By Norman E. Kjono

The report from a Forces reader about Alaska’s Cigarette Presumptive Minimum Price Index as appears below this text is an alarming, though predictable, trend. It directly supports Walton Sumner II’s strategy at Washington University in Saint Louis, “Estimating the Health consequences of Replacing Cigarettes With Nicotine Inhalers” (supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation), as published June 2003 at www.tobaccocontrol.org. Sumner’s declared strategy is to use tobacco taxes and smoking bans to give pharmaceutical nicotine inhalers a competitive mercantile edge over tobacco products. For additional information and links to that story see my article “Christine, Queen of Nicotine, Raises Campaign Cash.” 

Through price parity Alaska’s new minimum cigarette index provides an artificially inflated profit level for pharmaceutical nicotine products because they are not required to make 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) payments like tobacco companies. Given parity pricing of pharmaceutical nicotine products and tobacco products, the MSA costs that tobacco companies must pay flow directly to the bottom line of pharmaceuticals because they are not required to make such payments to states. That creates a vested interest for pharmaceutical-sponsored tobacco control advocates to ratchet the costs of tobacco as high as possible: the higher cigarette costs go the more pharmaceuticals can charge for their “Smoke Free” “dose equivalent” nicotine replacement products. Compare the price of a box of Nicorette Gum and a carton of cigarettes, in Washington a carton of cigarettes is about $46 and a nicotine “dose equivalent” box of Nicorette gum is roughly $53. With new cigarette taxes the cost of Nicorette can rise even higher. Alaska’s new cigarette price index also protects – props up -- the profitability of cigarette sales to the states-Big Tobacco monopoly that was crafted through the MSA because companies that sell cigarettes at prices lower than those of the tobacco settlement cartel are penalized through targeted taxation. Needless to say, that also preserves the artificial nicotine monopoly profitability at the direct and intended expense of tobacco consumers.

We now have the two principal elements of Dr. Sumner’s strategy – as advocated by the RWJ foundation through its cash grant recipients – confirmed: presumptive minimum cigarette prices (new tobacco taxes) in Alaska, and a nationwide push for smoking bans (i.e. Washington now ignoring the Washington Clean Indoor Act preemption standards with Attorney General Gregoire’s written blessing, etc.) Look for more tobacco tax initiatives nationwide in 2004 along with a push for more smoking bans, which will accomplish three important agendas for pharmaceutical special-interests: First, it will impose a cost incentive for persons to not use tobacco products; second, it will increase the profitability of pharmaceutical nicotine products through MSA tobacco parity pricing; and third the strategy will, as Sumner writes, reduce opportunities to smoke, which increases the likelihood that persons will chew nicotine gum or sit on patches at work, etc. 

Even if every false claim that anti-tobacco activists proclaim about tobacco was true it would not justify such willful and crafted price-gouging of “Target Group” consumers because such a fact situation would mandate public policy adverse to tobacco control’s financial interests. If what the anti-tobacco enterprise proclaims about tobacco were true tobacco would certainly qualify as a Weapon of Mass Destruction that is continuously and repetitively employed. 420,000 dead per year is nearly 15 times those who perished in the tragedy of September 11, two and one fourth years ago (the equivalent of 945,000 dead from tobacco over that period). In today’s 2004 political environment, the only rational and honest public policy that could rise from anti-tobacco’s claims about tobacco being true and 420,000 therefore dead each year from those products would be to immediately prohibit the manufacture and distribution of tobacco products and to round up and deport tobacco company executives to Guantanamo as known terrorist enemy combatants. Clearly such a prohibition was and is within the current powers of state and federal government, but to do so would also cut off the $206 billion-plus MSA gravy train and eliminate the now-stable source consumer base for pharmaceutical nicotine replacement products. The twisted nature of today’s special-interest political cabal is simply amazing: one can be fined, fired, lose a professional license in some states, or lose custody of children, etc. over consuming a legal tobacco product, however those who anti-tobacco claims are directly responsible for nearly a million dead on US soil are rewarded with a state-revenue-sharing tobacco settlement that not only keeps them in business but also increases and protects their profits derived through distributing allegedly lethal products.

Which merely illustrates the craven and twisted values of Big Pharmaceuticals, tobacco control, and their political supporters: according to anti-tobacco there are at least 945,000 dead from tobacco since September 11, yet such an allegedly known and lethal biological agent must continue to be manufactured and distributed in the USA in the name of preserving the profitability of a state-Big Tobacco monopoly and expanding Big Pharmaceutical’s bottom line. Fortunately for the rational part of the world tobacco control must know without a doubt that what they claim about tobacco is patently false: not only do credible statistics not support their position, but if they also actually believe their claims and spin about the deadly consequences of tobacco use then nearly a million dead since September 11 become accepted and mere “collateral damage” in their self-declared and self-serving war on tobacco consumers. In addition, considering the allegations about how lethal secondhand smoke is, 119,250 people have allegedly died from secondhand smoke exposure in the 2 ¼ years since September 11 (53,000 dead per year X 2.25 years = 119,250 dead since September 11.) 945,000 dead from smoking plus 119,250 dead from secondhand smoke since September 11 equals 1,064,250 absolutely certain body bags from tobacco since September 11, according to anti-tobacco’s strident and repetitive “statistical” proclamations about the “known” dangers of tobacco. Which says to me that Attorney General Gregoire, her tobacco control task force co-chair Dr. Robert Jaffe, as well as other tobacco control advocates nationwide, find nothing wrong at all about climbing over more than a million smoker and nonsmoker bodies to rake in $206 billion-plus from tobacco consumers, while preserving the financial interests of pharmaceutical campaign donors. I am certain that nonsmokers who support tobacco control would be pleased to note that nearly 120,000 of their group dead from secondhand smoke since September 11 is of no more consequence to tobacco control advocates than nearly a million dead smokers who died during the same period . . . all serve the same purpose: cry alarmist about alleged risks to keep the settlement revenue gravy train on schedule, faithfully delivering its annual drop off of consumer booty to states and professional “anti” activists.

Which is it: are tobacco control advocates premeditated liars about important public health subjects for bucks and clout, or are do their “statistical” proclamations say that they are deliberate and willful mass-murderers in pursuit of special-interest perks and money? To my mind tobacco control advocates cannot have it both ways, they cannot proclaim massive death and destruction from a target product and then also insist that the “known” hazards of the product must continue, to preserve billions in revenue streams each year from the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which Ms. Gregoire takes considerable pride in having personally negotiated. Where was Ms. Gregoire’s genuine concern about the alleged 500,000 or so smokers and nonsmokers dead each year from tobacco use when she personally negotiated a state-Big Tobacco monopoly settlement that required such “deadly” products continue to be manufactured and distributed in the USA? Anti-tobacco “facts,” if true as alleged, and common sense -- in context now of Sumner’s June 2003 written strategy to optimize pharmaceutical nicotine’s competitive market edge -- say to me that the tobacco control enterprise can only be one of two beasts: either its participants are premeditated liars for bucks and clout or they are willful mass-murderers for self-serving ends. Neither alternative is acceptable to an honest and caring people. 

At this point, anyone who doubts the direct profiteering and manipulative influence of pharmaceuticals in tobacco control issues is simply not conscious, or they choose to studiously ignore those facts in pursuit of their own agenda at others’ expense. The new Alaska cigarette price index is another definitive link in the state and pharmaceutical special-interest’s fast-growing chain of economic depravity. The ink has barely dried on Sumner’s June 2003 article in Tobacco Control journal that lays out in detail this pharmaceutical profiteering strategy and a mere six months later we see it being aggressively and forcefully implemented by politicians, many of whom, like Gregoire, have direct career, political, and economic ties to tobacco control and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

Forget about honest public health policy or genuine indoor air quality. The tobacco source nicotine consumer base was stabilized and expanded through 1998 by Project ASSIST, as launched by the George H.W. Bush administration October 1991. It is now time to rake in every dollar possible from that stabilized consumer population under the George W. Bush administration, to exploit the monopoly crafted by the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. It appears that credible public health policy, as well as genuine clean indoor air quality through improved ventilation that benefits everyone, takes a distant back seat to state and corporate economic power. Benito Mussolini was right, to the effect that: “Fascism should be referred to as corporatism, it is the merging of corporate and state powers.”  Through tobacco control we see, at the least, the interests of GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson, plus Philip Morris USA and Altria Group, merged with those of the states. That is occurring through a process carefully orchestrated by Johnson & Johnson’s largest single shareholder, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Honest public health, credible public policy, and the interests of “Target Group” consumers don’t stand a chance in the face that combined special-interest clout. 

These events provide “obese persons” and fast food outlets with a credible and clear look at what the near future holds in store for them, through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s current “War on Obesity:  ”another “settlement” (undoubtedly to be championed by Ms. Gregoire, again in the name of public health) that adds $0.50 per Big Mac in new taxes on the fat content of food, as advocated for years by Kelly Brownell of Yale University; litigation attacks on school districts and school board members over renewing vending contracts for “sugar laden” soft drinks, as recently threatened June 2003 in Seattle by self-styled anti-tobacco and anti-fat “Legal Terrorist” John F. Banzhaf III, Esq. of George Washington University; more tons of junk science, such as being overweight now increases risks of getting breast cancer, just like exposure to secondhand smoke; and more public policy that further enriches pharmaceutical special-interests and the states at the expense of obese “fatty” target consumers, while leaving the alleged public health “threat” in place to garner even more multi-billion-dollar settlement bucks.

There has even been a proposal by anti-obesity activists that citizens be required to pay taxes based on their weight in relationship to the federal “Body Mass” index: people who’s body mass is below the index would receive tax refunds and those who are above the index would pay a tax surcharge. Of course, if one lied about their weight they would be subject to penalties for perjury. How’s that for an incentive to “Ask Your Doctor About Fatipor,” then run down to the drug store and buy the latest pharmaceutical weight loss product? No doubt someone in John Ashcroft’s office will soon figure out a way to include Federally Approved Body Mass in the stereotype profiles that determine who is permitted to board an aircraft and who is forbidden to do so. Airlines will love it: hauling less fat through the skies will save fuel, thereby increasing their profitability per passenger mile. Airlines could advertise that they support public “Fat Free” flights and health, too! (I can already see the airline advertisements that feature a 400 pounder in the center aisle, squishing anorexic geeks in Seats A and C who desperately clutch “Fatipor” boxes and tofu takeout while glaring at the center seat’s occupant.) If the “fatties,” like nicotine “addicts” don’t like that well, then, whatever, they can just choose to not fly on any airline, just like those who lawfully consume legal tobacco products can choose to not patronize restaurants. George W. would then arrange another photo-op, this time in an airline pilot’s uniform: to proclaim “Mission Accomplished” on fat, as well. The creative promotional and political opportunities appear to be endless!

If the above characterizations offend or irritate you, don’t blame or holler at me. Every statement above is simply a close and immediate extension to anti-fat of the toilet tongue tactics that “anti” activists have been handsomely paid for years by the RWJ foundation to spout about tobacco consumers. And, please, do not expect those who have been putting up with the filthy negative labels and unfavorable stereotypes about smoking from anti-tobacco activists for more than a decade to apologize for stating a remarkable perception of the patently obvious about the tactics of the same special-interest activists who have now turned their tender ministrations toward the same foundation’s new anti-fat scheme. Many of those who loved the idea of a tax free-ride on their fellow citizens’ tobacco nickel will now find their own indifference to their neighbor’s interests about tobacco comes back to haunt them in the name of anti-fat. May their buns deflate as much as their wallets unquestionably will. Enjoy.

The preferred alternative would be for American consumers and citizens to wake up from their self-imposed public policy delinquency and understand that what we allow to be done to our neighbors and members of our own communities will, with absolute certainty, also be done to us in the final turn. The message to politicians from we the people about any new alleged “Threat” to public safety must become: “Hey, big stupid, you’re supposed to solve the problem, not milk it.  ” What we put out does, after all, come around. This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue, the facts clearly say that it is a we the people versus them the political insider special-interest looters issue. Perhaps it is long past time that we citizens, who support both sides of the aisle, take back our political parties and government from special-interest looters, regardless of what their political party affiliation may be.

Well, the good news is that these facts remove any remaining doubt about our affairs of state in at least Alaska and Washington. Should Ms. Gregoire become Governor of the State of Washington we will have no vestige of doubt as to who is managing our state’s interests: the $7 billion-plus Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through its well-paid tobacco control fronts for Big Pharmaceuticals, including a lady who would then sit in the Governor’s chair as its favored special-interest shill. It appears that through U.S. Senator Stevens and the Alaska Legislature the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Big Pharmaceuticals have already set their claws deeply into consumers in the great State of Alaska.

2004 does, indeed, promise to be an interesting and frightening year: who will benefit more over the next twelve months through these special-interest policies, Benito’s corprocrats and the lock-step Goebbel’s-mainstream-media that supports them, or we the people?

Best Always For The New Year,

Norman E. Kjono