Ms. Simons,

I provide a link  to the February 2, 2004 posting of my article “Columnist Susan Paynter: Highly Selective Outrage” at www.forces.org regarding Ms. Paynter’s January 26, 2004 column “Like The Phoenix, Smoking Issues Rise Again.”

I appreciate that Ms. Paynter responded to my E-Mail of January 29, 2004 on January 30, 2004, to which I replied later on the 30^th (copies of the four E-Mails regarding Ms. Paynter’s January 26 column are included in today’s posting at Forces.) That response did not, however, meaningfully address the issues raised, being essentially an elitist’s shine-on that said “Thank you for sharing.” While I do acknowledge that choosing to willfully stigmatize, unfavorably stereotype, and negatively label one’s fellow citizens and members of our communities is a behavior that Ms. Paynter has every right to indulge in, I am frankly shocked at the level of hurtful and bitter rhetoric about nearly 25 percent of its Washington adult readers who smoke that The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published. One would expect more of The PI’s editors in today’s world of cultural sensitivity. 

I preface my comments below by noting Associated Press writer Rebecca Cook’s article, “Senator Apologizes For Racial Slur; Black Leaders Demand He Resign,”  that was published in The PI on February 2, 2004. I personally regret the incident of a racial slur being hurled during meetings in our Washington Senate. I compliment Senator Rosa Franklin on her grace in accepting Senator Deccio’s necessary and appropriate apology. That Senator Franklin was able to accept an apology, and that Senator Deccio was mature enough to sincerely extend it to her, is encouraging to me because it says that our legislators may be able to personal resolve differences – even the most hurtful ones – and get on with the business of the people of the State of Washington. We often confront serious and challenging issues in public policy debate, but the nature of those events does not justify under any circumstance willfully hurling mean-spirited slurs at opponents or those who one seeks to mandate to. When the “toilet tongue” about one’s fellow citizens rises to proclaiming “facts” about other citizens that are at once untrue and hurtful for economic or political advantage, as in the matter of state tobacco control policy crafted to justify smoking bans , we approach new lows of civil governance. I trust that members of our legislature and the press can be equally as sensitive to that issue as they are appropriately concerned about matters of race. We all belong, we all need to get along.

Absent an apology similar to Senator Deccio’s to Senator Franklin from either The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of its feature columnist Susan Paynter regarding the hurtful and mean-spirited negative labels, unfavorable stereotypes, and stigma that were attached persons who smoke through her January 26, 2004 column “Like the Phoenix, Smoking Issues Rise Again,” we reasonably ask is there truly no limit to press insensitivity when the subject is a citizen “Target Group” of which a Ms. Paynter and The PI apparently disapprove? The PI’s publication of Ms. Paynter’s column on January 26^th and the lack of meaningful response by Ms. Paynter even surpasses the callous indifference displayed by The Seattle Time’s Executive Editor Michael Fancher, in our correspondence exchange of April 27-28, 1999, for which a copy is attached above as STCORR.PDF. At least The Times has not yet sunk to the level of stereotyping persons who smoke to the effect of being hopeless marginals on the fringe of society who raise their stigmatized yellow-stained hands to light a toxic Weapon of Mass Destruction cigarette that negatively labels them as “killers” and who deprive thousands of their fellow citizens of a basic right to life each year.

Please note that my column posted to Forces February 2, 2004 includes .PDF copies of two historical documents from Washington ’s tobacco control information and a link to a June 2003 research paper that explores replacing cigarettes with nicotine inhalers. It is particularly disquieting that such stereotyping and negative labeling of persons who smoke is in accordance with published State of Washington policy as published in “Planning for A Tobacco-Free Washington:” to reduce public tolerance for, and to change public acceptance of, citizens’ lawful tobacco use. It is troubling that such negative labeling is supported by the several-billion-dollar Princeton , New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with which Attorney General Gregoire’s tobacco control task force recommended the State of Washington coordinate its health policy development in its November 1998 report. And it is frightening that a such unseemly and hurtful conduct would be engaged in to directly support a special-interest smoking ban agenda that published research papers explicitly describe as a strategy to reduce consumers opportunity to use tobacco products, thereby providing a competitive mercantile advantage for “Smoke Free” nicotine inhalers distributed by the foundation’s pharmaceutical constituents.

In my E-Mail of January 30, 2004 I mentioned that Ms. Paynter should provide proofs of her statement to the effect that persons who smoke deprive nonsmokers of a basic right to life. Such statements parrot those by Washington Secretary of Health Mary C. Selecky and counsel for Pierce County to defend its smoking bans, Paul Lawrence of Preston Gates & Ellis, that secondhand smoke kills that were recently published in the press. Since such public statements communicate the unquestioned certainty and stated fact that persons who smoke willfully kill their fellow citizens credible proofs of that spurious claim are in order. I challenge The Seattle Post-Intelligencer to do so at this time, and failing such proofs it is my belief that The Seattle Post-Intelligencer willfully publishes false information to support a smoking ban agenda that provides mercantile advantages to pharmaceutical company “Smoke Free” nicotine products.

Page references to documents included in my comments below refer to exhibit numbers in the attached .PDF SPI0202.  

1. Credible proof that secondhand smoke indisputably kills nonsmokers with absolute certainty is not found in the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke, which was released in the closing months of the George H.W. Bush administration.

a.)     That EPA report ordered vacated bv U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen July 17, 1998 but Judge Osteen -- concluding in his 90 page-plus Memorandum Opinion that accompanied his order to vacate that EPA “cherry-picked” its data to arrive at predetermined decisions -- also characterized EPA methodologies used to reach its mere 1.19 correlation at a 90 percent confidence level as “an ugly possibility with which this court is faced.” Judge Osteen found sufficient deficiencies in EPA secondhand smoke methodologies to order that its December 1992 EPA report be vacated. For a copy of Judge Osteen’s Order to Vacate and EPA conclusions to which it applied see page 1.  

b.)     The 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that important issues remained regarding the EPA report and its methodologies when it overturned Judge Osteen’s July 1998 order December 11, 2002 based on procedural grounds that our federal courts did not have authority to review the EPA report on secondhand smoke. The full text of the 4^th Circuit’s ruling (available at http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/982407.P.pdf) makes it painfully obvious that, notwithstanding its ruling on procedural grounds, important issues regarding the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke still remained (see, for example, page 16 of the courts ruling. The fact that neither Philip Morris nor any other tobacco company chose to carry the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court changes neither Judge Osteen’s district court conclusions about fatal flaws in the EPA report on secondhand smoke nor the important issues regarding that report the 4^th circuit expressed its concern about.  

c.)     And why, after all, should Philip Morris bother to carry a procedural ruling about the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke that does not change Judge Osteen’s scathing conclusions about EPA methodologies to the supreme court? Studies have shown that smoking bans do not materially reduce the number of cigarettes consumed, and that minimal reductions of cigarette purchases are not anywhere near the extent to which bans increase use of “Smoke Free” pharmaceutical nicotine products. See, for example, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Advances news letter article “Nicotine Gums and Patches Reduce Sales of Cigarettes” available at www.rwjf.org/publications/publicationsPdfs/Advances_2000_Issue_4.pdf on page 8 of that publication. Notwithstanding its self-congratulatory headline, that article presents a clear reality: for every 10 percent increase in “Smoke Free” nicotine products there is a 0.04 percent decrease in cigarette sales. That’s quite some public health equation: if pharmaceutical nicotine sales were to double (+100%), there by providing smoking ban financial sponsors with hundreds of millions in new sales revenues, we would prospectively realize a 0.4 percent (less than one-half of 1 percent) reduction in cigarette consumption. That article in Advances speaks more to a pharmaceutical marketing analysis than is does to credible public health issues. While you are in Advances through the preceding link you might want to scroll to page 3. The article at top of page 3, “SmokeLess States Seize Tobacco Settlement Opportunities,” makes it expressly clear that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funds and organizes tobacco control groups to compete for funds that would otherwise be allocated to public use for roads, etc. I am certain that every commuter stuck in Seattle ’s traffic jams appreciates that – really!. Neither Joe Camel nor Marlboro man need have any fear of smoking bans materially reducing cigarette sales, they therefore have no genuine reason to earnestly oppose unlawful mandates such as the recent Pierce County smoking ban that Judge Culpepper recently overturned. It appears to me that Washington commuters have more to fear from tobacco control advocacy than tobacco companies.  

2. Credible proof that secondhand smoke indisputably kills nonsmokers with absolute certainty is not found in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) studies that claim a link between secondhand smoke and cardiovascular problems, nor do JAMA studies support the premise that pharmaceutical nicotine products (with a quit smoking success rate of 10 to 15 percent at best) are a meaningful smoking cessation aid.

a.)     Regarding the effectiveness of “Smoke Free” Nicotine Replacement Therapy products as smoking cessation aids see page 2 of the attached .PDF that reports on a study of more than 21,000 California smokers. The study by John P. Pierce a contributor to the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke, concludes: ”Since becoming available over-the-counter, NRT appears to be no longer effective in increasing long-term successful cessation in California smokers.”  

b.)     See page 3 of the attached .PDF, which includes the study abstract and peer review comments for study that allegedly supports tobacco control’s much-touted claims about heart disease and secondhand smoke. Not only is the Otsuka study based on an incredibly small population (30 Japanese persons) over an extremely short period, but the study did not even measure the amount of Environmental Tobacco Smoke to which the study’s subjects were exposed or describe the ventilation system employed! Peer review notes that “Furthermore, only air concentrations of carbon monoxide, not nicotine or particulate levels were measured.” The peer comments stated that “In terms of public policy it would be useful to know how typical these exposures are.” Since the only tobacco smoke constituent measured in the Otsuka study was carbon monoxide, it becomes apparent that similar cardiovascular response could occur for a person standing behind a city bus in downtown Seattle as in a nonsmoking section of a tavern or restaurant. Please also note that peer review for this article questions if secondhand smoke is safe for smokers but unsafe for nonsmokers. How can that be the case? As to the statement in peer review that secondhand smoke is a known human carcinogen please note in 1. above and in exhibit 2 attached that conclusion was ordered vacated by our federal courts and that judicial conclusions regarding flawed methodologies employed by EPA to reach that conclusion were neither addressed nor found to be in error by the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals.  

3. Credible proof that secondhand smoke indisputably kills nonsmokers with absolute certainty, or that smoking bans provide genuine indoor air quality is not found in the State of Washington ’s smoking ban in office work environments, passed in March 1994.

a.)     Please see page 4, which is a copy of the Washington Department of Labor and Industries Administrative Order of Adoption for the department’s 1994 smoking ban in office work environments. That ban was promulgated based on December 1993 public hearings on a proposed Indoor Air Quality regulation that included 24 specific recommendations made by the governor’s Indoor Air Quality Task force. Please note that L&I director Mark O. Brown “. . .made the judgment that, with the exception of the environmental tobacco smoke in office work environments issue, the proposed mandatory Indoor Air Quality standards are not appropriate at this time.” (Underline added.) Ignoring – summarily dismissing – 23 of 24 Indoor Air Quality recommendations to preserve regulatory authority for a smoking ban does not equal effective air quality regulation.  

b.)     Please see page 5, which includes copies of the Washington Project ASSIST 1993 – 1994 Action Plan page to support the L&I smoking ban and an April 1994 newsletter by Building Owners and Managers Association that states it supports smoking bans as a substitute for Indoor Air Quality Regulation. It appears that those working in office high rise buildings have more to fear from tobacco control advocates than Philip Morris does – anti-tobacoc supported regulations that were known to reduce clean indoor air regulation below that proposed, and which would avoid meaningful air quality standards for building owners, in the name of “Clean Indoor Air!”  

c.)     Please see page 6, which is the testimony of Dr. Steven Albricht of Washington DOC. Dr. Robert Jaffe is a former Executive Director of Washington DOC, a past president of the Tobacco-Free Washington Coalition, and he was the Co-Chair of Attorney General Gregoire’s tobacco control task force when it issues its first report in November 1998. Neither Dr. Jaffe nor Dr. Albricht have repudiated the referenced testimony, which was given before the legislature’s Joint Administrative Rules Review Committee June 21, 1994. At the time Washington DOC was the recipient of a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the foundation’s namesake, Johnson & Johnson, was distributing Nicotrol nicotine products. Washington DOC later received a $650,000 grant from the foundation (see page 7.)  

d.)     Please see page 7, which is a list of $35 million in grants for just 1996 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to tobacco control activists. Please cross-reference just that grant list with the names of organizations that today claim Environmental Tobacco Smoke kills to support today’s statewide smoking ban. Considering that millions in additional “Smoke Free” nicotine product sales for pharmaceutical sponsors are at stake through passing smoking bans, perhaps you could draw the reasonable conclusion that there is an equal probability the organizations identified are “singing for their supper” as they are making credible claims about legitimate public health issues. Then, in light of Dr. Albricht’s 1994 testimony before JAARC, a question arises for me: if anti-tobacco activists will stretch a point and exaggerate risks to hide apparent conflicts-of-interest and to pass a smoking ban in 1994, what leads any responsible adult to believe the would tell the whole truth about secondhand smoke today?

Our public health is supported by taxpayers of Washington and it belongs to all the people of Washington . Our public health is not the play-thing of a multi-billion-dollar private foundation in New Jersey , a useful tool for it to manipulate to garner support its pharmaceutical constituent’s mercantile objectives. And our public health is not to be toyed with by that foundation’s grant-supported minions in Washington , to assure next year’s special-interest grant arrives on schedule. We citizens expect the media, and particularly now The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, to show more respect for the citizens of Washington than to just parrot unsubstantiated mantras of special-interest activists to justify an agenda of which it editorially approves. Where is the much-vaunted investigative journalism today that broke the Watergate, Tamminy Hall and Teapot Dome scandals of years gone by?

As kindly as I can put to you, Ms. Simons, The Seattle-Post-Intelligencer has now painted itself into a very distasteful corner. It has chosen to publish mean-spirited unfavorable stereotypes, negative labels, and hurtful stigma directed at about 25 percent of this state’s population that chooses to lawfully consume legal tobacco products in order to justify its support of a special-interest smoking ban agenda. The time as come to say that The Seattle Post-Intelligencer needs to pay much closer attention to the news and editorial standards that it applies to tobacco control issues. The bottom line is The PI needs to put up credible proof of its implied claim that smokers absolutely and with certainty kill their nonsmoking fellow citizens, or it must shut up on the smoking ban issue.

I personally, and our international Forces readership, await your response.

Norman E. Kjono