, would haul out its heavy artillery and litigate Chicago to the U.S. Supreme Court on the secondhand smoke fraud but in the "go along" to "get along" miasma that suffocates this country, expect a spineless capitulation to the bully Alderman Burke.

February 6 - Hypocrisy, the tribute to cash - It's either laugh or cry as jerkwater towns up and down California stumble over each other to be the first to stick it hardest to smokers.  The winner in the stupidity sweeps so far is Calabasas (with a name like that it would be wise to keep foolish laws to a minimum), a community in southern California.  Calabasas is taking the simple route of banning smoking everywhere unless specifically permitted.  It's lawful, for now, to smoke in one's own home and yard but not on any city sidewalk unless some weird conditions are met.  One can also smoke in the town's largest shopping center.  Apparently the effects of secondhand smoke and the bad example for children of adults smoking a cigarette are not so bad when the anti-tobacco agenda would interfere with trade.

February 1 - A passel of lies - The recently released report on outdoor secondhand smoke issued by the California Air Resources Board gives the green light to fanatics such as Action on Smoking and Health to revel in its hatefulness.  With the release of the report less than a week ago ASH is braying that now is the time to eliminate smokers completely from public life.  Its language is brutal but the brutality the radical organization inflicts upon scientific integrity is even uglier.

Michael Siegel, an advocate of tobacco control, is horrified that ASH's deceptive screed against outdoor smoking will turn the public against what he calls legitimate efforts to diminish smoking indoors.  Obviously we hope the ugly face of ASH becomes the face of anti-tobacco but we have no argument with Siegel's point by point rebuttal of ASH's lies about the health effect of outdoor tobacco smoke. 

ASH has a two-pronged strategy in pushing its outdoor smoking ban.  The first is the pseudo-scientific justification addressed above.  The second is an appeal to the prejudices of those who just don't like smokers but need help in formulating their prejudices.  Basically ASH has a list of pet peeves that Michael Siegel contemptuously dismisses.

January 30 - Outdoor smoking bans - Michael Siegel, a tobacco control advocate, takes a dim view of the recent trend in California and other "progressive" locales to ban smokers from truly public places such as parks and beaches.  As localities rush to embrace the lowest form of discrimination a city in Southern California proposes a smoking ban on its streets and sidewalks.

This is the first attempt that Siegel is aware of where a locality has banned smoking from city sidewalks.  In 1997 the small village of Friendship Heights in Maryland proposed just such a law.  The law was enacted but never went into effect because the Montgomery Maryland county determined the village didn't have the authority to pass such a law.  When the anti-tobacco mayor of Friendship Heights was later convicted of molesting a boy in the Washington Cathedral all talk of banning smoking from the sidewalks ceased.

January 27 - Who to believe? - On one side are taxpaying, payroll-making, hardworking business people.  On the other side are highly-paid operatives of anti-tobacco special interests that pay no taxes or produce a product or service anyone would buy.  The small business people don't want a smoking ban because they know their profits will plunge.  The operatives want a smoking ban so their patrons, the pharmaceutical companies, can market smoking cessation devices.  Too often the politicians listen most receptively to the polished operatives who do know how to lie with charm.

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