Sand-Bagged
In Virginia

By Norman E. Kjono

Virginia anti-tobacco grants, from the annual reports of the Princeton, New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF):

1994 $ 149,063 University of Virginia
1996 $ 65,622 Hayes, Domenici & Assoc.
1996 $ 749,992 University of Virginia
1996 $ 83,830 The Lewin Group

Those RWJF grants are 1,048,507 reasons why tobacco workers in Virginia are fighting for their economic lives. Jobs and livelihoods are on the line in Virginia, to assure appreciation of a New Jersey foundation's $6 billion plus asset base.

As always with anti-tobacco, it's the bucks.

That I understand, I guess. People generally support that which benefits them, and avoid what doesn't. So the working folks in Virginia and the activists in Princeton are after the same thing: a livelihood.

There are differences between the two groups, however. Those differences define America. They define a way of life, one we are choosing today through the tobacco deals. We need to discuss this, the folks in Virginia present a valid point: which way of life do we choose?

Who is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, what are they about, and why do they find it necessary to mess with folks in Virginia?

Created by the chairman of Johnson & Johnson, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is among the ten largest philanthropies in the USA. It's assets came from Mr. Johnson's stock holdings, transferred upon his death. The assets were worth over $1 billion in the 1970's.

According to Value Line, today the foundation owns 5.4% of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), about 72,600,000 shares. RWJF owns more than five times the common stock of JNJ than all of its officers and directors combined.

RWJF aggressively supports developing a market for "Smoke Free" nicotine products. Every restaurant, public building, or workplace that becomes "Smoke Free" is a new market for "Tobacco Free" nicotine products. RWJF generously funds and supports anti-tobacco activists.

Nationwide, from 1993 to 1996 RWJF spent $65 million directly supporting anti-tobacco activists who promote a "Tobacco Free" society. 1997 and 1998 are about $40 million more.

The $1 million plus in grants to Virginia anti-tobacco are a small portion of RWJF support in that state. In addition to those grants, RWJF funds substance abuse and other related efforts.

One place where anti-tobacco comes together with drug companies is that Johnson & Johnson distributes Nicotrol name brand products through its McNeil Consumer Products subsidiary. Quite a handy way to keep the value of Johnson & Johnson stock going up: keep funding anti-tobacco activists who promote "Smoke Free" environments, and "Tobacco Free" kids.

As the market for drug company nicotine increases, RWJF assets tend to appreciate. Stop the "Smoke Free" marketing and support for appreciation of RWJF assets decreases. RWJF anti-tobacco funding lines its own pockets.

The inescapable reality is, however, very simple: "Tobacco Free" and "Smoke Free" is not "Nicotine Free". RWJF is big on "Smoke Free" environments and "Tobacco Free" people. They don't say much about "Nicotine Free," however. They will make a handsome buck from their "socially acceptable" nicotine. They have spent years developing a market for those products.

Last I heard, God made tobacco plants as part of the world that He gave us. There ain't no Nicotrol patch bushes or Nicorette gum trees that I'm aware of. Leave it to the `ol deceiver to concoct a scam that substitutes man-made chemical compounds for God's natural real thing.

When you see the National Center for Tobacco Free Kids on television, you are watching the best anti-tobacco lobbying drug company money can buy in Washington D.C. Tobacco Free Kids received RWJF grant No. 29600 in 1996, for $19.5 million. Tobacco Free Kids has been an insider in the tobacco settlement from day onewith direct access to the White House.

When your child attends an anti-tobacco class at school, recognize that there are millions of reasons for local activists to extol the virtues of "Tobacco Free," but not necessarily "Nicotine Free," kids. RWJF funds those efforts, too.

The differences between the New Jersey foundation and the folks fighting for their jobs in Virginia are simple: Virginia folks still place a value on earning their moneyNew Jersey foundations loot it; Virginia folks take pride in manufacturing a quality legal productNew Jersey foundations arrogantly presume the right to profit by destroying the product of other's honest work; and, Virginia folks walk into the plant in broad daylight to earn an honest day's pay for an honest days workNew Jersey foundation activists slither behind one's back, substituting political pull for honest work and hidden stealth marketing for honest and open promotion.

We should realize that we have been mislead by anti-tobacco activists. We have not been engaged in "The Tobacco Wars" for the past several years. We have been responding to "The Drug Company Nicotine Market Share Wars." But I don't see a legitimate reason why drug company and private foundation special interests should boost working folks out of a way of life.

Drug companies are announcing new marketing efforts for their "Smoke Free" nicotine products when national anti-tobacco hysteria has reached a fever pitch. Coincidence? Hardly.

I started researching that after reading a February 27, 1998 article in The Wall Street Journal, "Drug Makers See a Risky New Role for Nicotine." Suein L. Hwang described efforts by drug companies such as SmithKline (Nicorette, Nicoderm CQ), Glaxo Wellcome (Zyban) and Pharmacia & Upjohn (Nicotrol distributed by McNeil Consumer Products, a Johnson & Johnson company), to expand markets for "Smoke Free" and "Tobacco Free" nicotine products.

According to Ms. Hwang: "Cigarette makers may be facing an unusual rival as long term suppliers of nicotine fixes: pharmaceutical companies." She also says, "Last year, SmithKline says, sales of its Nicoderm CQ patch and Nicorette gum swelled 30%, to $448 million, partly because more smokers were using the products to avoid nicotine cravings in nonsmoking places,"

Ms. Hwang also quotes:

David Sachs, from the Palo Alto, California Center for Pulmonary Disease Prevention: "To be crass about it, virtually every pharmaceutical company sees a tremendous market here."

Karl Fagerstrom, a scientist formerly with Pharmacia & Upjohn: "If it's the nicotine people want, why not give it to them?"

Andrew Johnston, the head of clinical research for Glaxo Wellcome: "I would support long term nicotine use through some administration other than cigarettes."

And, Dr. Neal Benowitz, University of California at San Francisco, "I'd rather see people dependent on nicotine than on tobacco."

It is heartening to see a May 2, 1998 article in the Washington Post headlined "Democrats in Va. Fault Tobacco Bill" . In that article Spencer S. Hsu outlines efforts by U.S. Senator Charles S. Robb and Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore to support tobacco company workers.

Concern for the welfare of tobacco workers is legitimate. Where are workers in the private aircraft or asbestos industries, after those industries were looted into oblivion? Unemployed. How many jobs will the antis create? Zero.

When the rest of the world has lost its reason to politically correct hysterics, those with true grit and courage show their colors. Bless your hearts Senator Robb and Governor Gilmore.

Working folks need politicians to stand up for them, too. Virginia folks need to be shown that they count as much as a $6 billion New Jersey special interest. Give us one good man, with courage to fight in broad daylighthe'll count for more than a hundred activists slithering to the back doors of clout in the dead of night.

The folks in Virginia need to clean out the nest of grant-funded special interests at the University of Virginia. UV anti-tobacco grants are part of RWJF's $20 million "SmokeLess States" program, and they're just the beginning.

RWJF has also funded tobacco farming surveys and policy studies for years. The Center for Sustainable Systems, in Brea, Kentucky received a 1994 grant from RWJF in the amount of $98,422, for a survey of tobacco farmers. In 1995 the center received a grant of $28,500 to publish results of their survey. In 1993, the Burley Tobacco Growers Association received a $50,000 RWJF grant to participate in developing an economic transition plan for tobacco growers.

So if the folks in Virginia are feeling a little sand-bagged right now, perhaps the reason for it is clear: President Clinton and his anti-tobacco cronies have been setting it up for years, and millions of dollars from RWJF have directly supported their efforts at doing it.

I grew up in farm country. I worked in fields, orchards and barnyards. I know the land, and I know its worth. I know its worth is vastly more than dollars from crops. Its worth is in the life that it provides. Its worth is in the fact that, in the final analysis, the land is life.

Wall Street will have to wait for its drug company profits. When it's a choice between a foundation that consumes livelihoods, and land that produces life, its all over `cept the shoutin'.

Perhaps, through Sen. Robb and Gov. Gilmore, we're hearing the first booming sounds of integrity: "Enough already, activists."

President Clinton, Sen. McCain, and their cronies would be well advised to listen up.

Redmond, WA May 3, 1998