December 18 [04:30 GMT] - Out in the cold - These days news about the Christmas season, a time of peace and good will, would be incomplete without a repulsive glimpse into the soul of anti-smokers who revel in their inhumanity towards their neighbors.  From Canada comes the sorry tale of a veterans' housing center where the residents, some well over 80 years old, must trek outdoors to have a smoke.  Under Ontario's punitive smoking ban they are not permitted to smoke in their own home so must raise the money to construct a smoking room.  To comply with ventilation standards imposed by the healthists such a room will cost $70,000, a pretty penny for men who must pinch pennies to survive. Obviously the caring elite in Ontario have so rigged the game that installing smoking rooms are near impossible in most cases.

While this story tugs at the heart strings a deeper layer is opened by revealing the age of the victims.  These are old smokers, a fact that flies in the face of the liars who preach that smoking is so deadly that smokers die young and painfully. These men should have been dead years ago, according to the rulers of Ontario. How can it be that they are hobbling out in sub-zero weather to have a smoke? Because the dangers of primary smoke have been outrageously overstated, let alone the total fraud about the dangers of secondhand smoke. When our elders are treated as garbage just to please a few fanatics and anti-smoking misanthropes we know that we must face evil and stamp it out.

December 15 [04:30 GMT] - Smoking ban slashes profits - If banning smoking is so great for business why, wherever a ban is imposed, do the businesses affected lose money?  Scotland bans smoking so businesses suffer.  This story focuses on bingo parlors with proprietors complaining about lost profits.  Maybe something could be done if they joined with restaurants, pubs and all other businesses negatively affected by the ban and tacked the issue head on with science.  There is no evidence that secondhand smoke is harmful.  That's it.  Complaints about lost liberties and lost money are meaningless when health is concerned.  Deal with the fraud or continue to lose in court and in the legislature.

December 13 [04:30 GMT] - Germany rejects ban - The ruling coalition reversed itself yesterday by halting the nationwide ban it announced earlier this month.  The course reversal results from the realization that smoking is the provenance of the 16 federal states that make up Germany.  A nationwide smoking ban imposed by Berlin would be unlikely to withstand a constitutional challenge.

Needless to say anti-smoking operatives are crying foul and are urging the government to proceed with its illegal ban come hell or high water.  Some are angry that the national ban wasn't draconian enough in that it provided plenty of exemptions.  Smokers, as usual, are pawns in a political power play fuelled by pharmaceutical money and power politics.  At present the situation is fluid but it is encouraging that listed in this news account is the undeniable fact that many Germans are extremely uncomfortable with anti-tobacco fanaticism, an ideology that first found voice in Nazi Germany.  Having gone done that disastrous road not so long ago, it is to be hoped that decency will trump the shrill demands of a movement that has no place in free societies.

December 8 [19:40 GMT] - Mall of America needs taxpayer financing for expansion, but after losing all their 4th floor tenants due to the smoking ban, it's the least we can do  - "Mall of America owners want to expand their facility by an additional 5.6 million square feet, even though the entire 4th floor sits empty after hospitality businesses closed their doors due to business losses from Bloomington's smoking ban."

December 8 [13:30 GMT] - Twin Cities: 86 bars and restaurants have gone out of business since the beginning of the smoking ban - "It seemed like as good a day as any to update regular readers of this site about the (86) bars and restaurants which have gone out of business since the smoking bans started here in the Twin Cities on 3/31/05. Any Twin Cities readers who are familiar with other closings not reported at the above link please contact us so we can update the list." - Follow the red link to get to the list. One of the gambles antitobacco takes is to assume that both smokers and the economy will "adjust" to the prohibition. Non smokers, on the other hand (except those who are really concerned with liberty) can only see the "clean air" (or so they believe) and couldn't care less if the economy goes to the dogs (or so they believe). As it is useless to point out the selfishness of that attitude, smokers learn that they can save and have fun anyway and non-smokers are happy because "they own the land" now. But hatred and unpleasant economic facts have serious consequences in the long run, and affect all.

We've never endorsed hate mail when the anti-smokers sent it; we of course don't endorse this. Yet it might have been predicted. As we said when we first reported the Belmont story, hate only builds up hate and contempt.

Firing smokers because they are smokers, calling them "stinky bastards" and killers to boot, kicking them out of apartment buildings, and forbidding them from becoming adoptive parents  -- these are some of the recent developments that should be seen as a context for what's happening in Belmont.

The Belmont city council is receiving the exaggerated voice of desperation, coming from rightful resentment against second class citizenship and against a fraud, that of passive smoke which has become a shameful institution. Smokers can no longer be the mattresses of opportunistic politicians and some dirty lawyers aided by crooks that make up false evidence to justify hatred. A long-awaited awareness is beginning to develop (alas, very slowly) amongst smokers. The awareness that they have to help themselves with what it takes to make themselves respected. The awareness that they are the forerunner victims of other health persecutions, such as obesity and drinking. The consciousness that healthism will not stop until is stopped, and that it will not be stopped with the debates it refuses to engage in and  the science it misrepresents. It will be stopped only when the victims march on the streets - together - and say: "this is the line, you bastards". Can we endorse the threats against the Belmont's city council? Certainly not. Can we really blame those voices of exasperation? Certainly not.

December 4 [19:45 GMT] - England: full ban in July - Pushed by the illusion that a smoking ban will improve public health "overnight" and will reduce the 100,000 claimed smoking-related "deaths" (that cannot be demonstrated), England will line up in July with the New World Order, ruled by statistical frauds and the precautionary principle. "Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has hailed the move, covering places like pubs, bars and restaurants, as 'a triumph for public health', while cancer and other health charities say it represents a major step forward." All motion is relative: if by "forward" we mean the advancement of fascism, delusion and institutional corruption, the statement is certainly correct. Poor England: the Nazis did win the battle of Britain right where it matters - in the heads of its politicians.

December 4 [04:00 GMT] - Germany: ban coming soon - And since we are talking about history, the ideology that the illusion of health is far more important than liberty is coming back in Germany, where it all started long ago. Let's not forget that the Nazis were the fathers of the junk science multifactorial epidemiology on smoking starting from the mid-Thirties and that antismoking, antialcohol and food control were at the core of the healthy "Aryan" race destined to conquer the world. It turns out that the "Aryans" did not conquer the world -- they just lost a battle, not the war. Now the Nazis' aspirations have been adopted globally by "public health" as coordinated by the WHO. Now we all  get to become a "superior" race, simultaneously masters and slaves. Health - no longer race and religion - are the justification for the contempt for liberty and self-determination. Hitler is avenged: even those who defeated him agree with him now. They finally understand that he just wanted the "progress" of the world.

The German ban will start slowly at first, to get smokers used to the new regime, then it will accelerate to world levels and synchronize with the global de-legalization of tobacco, destined to become a serious issue at the beginning of the second decade of this century. For more details on the ban, play the video above, where you will hear a no-news: the tobacco industry is providing the no-smoking signs! Can we say bent over?...

December 4 [19:45 GMT] - About the smoking ban of Meeker county, Minnesota  - The complete testimony of Ed Contoski at the Meeker County, Minnesota, public hearing on a smoking ban. It passed - by one vote - on July 12, 2005, in spite of the fact that a large audience was very receptive to his message and gave him a lot of applause and positive comments afterwards. At the end of the posting, it's interesting to see the oh-so-typical reaction of antismoking activists, for whom scientific scientific objections to the trash science they use as an excuse for their hatred mean nothing. After Contoski's competent analysis of the passive smoke fraud, the comment is: "You're just Phillip Morris in Libertarian clothing." The inevitable, predictable retort - but the passive smoke scam is still a fraud.

December 4 [19:45 GMT] - Exactly as foreseen: IN YOUR PROPERTY thanks to a fraud - For many years FORCES has warned those who refused to believe that antismokers would use the passive smoke fraud to get into the houses of smokers. We were right -- and this depressing article is a self-explanatory confirmation. What is both appalling and bewildering is the lack of a massive response by the victims. Why aren't they reacting? Why are they allowing "public health" not only to forbid their legal lifestyle in public, but now even in the privacy of their homes, and cars and businesses? Already the "health authorities" are dusting off the Nazi concept that health is a duty of the citizen, and as such it is to be enforced with laws and punishment. Already they are announcing that the blueprint of antitobacco will be used to get into their homes and lives - again and again - to control, regulate and forbid what they drink and what they eat. Already these "authorities" are in our wallets with hyper-taxation of cigarettes, alcohol, food and whatever else they please, telling our children that we are "sick", replacing our teaching with theirs, and acting in loco parentis. Yet too many parents don't seem to mind. Has "public health" managed to destroy our self-esteem to the point that we are surrendering parenthood?

Many agree that the passive smoke dangers are a fraud, most that "public health" is "out of control" and that it is eroding any and all our personal liberties - one at the time and at the speed of light. Those liberties are, for all intents and purposes, all the liberties that matter. Yet, very few seem to be prepared to do something positive about that -- other than whining. Perhaps there are "more important things to do" - such as what? When personal liberties are taken away and life is micro-managed to the point it is today, all that's left is the prospect of being production units and organisms whose life cycle is strictly controlled and regulated by "public health", which tells us how and what to produce, how to consume it, and how to die. Is this what we really want -- and if not, why do we let it happen? Is this the respect we show to the millions who died not long ago fighting the bearers of this mentality -- by spitting on their graves in the name of health? Something to think about -- when you have the time, of course...

December 1 [04:00 GMT] - A chance to snuff it - Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.  That old chestnut applies to the wise city fathers of Anchorage Alaska who banned smoking several years ago but left bars and bingo halls alone.  As night follows day, these exemptions have been duly wiped out.  The outrage level in the city is intense and those who wish to repeal this latest interference in people's lives had no problem gathering enough signatures to put on the ballot the opportunity to repeal the bar and bingo hall smoking ban.  At the press conference announcing their success in putting the issue before the voters an American Lung Association operative shrieked his hatred at those who dare stand up for themselves.  The upcoming campaign is guaranteed to be a hot one as anti-tobacco pulls out all the stops to demonize smokers and the businesses that cater to them.

November 29 [04:00 GMT] - Denmark's almost ban - Our correspondence from Denmark reports on the latest anti-tobacco nonsense inflicting his erstwhile progressive nation.  As required by the haughty, and unaccountable, European Union, the country has approved a nation-wide smoking ban.  The devil, as always, is in the details, which Søren Højbjerg sorts out.

November 29 [04:00 GMT] - Much too much, even for the doctors - The medical profession has a lot to answer for when at long last the anti-tobacco movement crashes and burns.  Before that inevitable day of reckoning, however, we must applaud the actions of a group of doctors and nurses in Scotland who are vociferously protesting the treatment of those who lawfully consume the legal product of tobacco.  The scene, on a cold, rainy day, was outside of a hospital that had recently decreed that smokers, whether staff or patients, must leave the property to have a smoke.  The sight of recovering patients, clad in flimsy hospital gowns dragging IV's through wind and rain is hardly one that inspires confidence in the medical system.  The outraged doctors and nurses must continue their protest but should ponder how their acquiescence to and craven acceptance of the secondhand smoke fraud is a contributing factor to the barbarity the are fighting against now.

November 29 [04:00 GMT] - Stop the Ban - Protests against the smoking ban in Scotland continue as pubs and bingo parlors bite the dust.  Opposition is coalescing while demands for real clean air standards grow.  Opponents of the smoking ban recognize that anti-tobacco cares very little about actual health, promoting the canard that merely banning smoking in so-called public places is a panacea that will lead to better health for all.  Since secondhand smoke has never been shown to be harmful to nonsmokers merely removing the visual smoke from pubs and office buildings lets the building owners off the hook for truly improving the quality of indoor air.  People want healthy environments, they don't want or appreciate smoking bans.

November 24 [19:35 GMT] - Somalia: Islamist cops nab 22 in raid on smokers - We congratulate Somalia for having joined the health revolution promoted by the World Health Organization, and for reaching a veritable "health consciousness". "Islamic religious police on Tuesday arrested 22 people for smoking in the Somali port of Kismayo, where they will be flogged if found guilty of violating a new tobacco ban, officials said", reports Garoweonline. As FORCES is dedicated to the fight against inaccurate reporting on smoking, we are bound to expose this one too: "The anti-smoking raids are the latest indication that Somalia's powerful Islamist movement, which is now girding for war with the weak government, is intent on imposing a fundamentalist version of Koranic law in its territory."  Not true. What Koranic law?... All you have to do to is go to the modern western cities of Calabasas and Belmont, California. Just listen to the home-grown fundamentalism of antismoking activists and health "authorities" there and you won't have to move from home.

November 18 [16:00 GMT] - Hate on the rise in Belmont - We weren't even finished writing about the cultural war (above) when we received this news about Belmont, California. A unanimous proposal to forbid smoking in one's own home (except for detached homes), in one's own outside property, and in all outside public property? OK, assume as true the nonsense that exposure to passive smoke is a demonstrated risk indoors. What is the excuse for outside, in one's own property? There is no excuse, but there is an explanation: it is a moral statement - actually, an immoral statement. We hate you smokers (pay attention - not smoking, but smokers). We hate you so much that we don't want to see the likes of you even in the streets. We hate you so blindly we want to make your life miserable on your own private property - even when there is nobody else. You've got to feel our hatred, every moment, to the point that you cannot smoke in your town house - and no, you can't even go outside because we don't wanna see ya. So you will straight up, and you shall quit because there is no place for you -- anywhere. There is no room for smoking in a smoker-hating society.

Thank you, lousy antismoking bastards -- and the time will come when we'll pay you back with the same currency. The time will come when having been an antismoker will be no different than being a Nazi pig - because that's exactly what you are, and you deserve the same treatment. And if you think that this is utter contempt you are right. It is also a promise. How low have we all fallen in the name of public health!

November 13 [18:25 GMT] - "There is no constitutional right to smoke" - So far, all the legal fights against smoking bans have been based on a variety of rights claims. The results are before our eyes - time after time. We will not belabour the positions already expressed in our paper, but further observations are now in order. Antitobacco and smoking bans are a diabolical machine whose jurisprudence and political approach get perfected with use. Alongside with fraudulent propaganda by health authorities and lavishly paid antismoking activists, this helps to explain the smoking ban landslide everywhere. Case in point this decision in Tupelo.

'Tupelo smokers still can’t light up in public places, but a federal judge has tweaked the ordinance to make it constitutional. U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills declined Thursday to stop enforcement of the month-old smoking ban. But the judge changed some ordinance language he deemed unconstitutional. ... “There is no constitutional right to smoke,” the judge said...'

Aside from the obvious consideration that the judge may be an antismoker and himself a victim of propaganda, the insistence on the stand-alone constitutional, property or individual rights approach, therefore, seems to act like some sort of anti-freedom vaccine: the more the liberty virus hits, the stronger the fascist antibodies get. That is, the more the challenges against smoking bans are based on rights, the more the legalities get perfected to make bans bullet-proof against those rights. This also explains why the bans, even if rejected the first or second time, they eventually go through: the legalities have been systematically worked out through experience in the courts. As long as people believe that passive smoke hurts them, they will politically support the ban proponents - and the courts of law, after all, are an expression of current cultural winds and beliefs. Furthermore, as long as people believe that active smoke "kills" and thus smokers are "sick", they will support the bans as a form of "smokers' therapy" even if they are aware that passive smoke is a fraud. That, once again, underlines the importance of widespread education on the epidemiological frauds on smoking in general on one hand, and on the other the need for lawsuits against the junk science on smoking and/or the false representation of that junk science by public health authorities. We are still in time, because the concept that it is OK to have corrupt/incompetent authorities is not yet accepted by most cultures - and the courts of law will reflect that as well -- but even that may change, for it is illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable. Until then, when it comes to smoking, health authorities will successfully bamboozle the public with one indisputable argument: no one has the right to harm another.

November 13 [18:25 GMT] - German constitution caves in to epidemiological fraud - Although Germany is the European country that still respects the rights of smokers, that will not last long. As we know, nothing seems to withstand the pressure of supra-national treaties - and the epidemiological fraud on the "tobacco-related" mortality numbers has evolved into an supra-national treaty thanks to the con job of the World Health Organization and its pharmaceutical partners. Because of the Tobacco Framework Convention, in fact, all countries in the world must officially adopt antitobacco as if the dangers of smoking were all real and scientifically demonstrated, while the opposite is true. Furthermore, they commit to "make it difficult" for smokers to smoke and for the industry to operate. The freedom of expression guaranteed by the German constitution, therefore, means nothing when compared to the indemonstrable mortality figures of the WHO. As is happening in other countries, the breach in the wall of liberty will be quickly followed by other advertisement bans - such as those against alcohol and "junk" food - always in the name of health, of course. Totalitarianism pushes wherever the boundaries of liberty give -- and the future of totalitarianism is in the oligarchy of health and safety committees.

Let's put it all together: the WHO assembles the TFC, which in turn obligates the EU to obligate sovereign nation governments to obligate private industry and private people to behave as the WHO wants. What's missing in this picture? The will of the citizens, national self-determination, cultural differences, respect for real or presumed minorities, institutional integrity and, of course, scientific reality. But what's all that next to the will of the WHO and its pharmaceutical partners? Worthless minutia.

November 13 [18:25 GMT] - Faith in prohibition unabashed - As smoking is now a "disease", it seems only "logical" that the goal is to reduce it, possibly eliminate it. Aside from the usual fraudulent propaganda on mortality and passive smoke, this piece from the Honolulu Advertiser shows very well the renewed faith in prohibition. The number of smokers does not go down according to the Nazi plan Healthy People 2010, timetable of "public health"? Well, forbid public smoking! Perhaps a huge number of the population does not want to quit smoking? Naah, their will is irrelevant because they are sick, so they don't know what they want and what they want doesn't matter - just make it difficult for them to light up and everything is gonna be just fine, we'll straighten 'em up, and they'll be thankful! It is no random coincidence that all totalitarian regimes had strong public health social programs where medical authorities held great power. Nor is it a coincidence that those regimes always wanted to "cure" nonconforming citizens through prohibition and "therapeutic help". Keep on smoking in Hawaii - it's the only way to know that you are still in control of yourself.

November 12 [18:25 GMT] - California's Prohibition? - According to the General Accounting Office, increasing cigarette taxes " 'open up a lucrative black market to nasty groups looking for ways to fund their activities. ‘As cigarette taxes increase, so do the incentives for criminal organizations, including terrorist organizations, to smuggle cigarettes into and throughout the United States."

Californians seem to have gotten the message, this time - but let us not delude ourselves. Riding on the epidemiological frauds on tobacco, the antis will be back, and back and back - relentlessly - until their back is broken politically, and legally. And that can be done.

November 13 [18:25 GMT] - Don't fall for the decoys - We have received this from a reader: "Dear Forces, as your site reported today, Nevada voters yesterday passed by 30,000 votes (in a state of 2 million people) a California-style ban on indoor smoking except for casino floors and private residences. Not to be outdone, a University of Nevada student government senator posted a "poll" today to ban OUTDOOR smoking just about everywhere on campus. The fake poll starts with a yes-or-no question and then proceeds to ask poll-takers to put checkmarks where OUTDOOR smoking should be banned. The list includes just about all outdoor gathering spots on campus. The poll results will then be used to justify the regulation proposed by the senator. Here's the Web address of the poll . I thought your members might want to participate." -- Fred from Reno, Nevada

By all means all members and readers should participate - and see what happens. This, however, gives us the opportunity to comment on something that could be useful in the fight. One of the techniques to "build consensus" for bans is to show that the consensus already exists when in fact it does not. One of the most common ways is the polls - that INVARIABLY show an overwhelming consensus for bans. When a country is about to ban public smoking, some local media run a poll on a sample population. Invariably, in ALL countries we know of, the "consensus" ranges exactly between 78% and 83%. Now imagine if, in the actual affairs of humanity there was that kind of agreement: it would mean the end of wars and all the other calamities that afflict humanity! That kind of inter-cultural, international uniformity is impossible. Thus the polls are the usual deception and manipulation.

Internet polls are no exception. Yet, a lot of anti-ban people really get involved in this waste of time which is one of the many decoys to draw energy from the fight. Occasionally "our side" really gets involved and manages to procure more "votes" than those of the professional antis directed there from their headquarters. So what? In many instances the poll has disappeared, to be replaced with a different poll. All this business about worthless polls results in time and energy consumption that is not spent to organize politically against antitobacco. Let's ignore decoys -- and keep our eyes on the target: the destruction of the healthist machine and the clean-up of institutions.

November 10 [9:30 GMT] - The criminalization of tobacco: an almost inevitable reality - One can say that it is almost a certainty: in a few years (maybe by the end of this decade) possession of tobacco may result in a jail sentence. Ninety years after the horrible experience of alcohol prohibition, prohibition raises its ugly head again. It is sufficient to glance at this week's Smokers' Club newsletter to realize that it is worse than a war bulletin - for smoking and for just about anything else, even the most ugly forms of control. And antitobacco has always paved the way.

Thirty years of fraud and disinformation, servitude to pharmaceutical interests, hysteria and exaggerations, right out falsehoods and hate propaganda are yielding their results. The momentum is such that, ironically, prohibition may come even against the wishes of the antismoking criminal enterprise. We never learn the lesson of history: it is fatal to pull the cork of the bottle with the genie. Reducing the smoking population with fears, lies, propaganda and fraud has created a social imbalance, making bold the enemies of personal choice and unleashing an orgy of fanatical minds in times of total selfishness and indifference: if one's own desires are met, so are the desires of the universe -- for who cares about the universe?

As in alcohol prohibition, the industry has totally caved in, collecting defeat after defeat and making the same mistakes over and over again. On the other hand, those who fight prohibition still refuse to fight the scientific frauds that justify it, in the silly search for a rational "credibility" when reason on the subject simply no longer exists. In the desperate refusal to accept that only organized force can stop prohibition now, they don't accept that the sense of rights and liberty has been turned literally upside down: "rights" means the right not to be exposed to anything, so that existence is totally zero risk; in exchange for that, all traditional liberties are surrendered. Freedom means not doing something. When this becomes an established perversion, only force can stop it. The problem is that if the US goes for prohibition, the rest of the world will be forced to follow by international gangs such as the World Health Organization. Tobacco may well become the first substance to be forbidden all over the planet through one single treaty. With nearly half of the US population favourable to prohibition, the step into it is almost inevitable: the time to act is now or never. Marijuana was initially forbidden because of a bunch of lies and junk science. Tobacco has followed the same path. Only by fighting the fraudulent science and propaganda on tobacco will there be still a chance to avoid prohibition, but the window of opportunity is getting smaller by the day -- and then all hell is going to break loose. Ironically, our only hope at that point is going to be the appearance of another Al Capone.

November 3 [20:10 GMT] - A significant teaser - "A recent poll claims that nearly half of Americans support a federal law that would make cigarettes illegal in the next five to 10 years. The poll, conducted by Zogby International with the Drug Policy Alliance, says that 57 percent of 18-29 year olds were in favor of the idea. This as the CDC reports Thursday that the number of Americans who smoke is leveling off and not dropping enough to meet the government's goal of significantly reducing smoking by 2010. Would you support such a law?"

October 4 - It is now a well-known fact that businesses all over the world are severely hurt by smoking bans. In spite of the "studies" sponsored by corrupt authorities, this truth is forcefully emerging. Amongst the most hurt are pubs and bingo halls. This is correspondence we have received from several parts of the world.

Canada

Bingos hope to keep on smoking - "A survey in August found revenues to charities in the Edmonton area have declined by 53 per cent, or $6.8 million, since smoking bylaws came into effect in July 2005. Calgary non-profit groups worry about the same thing happening here." The response of ban supporters? "We made a decision and any change in position would be a step backwards". But "backwards" toward liberty and choice and away from fraudulent misrepresentation of (junk science) evidence is progress - real progress.

Patio smoking tradeoff sought - "In a new twist to Calgary's smoking bylaw saga, city pub and bar owners want council to approve lighting up on patios as a compromise to butting out a year earlier than planned." ... " ' We feel that that's a legitimate and a fair compromise after the City of Calgary had made a deal that smoking (inside public venues) would be here until 2008,' said Joseph, vice-president of Penny Lane Entertainment, which owns some of the city's biggest nightclubs." A hell of a deal. And what are these people hoping that are going to do one year from now?... maybe they think that smokers will start to swallow all the lies, stop smoking and populate their locales again? Keep on hoping! There cannot be compromise with fraud - and even less with the "authorities" that adopt it.

Charity cash goes up in smoke (Friday September 29, 2006) - Several readers drew my attention to the fact that Edmonton lost yet another bingo hall recently. That brings the total to three, and it is rumoured at least three more will fall. Why? Two words: Smoking bylaw. Our very own copycat smoking bylaw left us with one bingo hall, down from two. And who is suffering? Not the smokers. It is the local charities who are hurting. My bet is that all those ASH souls who campaigned so hard to get rid of smoking don't care either. I can hardly wait until the Enoch reserve's new casino complex opens. You see, it will allow smoking, and my bet is that fact alone will close many more bingos and casinos. Sadly the charities, and ultimately our youth sports programs, will suffer.

Remember, should the new Enoch casino manage to take out other casinos due to their smoking advantage, it will be a huge blow to local charities. You see, Enoch has its own charity. Whereas all of the other casinos in the area must give 15 per cent of their slot machine profit to a variety of licensed local charities and 70 per cent to the Alberta Lottery Fund, the Enoch casino will give 15 per cent of their profits to one specific reserve-based charity, 40 per cent to the Alberta Lottery Fund and nothing to other local charities.

A WHINE - to anti-smoking activists. The ASH souls' campaigns have done irreparable harm to area charities. The sad part is that councils were warned and didn't listen. - From Saint City News, St. Albert, Alberta.

Washington State, USA

Broke as a Smoke - The hospitality industry is the greatest economic victim of smoking bans because - differently from transportation and workplace bans, for example - the antismoking crooks have not yet found a way to force or prevent the choice of smokers. Unfortunately, most of the hospitality industry (and its lawyers) are still utterly ignorant of the passive smoke fraud and perceive challenging it as an "unpopular" act.

There are also those who who welcome smoking bans but seek exemptions for themselves and their narrow category, in the hope of having an "edge on the competition", for smokers will go to them. That, of course, stimulates those who cannot claim exemptions to call for a "level playing field" to eliminate the unfairly gained competition. The antis and their pharmaceutical masters play these game very well, we have to admit - especially when the other players are so predictable! The result is always total prohibition. A typical example is the article we are linked to. "My business is down 30 percent since the ban went into effect this past December," says Rimrock owner Connie Dunn. 'I cannot survive.' Meanwhile, smoking ban advocates claim that the ban is a success. 'That's bullshit,' says Dunn, who recently put her Lake City institution up for sale. 'That is total bullshit.' " Of course it is bullshit - the whole antitobacco issue is.

This is a very interesting article. The plot thickens. While El Gaucho will no doubt appreciate that its patrons can once again sit comfortably in the cigar room to discuss their next political maneuver to use smoking bans to their advantage, one also thinks about those standing in the rain to have a smoke outside mom and pop taverns. We note with interest progress on the American Legion case that is challenging I-901 in private clubs. Who is taking book on that case being settled with an exemption for private clubs, too? We suspect their odds are about 5:1 in favor at the present time. We recommend that every legislator read the briefs and motions in the American Legion case. Every point that is made in that case to show how I-901 is unconstitutional and violates equal protection will be proven in spades by legislation as described above. Perhaps, as we have often said, this issue can be finally won in 2007. The legislation as described will be most supportive of – indeed prove for plaintiffs – any new case against I-901 on constitutional and material risk grounds.

Ireland

Smoking through the roof in Ireland after the smoking ban: more false information from health "authorities": 'It's the immigrants!!' - A nice side effect of smoking bans is the increment of the number of smokers, and the reasons are obvious to any honest person (thus not to the health authorities): prohibition attracts. But compulsive liars can't handle truth other than with another lie. The Irish health "authorities" claim that "The Irish Office Of Tobacco Control has blamed low paid foreign workers for the increase of tobacco consumption in Ireland. Recent figures released by the Government's Central statistic Office have confirmed a huge increase in cigarette sales in 2005. Tax revenue returns show that almost €2 billion was spent on tobacco products in Ireland during 2005, an increase of 3.5% on 2004" - and those figures do not include contraband and cigarettes imported by visitors, as Sad Ireland's piece explains. But unless those pathetic liars can demonstrate that Ireland has dramatically changed its immigration policy in 2005 and opened immigration wide whilst offering instant employment and revenues to new immigrants (and they cannot), their own words belay them once again, as the low paid foreign workers were there even before the ban! The truth therefore stands: smoking bans not only destroy economies, but they obtain exactly the opposite of what they intend to do. More smoking and total boycott of pubs and restaurants is the way to put these bastards on their knees, folks - keep that in mind all over the world!

September 24 [17:30 GMT] - Slouching towards criminalization - While it sounds like arch-antismoker Glantz is promoting no penalties for youth smokers, what he is really doing is trying to keep his "pet" the anti tobacco control movement focused upon one single agenda: "increasing cigarette taxes or imposing smoke-free laws limiting indoor smoking in all public areas." There can be no variance from the party line or the anti tobacco agenda will fail with no public support.

One teen, who has already been fined for smoking, says, "If they make it illegal, more teenagers will want to smoke. If they don't want us to smoke, they should ban cigarettes in the United States." That in fact is what a lot of the antis plan to do, but they are still a little unsure of their ground. So the plan is to sharply discourage policies that are perceived as going too far, too fast, then swoop down at the “right” moment for a comprehensive criminalization – much more serious than a petty fine and no record for teenagers.

September 24 [17:30 GMT] - Dublin Pubs Call Last Orders - The antismoking-related economic disaster continues in Ireland. Sad Ireland reports: "In the last six months 24 Dublin Pubs have called last orders for the final time. Despite having only 10% of the bars in Ireland to cater for 35% of the population Dublin pubs are closing in unprecedented numbers and being turned into apartment and retail complexes. ... The smoking ban has reversed the once lucrative business potential of Irish bars." If at least there was a real threat for public health from passive smoke, the civic behaviour of smoking bans would have an explanation. Instead fanaticism and dirty politics drive the economy and livelihoods into the grounds - In Ireland and everywhere else.

September 17 [20:10 GMT] - Tourism slump worries US - Big slump in tourism to the United States. One wonders why. Most of the time you reach the US by airplane - that is, undergoing all kinds of red tape, aggravation and controls on the ground after being treated by the antismoking airlines like cargo in the air. Finally out of the no-smoking airport, you light up surrounded by fanatical dirty looks and have to observe legal distance from buildings just in case you kill someone with passive smoke. On top of the generally widespread paranoia (especially if the smoker looks "foreigner" enough) any attempt to walk into any business welcomes the traveler with no smoking, no drinking, no ice cream, no dogs, no bare feet signs - not to mention high-tech cameras that watch everything he does. The automated have-a-good-day-smile-by-regulation pasted on the face of the cashier ushers him out again into the no smoking, no drinking, watch-your-waist environment and into a no-smoking hotel room that costs a bundle and is wallpapered with a variety of warning sings telling him what to do in case of earthquake, fire, and terrorist attack. When he turns on the TV set to forget it all he can enjoy anti-drinking, anti-smoking and anti-fat campaigns and commercials, and get "educated" on what kind of horrible death awaits him because of his abominable vice(s). The US sure sound like a great place to visit!

The "experts" talk about "boosts" and "huge marketing campaigns" to change the situation. Big idiots always perceive problems as big, thus requiring amply funded solutions. Here is a simple and inexpensive solution: just the lifting of smoking bans could probably relieve the problem by quite an impressive percentage, attracting many more of the 1.7 billion smokers that populate the world. But it will not happen, of course - because idiots always "sink with pride". That defines why they are idiots in the first place.

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - Health department director gets sued - In Wheeling, West Virginia, a local politician and bar business owner who opposed a smoking ban, is claiming that the health director has singled out his business in the enforcement of the ban. "He's made a huge smoking room," counters the indignant director. Stay tuned.

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - All sides uncomfortable with Philly smoking ban - After six years of fighting, and a last-minute threatened withdrawal of support by the Mayor, Philadelphia has a messy smoking ban that doesn’t really satisfy anyone. We can expect this issue to be revisited with even more acrimony before it’s all over. Meanwhile, a medical organization is rushing in to pin award buttons on the lapels of a local politician who apparently is gambling his support for the ban will translate into enough votes to make him the next mayor. Needless to say, bar owners won’t be among his most ardent supporters.

September 10 [13:10 GMT] - Washington, D.C.: "The smoking ban will bankrupt your business? See if we care, find another job! - There are no worlds strong enough to describe the arrogance of the antismoking enterprise. As evidence that smoking bans destroy the economy becomes irrepressible, the antitobacco scum simply gets more in your face, counting that the majority of businesses and smokers are too sheepish to seriously fight the fraud-based smoking bans. Try this for size: "[the delay is intended to] give employees a chance to make some financial accommodations, either change careers or at least have a good head start in saving some money so that once this [the smoking ban] is implemented... for them to be able to sustain themselves."

See how generous they are?... They even "kindly" delay the ban so you can find another job before they bankrupt your businesses. Aren't these fraudulent bastards thoughtful - but (fraudulent) "public health" uber alles! In different times we would have called for taking to the streets, set up demonstrations and get armed with rotten eggs to throw this public trash out of office - once and for all. Today our calls are much more modest: what about the victims of antitobacco growing a pair first?...

September 8 [15:55 GMT] - Intimidating Senators: a glimpse into the tactics of the anti-tobacco lobby - In April, the New Hampshire Senate, focusing on the traditional issues of property rights, personal choice, and economic freedom, rejected a smoking ban. The site we link to contains a brief description of the fight and audio commentary from a number of Senators in the state house. We’d like to draw your attention to what was said by Senator Johnson, who commented on the ugly, personal bullying tactics used by paid lobbyists of the anti-tobacco “purity” movement.

Have a listen, and then decide whether these post-modern puritans are really our best guides to the future. We reproduce some of his comments here:

 “I’ve been told I’m promoting cancer and that’s not the worst of it … In my opinion they crossed the line and have taking a giant step backwards. And I’m not alone in this, and I know that I’m not alone in this. I look around this room at many of my colleagues and they’ve told me the very same stories, and they agree that it’s gone too far. This is all about respect for us as people, and our families. As an elected official I have a deep respect for my constituents and the right to their opinion, but when I’m told that I’m promoting cancer, that’s downright disrespectful. When a member’s wife receives a phone call at 2:00 in the afternoon when he’s most likely not at home and she’s told that if he doesn’t change his vote he’s going to have to deal with the health consequences and questioning how he can live with himself and she with him, that’s deplorable, and disrespectful. I wish I could tell you this is an isolated incident but it’s unfortunately its not. Its happened more than once to more than one of us, and that’s one time too many. So I ask you once again, when does this stop?”

We say, it will stop when more politicians behave as the New Hampshire Senate have done, making principles decisions even in the face of bullying and harassment. It will stop when citizens stand up and say enough. In fact, the backlash against fanatical health prohibit