INTERNATIONAL LIBERTY NEWS NETWORK

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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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.

December 6 - Peninsula smoking ban proposal prompts death threats - Last November 18 we reported on a hate law against smokers being proposed in 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. Since then, it has been reported that letters have been received by the city council such as this: "If America is lucky, someone will cut all of your *** throats"; death threats; and: "Your friends will get a 747 loaded with fuel… Have a nice day."

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 - 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 - 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.
 

December 4 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - "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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 levelling off and not dropping enough to meet the government's goal of significantly reducing smoking by 2010. Would you support such a law?"

Although the overwhelming majority of the respondents to this TV station poll was not in favor of prohibition at this time, the move to de-legalization may be inevitable because of the dynamics created by the antitobacco fraudulent enterprise. While it is clear that the number of smokers has become incompressible (mainly because most no longer believe public health's claims), it is equally clear that antismoking campaigns are abandoning any scientific pretense and clearly banking everything on the instigation of public hatred and intolerance (AKA "denormalization of smoking"). Hating smokers (whoops, "denormalization") has the backing of public health authorities and is merrily funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, haters feel legitimized in their behavior, by design of "public health". Furthermore, the increased harshness and emotionality of antismoking campaigns stems from the direct observation of the failure of antismoking efforts - and that failure, politically, cannot be tolerated. If the social engineering efforts of antitobacco pushers fail, therefore (and it seems so), the only possible alternative to admitting defeat (an unacceptable concept) can only be that of pushing prohibition in spite of what history has demonstrated. For regardless of prior evidence, dishonest and reckless policies inevitably lead to reckless consequences.
 

November 2 - Smoking bans are not a local matter – It is an unfortunate reality that smoking bans are one of the social cancers of the 21^st century. It is even more unfortunate that too many anti-prohibition groups consider smoking bans a matter to be fought locally. As incredible as it may seem when faced with what's happening on the international scene, there are still those who say that “it won’t happen here because we are [...put here the national or local allegiant]”. How many have actually heard of the international Tobacco Framework Convention (TFC), brainchild of the World Health Organization? Probably many. But how many know what it says? Definitely very few.

Let's take a random example. The small nation of Malta is presently about to adopt a sweeping smoking ban. Would it be useful to lobby bars and restaurants associations in that nation without knowing that Malta signed the TFC on June 16, 2003 and ratified it on September 24 of the same year, and thus obligated itself to impose smoking bans and to make smokers' lives miserable? In reality, 140/160 countries in the world have either signed or ratified the TFC. That means that all those countries have committed to:

• Impose smoking bans on the basis of the passive smoke fraud.
• Start antismoking propaganda in all sectors of their society, and misrepresent the effects of smoking on health.
• Impose hyper-taxation on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
• Say and adopt the political philosophy that all and any form of tobacco assumption is “deadly in any form or disguise”, thus excluding the concept of risk reduction through improved products in favour of smoking abolition.
• Use any and all methods (no limitation) to make life of smokers miserable if not impossible.
• Utterly censor any dissent and any scientific information that is contrary to the antismoking dogma.
• Create the impression of universal consensus on prohibition of smoking everywhere in the world.

The serious anti-fraud activist who wants to know what is going to happen in his country next really does not have to guess. He must have the patience (and the stomach) to read the Tools for Advancing Tobacco Control in the 21st Century - Tobacco Control Legislation: an Introductory guide, and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control documents. Do you want to know if your country has signed and ratified the TFC? Simple: click here, read the other two documents and you don’t have to wonder on what kind of fraud and prohibition will be undertaken, when, how, which, and why.

That is why just "fighting city hall" is not the way to go. Most of the "city hall people" themselves, in fact, just guzzle the false information disseminated by their ministries of health and by the media pundits without even knowing that their country has signed a WHO supra-national treaty agreement that by-passes any and all democratic consultation process and imposes the antismoking fraud directly on populations. And, while they bark against the tobacco multinationals, they don't even know that they are serving the world-wide agenda of pharmaceutical multinationals that have been official partners of the WHO for the sales of smoking cessation trash since 1999. Have you ever seen the smoking issue being an issue in a major election campaign in any country of the world, anytime? Have you ever seen the trash science upon which the persecution on smoking is based being the object of political debates? Certainly not. Now you know why: most likely your government has signed the TFC without the knowledge of the overwhelming majority of the population. How's that for a political issue?

Smoking bans are NOT a local matter. Fighting locally may work only if it is in international harmony with other movements, and if it becomes a political issue. Public health, in fact, has become the smokescreen not only for the largest fraud ever perpetrated on society, but also and especially for the loss of national and cultural sovereignty through international treaties signed behind the back of citizens, with the effect of homogenizing public policy everywhere.

October 30 - Against Restaurant Smoking Bans - Interesting analysis on the falsity and illogical arguments used by smoking bans supporters performed by Thomas A. Lambert, associate professor of law at the University of Missouri School of Law. His article "The Case against Smoking Bans" will appear in the winter issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine. This piece covers all the angles very well (including the public misrepresentation of studies on passive smoke), except one: it fails to consider that all studies on passive smoke, regardless of their results, are veritable trash science because based on retrospective questionnaires about vague memories of exposure, and are plagued with irreparable and fatal methodological flaws. This is a very large institutional problem that not only affects smoking, but very many other areas of public and private life, not to mention huge social costs. The  basic problem to be faced is the adoption of epidemiological trash science by the authorities as basis for public policy, and the support and the instigation of those policies by special interest groups who, together with the authorities, instigate hatred and intolerance between social groups - a crime even greater than fraud itself, and one that will leave lasting social scars even long after it is defeated.

October 27 - Smokeless and clueless in Omaha - The latest product of hate propaganda by "public health" is discussed in this article by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. His words say it all: "Maybe it seems like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here. Maybe it seems like I'm picking on Omaha officials. Maybe it seems to you there are more important issues facing us than the smoking ban in a Nebraska city. If so, then you are missing the point entirely. This kind of insanity, this kind of tyranny, this kind of misguided political correctness is going to be the death of our great country if we're not careful." We have only a small addition: this is how far you can go today on an obvious fraud when institutions are rotten.

October 27 - The smoking ban has cost Loto Quebec 150 million dollars - The smoking ban has cost Loto Quebec 150 million dollars (so far), but the junk science on smoking and passive smoke is to come before the public interest - better yet, "public health's" bans based on fraudulent science serve the interests of pharmaceutical giants better than serving the interests of the public economy. In this "telegraphic" communiqué by 580 CFRA Radio we read. "Quebec's smoking ban in bars and restaurants has cost Loto-Quebec 150 million dollars in video gambling revenues since June. The government agency also lost 50 million dollars from a decision to remove 500 terminals from bars. Finance Minister Michel Audet admits the effects of the anti-smoking law was a little more significant than had been predicted." That's all. We are ready to bet that if the piece was concerning the latest trash statement of Quebec's ministry of health about smoking-and-something it would have been at least two pages long - and complete with false figures to boot. We all can guess whose butt the media kisses, nowadays, all over the world.
 

TWO SHORT PAPERS TO READ Passive Smoke: an Institutional Problem - Fabricated risks attributed to passive smoke Property Rights and the Balance of Reason The next one to fail (comments reproduced from our posting of August 1) 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.

October 23

When one does not dispute the basis for the regulation how can arguments that it merely should not be applied to those opposing the regulation have strength and merit? Conversely, demonstrating that the basis for the regulation is not only flawed but also contrary to legitimate government interests by advancing ETS arguments accomplishes three important things:

• First, it properly creates “genuine issues of material fact” at issue for a trier of fact to decide, which would preclude a judge from reaching Judge Babcock’s conclusion that “there are no facts in dispute that are relevant to disposing of the constitutional issues at stake in this case” (see page 5, first paragraph under “Standards of Review”.
• Second, introducing evidence such as facts about ETS in the study published March 2005 Journal of National Cancer Institute makes is abundantly clear that enacting regulations that PRECLUDE addressing other Indoor Air Quality constituents and “yet-unidentified carcinogens” not related to ETS is irrational.
• Third, enacting smoking bans regulations that OSHA has said are not necessary, while precluding mitigation of other IAQ constituents, is at once directly opposed to the government’s legitimate interests and irrational. 

In short, having in effect stipulated by default to the compelling necessity for regulating ETS, plaintiffs are left merely arguing why the smoking ban should not be applied to them. That not only once again fails as a now-well-documented matter of litigation history but it also defies reasonable argument.

This is an unnecessary tragedy for the hundreds of hospitality business owners who will be adversely affected by the Colorado smoking ban. But, regrettably, it is also in large measure a self-inflicted wound due to refusal to address ETS as an underpinning argument. Fortunately, having refused to address ETS in this suit it appears the subject could be addressed in a new suit filed in the future. I wish them well as they struggle to contain the damage to their business interests, however one also would hope that a reported 500-plus Coalition for Equal Rights hospitality business owners can muster the grit, courage and funding to go after the ban in court once again based on ETS.

October 20 - Overeaters, smokers and drinkers: the doctor won't see you now - or: "I am God and I shall judge you" - And here is another manifestation of the sick mentality we describe above: the tendency of certain doctors (or "public health") to punish those who have "vices", and their arrogance in using medicine as blackmail to force people's choices. "At issue: health care for patients with self-destructive vices -- overeating, smoking, drinking or drugs. More and more doctors are turning them away or knocking them down their waiting lists -- whether patients know that's the reason or not. Frightening stories abound." Think about this: people who are supposedly there to "cure" people refuse to cure them on the basis of either their moral judgment, or that of statistical trash science used to justify the moral judgment in the first place.

We at FORCES would have a simple, practical cure to fix these "doctors": revoke their licence to practice medicine. Since it can be easily argued that each person (no exception) has some “self-destructive vice" (according to some junk science, anyway), then these “doctors” would be able to do what they seem best suited for: join the Puritan or fanatical group nearest them. People like that should not be allowed to practice medicine, for they go straight against what medicine should be all about: treat the patient regardless of anything else. Those mechanics of the body who have elevated themselves to the status of some kind of deity are as arrogant as the car mechanic who would refuse to fix your vehicle because you don't drive as he sees fit. Finally, try this for size: "...in a health system... where doctors have discretion over whom they'll take on, some say it's inevitable that problem patients will get shunted aside in favour of healthier, less labour-intensive cases." In that case there is one more reason to trash those "doctors", as there is no need for them when the "patients" are all healthy.

October 16 - Scotland: cigarette sales up 5% despite (or because of?) smoking ban - Is it that people are born suckers for lies and frauds or is it that they are inherently dishonest? People keep on falling for the same promise by the same dishonest public health authorities: forbid smoking because that will induce people to quit. What a stupid joke.

After Ireland and Italy, Scotland gives us the good news that the number of smokers has increased after the smoking ban. Since its inception, FORCES has stated something that should be obvious and crystal-clear to anyone - and what has been demonstrated by history everywhere: prohibition increases the consumption of the prohibited good. This is good news for fighters against totalitarian-minded lifestyle micro-managers, because it confirms another indisputable reality: like Communist economics, prohibition-based policies have failure built in because they do not deal with reality but with a theoretical model which is necessarily imperfect. The reality is that people like to smoke, they intend to continue, and no longer believe the lies of health authorities. In fact, the more they lie and forbid, the more smokers smoke. Scottish smokers, well done! Time to light up another one - and to stay home where you can smoke like free people.

October 16 - Some common sense from the prairies - Common sense is hard to come by these days. We are glad to link to this site, which points to the inevitable consequences of stupid policy. "Smoking bans have increased alcohol consumption, turned cops into bouncers and caused violence and death. Look at our evidence - decide for yourself." This is the header of the website of the Manitoba Association of Rural Hotel Owners. Although they yield to some disinformation on tobacco and to a little bit of paternalism, these people are witness, once again, to the devastating social and economic effects of smoking bans, and the consequences that bans have on alcohol consumption. "This site examines the disaster of smoking bans all over North America. As well we show you how legislation designed to make you drink less has actually made you drink more." -- nothing new for government intervention policies to obtain exactly the opposite if what they intend.

In spite of the fraudulent propaganda by health authorities about non-smokers "pouring" into establishments, these folks recognize that, under a ban regime, people stay home and save money - that is, they buy much more alcohol: "Did you know that your government will pay you $9 to $22 to drink at home? It is true. That is enough to buy twice as much booze - and like good consumers that is exactly what you have done." The end of the first page introduction is equally commonsensical: "For the health and safety of society pragmatism is required. It is time that legislation that restricts or prohibits smoking in bars be repealed." That would be nice. But what antismokers have in mind is not public health: it is fanaticism and prostitution of authorities to the pharmaceutical multinationals' mercantile agenda.

October 9 - France complies with the EU-imposed fraud on smoking - Some fighters against the antitobacco fraud still are surprised and discouraged that, country after European country, all adopt smoking bans of various severity. They should not be. There is a EU directive that makes smoking bans mandatory. That means that all countries in the EU will have to adopt the fraudulent lie of passive smoke, and also tout the unproven mortality of smoking "victims". We have to understand once and for all that there is a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that has been signed basically by all members of the United Nations (thanks also to the "persuasive action" of the International Monetary Fund) and that is already enforced.

We have to understand that antitobacco (in the spirit of the uniformity demanded by Communist philosophy in the past) requires that smoking is forbidden all over the world to eliminate uncomfortable comparisons, to diffuse the devastating economic impacts of smoking bans and blame them on other "causes", and to project the impression of universal consensus, so that the opposition is demoralized and gives up. There is a European Strategy for Tobacco Control in place that is being implemented meticulously, including all the usual fraudulent party lines. The WHO has been an official partner of the pharmaceutical industry since 1999 in this enterprise of global fraud and repression and cultural/social engineering. We must understand all of this, and that as a consequence, smoking bans are not a local matter, but a global problem that is to be handled globally.
 

For all intents and purposes (and for tobacco especially, but not limited to it) the WHO represents the market interests of Big Pharma - something that, to the best of our knowledge, the WHO itself has never officially denied. The intent of the pharmaceutical industry is to transform the over 1.5 billion smokers of the world into consumers of its pharmaceutical nicotine. The job of the WHO is to impose on all signatory countries the adoption of a politics and social environment that facilitate the marketing of its partners' products (and to supply to the local ministries of "health" and pharma-antismoking activists the standard arguments and the false statistics to justify their repressive laws). In fact, the article here says that France (amongst many countries) will pay for nicotine replacement "therapies" - forcing the population (non smokers included, therefore) to pay for the "cure" of a "disease" for which not one death can be demonstrated: smoking.

The real first step for the real cure for this social disease of organized fraudulent policy is capillary education of the people about the fraud perpetrated by world "authorities"; a means to put all the fighters of this fraud in communication and coordination; a means of unification. Only the creation of a unifying, international force that educates the masses while organizing people legally, socially and culturally can succeed. That is why we are so adamant in asking for your contribution to the FORCES Multimedia Project. And if you think that education is expensive, look at what ignorance costs!

October 7 - Colorado: 182 grand to suppress reactions - The Coalition for Equal Rights reports that "The State of Colorado has set aside $182,000 for litigation and misc. expenses for any grievances filed against the state due to the ban. Anyone who has been affected by the ban is encouraged to file a grievance with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Let's take advantage of this shall we?" Indeed, that is an excellent idea. This report also reveals that corrupt authorities are aware and expect damages from their smoking bans - to the point that they even set aside money to suffocate them! Now, stop and think: this is the United States of America - supposedly a very free country - where authorities anticipate the damage they bring to the population on the basis of junk science. Smokers and businesses in Colorado should gang up and overload this fund so that the bottom falls out. No damage to public health if the ban is defeated, folks: passive smoke is only a fraud.

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.

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.

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.

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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 prohibitionism has already started, and it's growing. Those who are trying to create a mob to pit business against business and neighbour against neighbour can and will be shamed, sued, and prosecuted before they get away with it.

September 8 - I am an idiot, get me out of here: the Irish minister of "health" runs from his own paranoia - Sad Ireland sends us this amusing story that is actually pathetic - but we shall be generous today: "Described recently as a 'Moron' by actor Brendan Glesson, Michael Martin told a Sunday newspaper of his alarming holiday encounter with French tobacco smoke causing him to flee a bar. According to Martin " We could not handle it". " It got you in the throat, it got you in the nostrils." As Martin and his party made a hasty retreat other visitors to the bar continued to do as they had done for centuries, to drink, smoke and be merry unaffected by the smoke." That's the difference between paranoid and sane people.

The rest of Sad Ireland's report on this sad individual (what else an antismoker can be?...) is even more hilarious and certainly worth reading; have at it, folks! But we still have to add our modest considerations. Let's see: Martin is an antismoker, he is a doctor (no offence to the good ones!), he is a minister of "health" and he has imposed a smoking ban that destroys the hospitality economy in the name of fraudulent junk science: what else can he be but a moron? Ah, sure: a dishonest person - but that's already taken for granted.

September 5 - Smoking ban is business disaster in Colorado - Colorado's 8-week-old statewide smoking ban has devastated some small bars, slashing their incomes by up to 80 percent, triggering layoffs and causing fights among patrons who go outside to smoke, lawyers for bar owners said in a court filing.

September 4 - The Mysteries of Governor Gregoire, Part II - After our last posting of Norman Kjono's piece (below) a reader asks this question to Mr. Kjono: "...what is the correct amount of smokers in the U.S.? I was told that someone figured out that the number we are told divided by the number of cigs sold would make it that smokers spend $12,000.00 a year on cigs!! I don't know about you but I know I could never smoke that much!! I spend on average 1,300.00 a year. I believe that there are more smokers than they admit. Could you let me know what the 'true' numbers are?" Kjono answers in his customary exhaustive manner showing the usual, statistical contortions.

We can only add one short consideration: like most things concerning smoking, this too is based on unverifiable assumptions - except for what the state cashes in cigarette taxes, of course, which is no assumption at all. If, for example, the cigarettes (legally) sold in the US are 380 billion in one year - a verifiable number in itself, but not representative of the truth because of ever-growing contraband, Indian tribes, roll-your-own, overseas purchases and so on - then if we assume (assumption A) that Mr. Average Smoker (A.S.) smokes 20 cigs a day, that puts the number of smokers at about 52 million in the US (380 billion : 20 : 365). If we assume (assumption B) that A.S. smokes 18, then the number is nearly 58 million. If we assume (assumption C) that A.S. smokes 22, then the smoking population is slightly over 47 million. It is worth noting that, if A.S. purchased (not smoked) only 10 standard cigs a day (that is, legally sold, pre-packaged cigarettes found in a normal store) and rolled the rest (or bought them from the sources mentioned above) the smoking population would be over 100 million, that is, half of the productive population (18 to 65 years of age). The logical conclusion is that, in times of criminal taxation and demonization such as these, the number of standard cigarettes sold is no longer representative of the cigarettes actually smoked, and it is decoupled from the number of smokers and thus from the prevalence of smoking.

Now, put yourself into the shoes of an antismoking crook: when you need money you tend to assumption B to show that there is an "epidemic" out there, and you use the fraudulent attributions from epidemiology to foresee a "cancer pandemic", so you cash the cash. But once the cash is cashed, then to show success you tend to assumption C. Get it? As easy as pie! All you have to do is change the hypothesis -- and statistics will agree with you!

September 2 - Governor Kaine firmly opposes government-imposed ban on smoking in private workplaces - Governor Kaine of Virginia strongly opposes a smoking ban in private businesses. "I just don't see government having to tell all these folks that if you allow the public in your place of business, you can't smoke in your own office," Kaine said.

Needless to say, the heath nannies are already complaining. Kaine has said his opposition to government bans on smoking at private businesses stems from the memory of his father's ironworks business in the Kansas City, Mo., area, where five people -- including Kaine -- worked. He said again on the radio Tuesday that he cannot imagine the government banning smoking there.

Considering the current situation concerning antismoking policies forced on people, Kaine can be considered "a reasonable man", one that Virginians can easily support. Virginia's General Assembly will be in session January, 2007. Let's hope they will support the Governor's stance.

September 2 - Smoking ban opposition prepares case for judicial review - In England the Morning Advertiser reports that the opponents of the local smoking ban are preparing a judicial review to stop or amend what is and will be the greatest cause of economic upheaval for the hospitality industry - to say nothing of state endorsed and perpetrated fraud on the health effects of passive smoking. Differently from antitobacco activists who are financed by the huge interests they serve, the opposition to the British ban cannot rely on the funding of pharmaceutical multinationals or public funding. So, they need to raise the necessary funds from those who are damaged by the ban. Not an easy task, but the pro-liberty side is relentless: "We had a full consultation meeting last week with Jaswinder Gill of Ormerods. Mr Gill is a Judicial Review specialist and has indicated that we have a number of key areas on which to challenge the Government. We have devised an action plan and are currently collating the evidence ready to refer to our Barrister". Not one death can be scientifically demonstrated as being caused by active or passive smoking.

September 2 - State cuts sharply number of adults who smoke - just in time for the elections! – If a liar lies, is he speaking the truth? This is what is called an epimenides paradox, and it is known to most people, and it applies perfectly to antitobacco information. This is an election year, and dishonest antismoking politicians (an honest antismoking politician sounds like another epimenidean paradox) in Washington State are telling us that antismoking propaganda and prohibition work, and that smoking has decreased by a whopping 21% in that state since 2000. Wow, how miraculous statistics can be! Norman Kjono supplies documentation to demonstrate that this is a gross lie, and we give the floor to him. We only have one humble, simple question: how do we reconcile these "reduction" statistics with the fact, reported by the same local press last May, that “In the first three months of the year [2006] , 52.5 million packs of legally taxed cigarettes were sold [we don't want to know about the contraband ones - right, folks?...], slightly more than the 52.4 million packs sold in the first quarter of 2005, according to the state Revenue Department.” – and this in spite of a super-tax and a Gestapo-like prohibition? How can the sales of cigarettes increase while the number of smokers plummets at the same time? So, we ask again: if a liar lies, is he (she) speaking the truth?
 

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

August 31  - 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 - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - …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  - 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.
 

The article worries about " the message sent to young people" given by  stars smoking outside. The only message given to young people should be to put an end to the frauds on smoking and to the abuse of power by antitobacco activists and by their crooked buddies in "public health".

August 20

August 18  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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.