 Smoking Bans: The Ultimate Special-Interest Insiders’ Game By Norman E. Kjono February 10, 2004 - Voters and the press in Washington preoccupied are with Democrat caucuses this weekend. Given the lull in smoking ban media attention it seems propitious to take a moment to catch our breath and provide a summary on our state’s tobacco control issues. A recap of the tobacco control madhouse unleashed in Washington for this legislative session is in order. We do so by providing links to important press articles, independent research and a little history about who is behind the most carefully orchestrated, well-planned, and richly financed special-interest initiative focused on our state that we have seen in recent years. I begin this overview of our 2004 current status quo on a historical note: November 17, 1994 my Special to the Times, "Taxpayers Footing The Bill To Help Anti-Tobacco Lobby Push Its Agenda," was published in The Seattle Times’ editorial section. I was also quoted in an editorial by Don Hannula of The Seattle Times, "Speaking Out On Behalf Of Public enemy No. 1," October 13, 1994. Mr. Hannula mentions the Indoor Air Quality system that we had installed at our business at the time. A summary of statistical data for and comments about our system is presented in "Employee Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure." October 1994 I marked my first anniversary of researching, writing about, and opposing tobacco control. October 22, 1994 Dr. Robert Jaffe replied to Mr. Hannula’s article in The Times’ "Nicotine Addiction – Tobacco Industry Is The Enemy," claiming that his tobacco control advocacy group was falsely accused of using federal funds to lobby for the 1994 smoking ban in office work environments. Apparently Washington DOC receiving grants as a contractor under federal Project ASSIST while Washington DOC’S Dr. Albricht testifies before the Washington legislatures’ Joint Administrative Rule Review Committee June 21, 1994 to uphold a smoking ban doesn’t count, even though transcripts of his testimony show he denied being "anti-anything." In light of today’s shrill pronouncements that smokers are addicts who kill nonsmokers with secondhand smoke, readers should pay close attention to Dr. Jaffe’s additional claims in his reply about being "compassionate" toward persons who smoke. Indeed, most of the addicti-killer mantra promoted about smokers by anti-tobacco today was first lofted by Dr. Jaffe, dating as far back as his June 1988 Letter to the Editor of the Times that negatively labeled persons who smoke as addicts and characterized convenience stores that sell cigarettes as crack houses. It is evident that Dr. Jaffe was compassionately following the Tobacco-Free Washington Coalition’s (Dr. Jaffe is a past president of the coalition) policy toward smokers, as set forth on page 22 of the April 1993 policy handbook "Planning for A Tobacco Free Washington," to reduce public tolerance for, and to change public acceptance of, tobacco use. It has escaped the attention of tobacco control advocates for at least the past decade that it is impossible to promote intolerance of a person’s lawful behavior without also promoting intolerance of the person engaging in that behavior. By late 1998 Dr. Jaffe had progressed to being a co-chair of Washington Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire’s tobacco control task force. Under Dr. Jaffe’s co-chair leadership that task force recommended on page 23 of its November 1998 report that Washington’s tobacco policy be coordinated with the $7 billion private Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey, from which Washington DOC had by then received about $1 million in anti-tobacco grants. It appears that receiving $1 million in special interest grants from the largest single shareholder of then-Nicotrol-distributor Johnson & Johnson, while recommending that state tobacco policy – including aggressive pushes for smoking bans -- be coordinated with the namesake corporation’s private foundation, doesn’t count as a conflict-of-interest, either.We are now a decade into the process of the same activists using the same junk science excuses and the same negative labels to promote the same ban policies that benefit the same special-interests who still pay considerable sums of money to the same activists. If that seems a bit circular it is, as is tobacco control policy. The foregoing merely illustrates the point that once people embrace the concept that negatively labeling, unfairly stereotyping, and stigmatizing one’s neighbors for bucks and influence is a legitimate way to make a living the only matters left open to question are how much they will make by doing so and how long they can get away with it. It also seems to me that after a decade of tobacco control consistently failing to produce results that it touts to achieve policy that it wants – notably including material and sustaining reductions in youth or adult smoking, as will be discussed -- we the people need to finally connect on what is being done to our public health policy and the integrity of our governing processes to benefit powerful and entrenched special-interests. Perhaps politicians and the public were deceived by tobacco control back in the early 1990s because their pattern of conduct was not yet clear. It is, after all one thing to embrace an apparently noble and plausible goal, but another matter entirely if one continues to support programs that do not deliver the results promised while clearly benefiting special-interests that pay those who promote them. Today the pattern of conduct by special-interest health activists is transparently clear, so there is no credible excuse for continuing to support their self-serving policies. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" should be our watch words regarding tobacco control at this decade-long mile-post where we are experiencing a second aggressive push for another variation on the smoking ban theme. Being taken for a third ride around the same special-interest berry bush also raises its head with the current War of Fat, for which the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is now generously funding many of the same now-anti-fat activists as it did when they were receiving anti-tobacco grants. Considering that information, I suspect that the pool of interested parties for what is written here extends well beyond persons who smoke. If anti-tobacco produced the goods of a stabilized and expanding tobacco user source consumer base for pharmaceutical nicotine delivery products and smoking cessation services, what leads any responsible adult to believe that many of the same activists who receive grants form the same pharmaceutical foundation will not produce the same stable source consumer base for diet pills and obesity-cessation treatment? If $206 billion in new tobacco settlement revenue streams for states was successfully negotiated by our state attorneys general, why should any responsible adult believe that a $500 billion-plus "food settlement" is not also in the wings? And if tobacco consumers can be forced to pay billions per year in excess costs for tobacco products to finance a War on Tobacco settlement, why wouldn’t the same activists go for billions more per year from hamburger, taco and pizza consumers through the War on Fat? Those who support tobacco control today had best be slim, trim, young and racy because the model obesity body fat standards, as dramatically lowered in 1997, say that about two thirds of us could qualify for the tender ministrations of our "compassionate-activist" health promoters. This work is presented in three sections. First, I address where we are today. Second, I provide an historical overview of tobacco control in context of one of its most illumined promoters, Dr. C. Everett Koop (who we now see in daily television advertisements to promote a statewide smoking ban.) Finally, I bring together a series of links to grant and news information which illustrate the magnitude of special-interest dollars that influence our state governance through legislative, executive and judicial branches of state government. Once readers have digested the following contents the final conclusion is up to them. But that conclusion must be based on something more substantive than a personal preference or politically-motivated bias. Understanding how our present tobacco use and smoking ban status quo has been orchestrated is a good place to start in understanding how anti-obesity agendas are beginning to operate today. It is to that end that this work is presented. As of this writing we have press editorials in The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Tacoma News Tribune supporting a statewide ban on smoking including restaurants, taverns, bowling alleys and casinos that are specifically exempt from such bans under current Washington law. We have also experienced an unsuccessful attempt by the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health, lead by former candidate for Governor of Washington Frederico Cruz, to mandate an unlawful smoking ban that was overturned by Clark County Superior Court Judge Culpepper in January 2004. Pierce County’s smoking ban was supported by Washington Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire, who wrote the county to encourage passing the ban despite the fact that it clearly violated existing state preemption law and statutory exemptions. Attorney General Gregoire’s use of tobacco control issues to further her own political career extends back to her personal involvement with negotiating the 1998 tobacco settlement and using those issues in part today to raise campaign funds from out of state donors (see my commentary Christine, Queen of Nicotine, Raises Campaign Cash.) We have heard the clarion call of County Council members to extend Pierce County’s unlawful ban to King and Whatcom counties (see public statements by King County Councilwoman Carolyn Edmonds and Whatcom County Councilwoman Barbara Brenner for details.) Several commentaries have been posted to Forces.org discussing the county smoking ban drive that violates existing state preemption law, including "Whatcom County: An Epidemic Of Toilet Tongue" and "Press, Public Bamboozled?" ) And we have two bills in the Washington House of Representatives and Senate, which include provisions to allow the anarchy of county and municipal governments mandating their own smoking ban laws in contradiction with existing state law and disregard the will of elected representatives in Olympia who represent the people.We are now also treated to the sublime experience of former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop on television. Dr. Koop informs us through paid television advertisements that Environmental Tobacco Smoke is a killer, that smoking bans are good for business, that smoking bans create jobs, and that nonsmokers will flock to restaurants to enjoy "Smoke Free" dining once a statewide smoking ban is passed. If one listens to the good doctor’s prescription for culinary and dining bliss it appears that the public stayed away from the estimated 80 percent of restaurants in Washington that already prohibit smoking because the remaining 20 percent, which includes taverns and casinos that serve food, going Smoke Free will create an economic boom in our state. Overlooked in the good doctor’s glib prognostications is a logical fact: if smoking bans did indeed increase business for restaurants and taverns the last thing the owners would want would be a statewide smoking ban – the ban would remove the competitive edge they have over hospitality establishments that allow smoking. Dr. Koop would have us believe that local taverns and restaurants want to eliminate a competitive advantage to increase their sales revenues. Somewhat like mechanical engineering Ph.D. Stanton Glantz’ credentials being elevated to qualify him for a cardiology position at University of California at San Francisco when he hit the "Smoke Free" saw-dust trail, Koop now apparently enjoys credentials in medicine and business economics as a chief spokesman for smoking bans in Washington that will allegedly increase business and create jobs. The contradictory nature of his cavalier and conflicting economic projections amply illustrates the dangers we face when MD’s decide they are business economists and mechanical engineers take up medicine for grant bucks.Lest we forget, Dr. Koop appearing in Washington television advertisements to promote a state wide smoking ban provides an opportunity for a limited review of tobacco control history as associated with that luminary of allegedly anti-tobacco activism. Dr. Koop enjoys several other dubious distinctions: First: Koop is the author of the 1988 surgeon general’s report that declared nicotine to be addictive. His message to persons who lawfully consume legal tobacco products is that they no longer have a habit they can quit, they now have an addiction to nicotine that they must maintain. Not surprisingly, when his new tobacco consumer belief in addiction to nicotine was announced and became entrenched youth smoking persistence skyrocketed and adult Former Smokers (adults who quit smoking) stopped increasing as they had been for the preceding twenty-plus years. Please see SMOKE RATE, which contains a one page summary of Project ASSIST results for youth smoking and a similar page for adult prevalence. The data in those graphics is from the University of Michigan’s "Monitoring The Future Study" for youth and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for adult smoking prevalence. What we believe to be true tends to become our reality. Dr. Koop has cleverly crafted, and forcefully communicated, a new public belief about tobacco: smokers cannot quit because they are addicts. Crafting and promoting that personal belief for smokers has created the reality of fewer adults quitting and more youth persisting with smoking after they experiment with it. As in Huxley’s "Brave New World," apparently 59,000 repetitions does equal a new social truth or belief. It is abundantly clear that reduction in adult quit rates, stabilizing adult current smoker populations, and dramatic increases in youth smoking persistence are directly related, at least in large part, to a new consumer belief in addiction to nicotine, as proclaimed by Dr. Koop in 1988. If the true purpose of tobacco control advocacy were to dramatically reduce youth and adult smoking why would its first major policy statement by Dr. Koop in 1988 be to convince youth and adult smokers that they are permanently addicted to nicotine and must therefore maintain their addiction? Today many smokers chew Koop’s pharmaceutical sponsors’ nicotine gum, sit on his sponsors’ nicotine patches, snort nicotine sprays or toke nicotine inhalers as a substitute for smoking at work, while continuing smoke elsewhere. Koop was also quoted in a February 1998 United Press International article, "Koop Predicts Nicotine Inhalers, Sprays," as saying that in the future we will still have a tremendous number of nicotine addicts, but we will have smoking and nonsmoking nicotine addicts. Joe Camel never had it so good! Joe has public health officials like Dr. Koop stridently proclaiming what he could not and would not say to stabilize the cigarette consumer base: you, dear smoker, are permanently addicted to tobacco products and you cannot quit buying them! Such a message also directly supports sustaining tobacco settlement revenues despite sharp increases in tobacco taxes and wholesale cigarette prices charged by tobacco companies. It’s amazing to me what just a few grants to the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation may have accomplished to influence public policy. An interesting example of Dr. Koop’s nonsmoking new nicotine age addict is described in a recent New York Times article Getting Even With Nicorettes by David Colman. The Times’ article is about a man who reportedly chews 72 pieces of nicotine gum per day, has reportedly been using that product for several years in increasing quantity, and who says that he offers pharmaceutical nicotine gum to nonsmokers. Now there’s a role model for kids! Readers may want to consider the foregoing in light of two articles that I have previously written, Lets Really Save The Kids and NAAGing Questions, as published by Forces.org. "Let’s Really Save The Kids" was later published by Greenhaven Press/Lucent Books under the title "A Better Way to Talk to Teens About Smoking" in its 2000 Contemporary Issues Companion, "Teen Smoking."Second: Koop aggressively supported the George H.W. Bush Administrations $135 million Project ASSIST that was launched October 4, 1991. Under the auspices of that program, as managed nationwide by the American Cancer Society and supported by the American Lung Association, youth smoking rates increased 43 percent nationwide 1992 to 1997 (see above link on Youth Smoking on page 1 of SMOKE RATE), previous declines in adult Current Smokers leveled off (see page 2 of SMOKE RATE, Current Smokers), and the abrupt reversal of previously-increasing adult Former Smokers (persons who quit smoking) became an established trend (see page 2 of SMOKE RATE, Former Smokers). Whatever else may be argued about allegedly anti-tobacco activism it is indisputably clear that the result of its interventions was to stabilize the previously-declining adult smoker source consumer base for pharmaceutical nicotine products and to dramatically increase youth smoking rates. In his February 27, 2001 letter to me Washington Assistant Secretary of Health Jackson L. Williams acknowledged a similar description of Project ASSIST results to be "the previous effects of anti-smoking campaigns." The Seattle Times published a December 20, 2000 article, "Smoking Prevention Fails Big Test," and a December 22, 2000 editorial, "Kids and Smoking: No Time To Give Up," that acknowledged the failure of a 15 year Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center anti-tobacco intervention with 8,000 Washington school kids. The study concluded that there was no statistical difference in smoking rates between kids who were part of that program and those who were not (no doubt much to Joe Camel’s delight.) Today those 40 percent-plus more kids who started smoking 1992 to 1997 under Project ASSIST are young adults who sustain tobacco settlement payments and contribute increased tobacco tax revenues to states. Part of those tobacco settlement and state cigarette tax dollars, a substantial portion of which is made possible by the failure of allegedly anti-tobacco programs, now fund the same anti-tobacco activist and their new programs. Does it never occur to The Times that perhaps a better answer is to throw the bums who failed with our children out of public health and school programs, forever? Please see my commentary "Selling Addiction to Kids," as published by Forces April 6, 2000. Readers may be interested in my correspondence with Philip Morris, Washington Secretary of Health Mary C. Selecky and Congressman Henry Waxman included in that series.Third: Koop has been the subject of several conflict of interest issues, including some raised by The New York Times. At the time the preceding article was published by The Times I spoke and corresponded with its author Holcomb Noble. At Mr. Noble’s request I sent via Federal Express documents that showed Dr. Koop was a co-member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco with representatives from both R.J. Reynolds and Nicorette’s SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline.) Mr. Noble later informed me that The New York Times would not publish that information because it wanted to limit its reports about Dr. Koop’s conflicts to the current subjects (such as rubber gloves.) One legitimately wonders what ol’ Doc Koop was doing hanging around with his alleged arch-enemy Joe Camel at a professional society, which seems to be one of the greatest conflicts-of-interest possible. Why was Doc Koop a member of the same professional nicotine research society with Joe Camel’s boss, R.J. Reynolds, during the 1990s? One answer to that question may found in my commentary "Mercantile You Addiction," published at Forces.org August 2001. That commentary discusses billboards that were strategically posted near Kirkland, Washington schools in 2001 and communicated the message to kids that nicotine is addicting. The billboards featured "Debi," who smoked through a hole in her neck and asked a question: "Is Nicotine Addictive?" Kids were told by that billboard "Just Ask Debi," continuing to smoke despite surgery for throat cancer. Problem is that, according to what The Seattle Times reported in its May 16, 2001 article "Smoking Stole My Voice . . . My Dreams," Debi quit smoking five years after she was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1992 (1997), but The Times says in its August 16, 2001 editorial "Not Enough Tobacco Money For Prevention" three months later that Debi is a lifelong smoker! How can a person who quit smoking four years before billboards that presented her smoking through a hole in her neck in 2001 possibly be a lifelong smoker, as represented by the times in its August 16, 2001 editorial plea for more tobacco control funding? Why would The Times publish representations about Debi and smoking in August 2001 that are revealed to be blatantly false by their own previous reporting in May of the same year? Perhaps an answer to that question can be found by counting the pharmaceutical nicotine and other drug company advertisements in The Times’ and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s combined Sunday edition. But isn’t using false information that portrays a nonsmoker to be a hopeless tobacco addict, to sell new beliefs in addiction to nicotine from the first puff on billboards near schools that expressly target kids, the ultimate in deceiving kids and a blatant conflict-of-interest? We can thank Dr. Koop for that conflict.Fourth: Dr. Koop was the namesake for the 1999 high tech boom Web site DrKoop.com, which went from a high of $45 per share to a few cents per share before it was sold for $186,000 to a Florida company. Similar to the energy trading giant Enron, DrKoop.com was the subject of a Securities Exchange Commission investigation regarding its books. DrKoop.com shares continued a precipitous slide in early 2000 after its auditors questioned whether it could continue as a going concern. Nonplussed, ol’ Doc, along with ABC medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman had already sold shares in the ill-fated Web site, with some sales being in violation of insider trading rules. According to Sec Rule 144 filings Dr. Koop sold about $1 million of the Web site’s stock before it began its final plunge and Dr. Snyderman’s sales in 2000 reportedly approached $2.5 million. Drs. Koop and Snyderman walked with millions from sales of DrKoop.com stock, many public investors we left holding NASD Bulletin Board stocks worth mere pennies.Fifth: it appears that where Dr. Koop goes in the securities markets conflict questions, litigation and public offering prospectus questions follow. See my commentary "Dr.Koop.comSettlement: Caveat Emptor" published by Forces August 2001.Sixth: some of Dr. Koop’s tobacco control advocate cronies who he now supports through his Washington television advertisements for smoking bans, including Washington Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire, may have adopted some of his apparently cavalier approach to securities law prospectus requirements. The Connecticut Republican American says in its February 2, 2004 editorial "The Smoke Clears" that the National Association of Attorneys Generals (NAAG) is concerned about steep declines in Big 4 Tobacco Company tobacco settlement revenues to Settling States. Forbes’ February 3, 2004 article "The Trouble With Tobacco Bonds." reports that sales by the Big 4 Tobacco Companies are dropping due to competition from small tobacco companies who sell cigarettes at prices lower than the tobacco settlement monopoly signatories and that those declines could jeopardize timely payment of interest and principal to bondholders who purchased tobacco settlement revenue bonds from Settling States. Forbes reports in its February 16, 2004 article "A Cozy Cancer Cartel" a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that could open the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement to anti-trust charges and litigation. While the court expressly said that it did not at that time rule on the issue the 2nd circuit three-judge panel reportedly raised a troubling question: can states exempt private parties from federal Sherman Act anti-trust liability, just to share in the profits of a monopoly? For a comprehensive overview of prospective disclosure problems with the prospectus for The State of Washington’s October 2002 offering of $517 million in tobacco revenue bonds please see my May 19, 2003 commentary "Bondholders Beware" published by Forces July 2003. Finally, neither Dr. Koop nor Attorney General Gregoire can credibly say that legal issues regarding the tobacco settlement as raised by the 2nd circuit are new and unexpected because a thorough brief on many of those issues "Constitutional And Antitrust Violations Of The Multistate Tobacco Settlement" was published by The Cato Institute in May 2000. Antitrust problems with the tobacco settlement were also discussed at length by Jeremy Burlow, Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission. There is no question that material and substantive issues were raised about the structure and terms of the November 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. The important question left unanswered is why didn’t national tobacco control icons such as Dr. Koop and state attorneys seriously consider those issues?Seventh: Dr. Koop has a history of aggressively supporting anti-tobacco policy and programs that continue, despite court rulings to the contrary. a.) Dr. Koop sublimely informed Washington citizens through television advertisements last week that they have an historic opportunity for a statewide smoking ban, despite the fact that the model for that opportunity, the Pierce County smoking ban, was found by Superior Court Judge Culpepper to be unlawful. The response of Dr. Koop and his Washington tobacco control supporters is to push for more bans by either changing existing state law or crafting a way around it. b.) Dr. Koop aggressively supported U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco, which was rejected by our federal appeals courts in August 1998, then our supreme court. Policies related to FDA regulation of tobacco continued unabated or changed despite that ruling. c.) Dr. Koop aggressively supported the December 1992 EPA report on Environmental Tobacco Smoke, which was ordered vacated by a federal court judge in July 1998. Anti-tobacco continued to promote the conclusions stated in that report, such as 3,000 nonsmokers die each year from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke and that secondhand smoke is a known Group A human carcinogen, despite that fact that a federal judge concluded in his 90 page-plus Memorandum Opinion the data to support that conclusion were cherry picked, EPA statistics were manipulated to achieve a predetermined outcome, and the procedures applied by EPA were flawed. The district court’s ruling to vacate the EPA report was overturned by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals December 2002. The full text of the 4th Circuit’s ruling makes it painfully obvious that, notwithstanding its ruling on procedural grounds (see page 1), important issues regarding the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke still remained (see, for example, page 16.) 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 4th circuit expressed its concern about.d.) Dr. Koop aggressively supported the first $568 Billion tobacco settlement sponsored by Senator McCain in 1997. He addressed the U.S. Congress Democrat Caucus in April 1998 and presented the cornerstone features that he believed must be included in the tobacco settlement. Senator McCain’s legislation was rejected by the U.S. Congress in 1998. Dr. Koop’s response was to support a second $206 billion tobacco settlement, on which Washington Attorney General Gregoire has staked her political name. The second settlement negotiated between state attorneys general and the Big 4 tobacco companies in contradiction with the expressed will of Congress. Today we read press reports that Ms. Gregoire wrote Pierce County to support that county’s smoking ban despite that fact that her own office had written a 1998 letter stating such bans violate state preemption statutes. We also observe today Dr. Koop promoting a statewide ban on television despite Judge Culpepper’s ruling that the Pierce County ban violated state preemption statutes and statutory exemptions. I believe that the history of tobacco control under the leadership of Dr. Koop and Attorney General Gregoire – an unrelenting agenda that is aggressively supported by pharmaceutical special-interests despite what our federal and state courts say – is the quintessential expression of Washington Post columnist George Will’s statement in his May 23, 2003 work "States Have Unhealthy Addiction To Tobacco:" "Tobacco policy radiates contempt for law." (Italic added.) Washington taxpayers could be in very deep doo through Ms. Gregoire’s 1998 tobacco settlement. Not only could the much-touted billions in settlement revenues not materialize to cover budget short falls as advertised but taxpayers could also face the prospect of liability to tobacco settlement revenue bondholders, too, due to bond offering prospectus deficiencies (notwithstanding disclaimers in the prospectus.) Just a coincidence? I don’t think so at all. People who share the same elitist group think act in the same disparaging and dismissive manner toward others regardless of whether they smoke, buy bonds, or pay taxes, or weigh 300 pounds. What nonsmokers were led to believe was a $206 billion tax free-ride on their fellow citizen smokers’ nickel could very well turn out to one of deepest fiscal black holes, and the loudest "Giant Sucking Sound," in the history of state finance. Washington taxpayers and voters may also want to consider additional liability issues raised in my commentary "Product Liability," that was published by Forces in April 2001. If smoking bans actually accomplish what anti-tobacco activists proclaim – to reduce smoking and therefore cigarette purchases – a troubling question arises: what is the State of Washington doing sponsoring a statewide initiative that will reduce revenues used to pay interest and principal on bonds that the state sold to investors? In this regard readers should consider that our state’s attorney general provided written opinions for bondholders regarding the offering of the state’s tobacco revenue bonds in late 2002 and that she also wrote a letter to Pierce County encouraging it to go ahead with its now-unlawful smoking ban! Personally, I see fingerprints of DrKoop.com’s 1999 stock offering prospectus and its cavalier elitist approach about investors’ rights to full, fair, and complete disclosure all over the State of Washington’s 2002 bond offering prospectus.A quick summary of the above information can be found through three articles of mine that have been published by the lawyer’s newspaper The Los Angeles Daily Journal. Those articles are "Smoke Screen: Anti-Nicotine Activism Benefits Big Tobacco, Pharmaceutical Companies," July 27, 2001, "Cancer Risk? Nicotine Replacement therapy May Do Smokers More Harm than Good," January 29, 2003, and "In the Balance: Nonsmoked Nicotine Can Cost People Their Health, Money," July 30, 2003.My personal recommendation to readers in Washington is that the next time you see ol’ Doc Koop on television blithely telling the public that smoking bans create jobs you should consider his business track record at DrKoop.com. When the good doctor glibly tells tavern owners that nonsmokers are going to flock to the bar because it is now "Smoke Free" hospitality business owners should firmly plant their tongue in cheek as they say "Oh really, just like youth smoking rates were going to go down under Project ASSIST?" And I personally wonder how long it may be until a U.S. Attorney and/or trial lawyers drop by Dr. Koop’s office to say "About your co-membership with Joe Camel’s boss at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, what’s up Doc?" Returning to current events in the present Washington smoking ban drive, the below text is from The Seattle Times, February 2, 2004. Anti-tobacco also has money and time to round up and transport citizens to Olympia to promote a state-wide smoking ban. No doubt some school kids will get the day off to go, too: "Smoke Free Ride: Today is the last day to reserve a spot on a free bus ride to Olympia with the Northwest Tobacco Free Partnership. The group is traveling to the Capitol on Thursday to talk to legislators about health dangers for workers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke. The outing will include a free lunch. The bus will pick up passengers in Bellingham, Burlington and Lynnwood. Call 425-339-5279 for information."The first question that comes to mind is what constructive information, other than perhaps a personal preference to not sniff Environmental Tobacco Smoke anywhere at any time under any conditions, would a randomly selected group of citizens who responded to The Times’ public announcement have to add for legislators on the subject of worker place standards? We then ask who is the Northwest Tobacco Free Partnership? Where does funding for this special-interest partnership and its lobbying trip come from? According to The Times’ notice we have the ultimate "Free-Lunch" here: free bus ride, free access to legislators, criticism-free and unchallenged speech directly with legislators, and a free lunch thrown in! Tobacco settlement use of National Public Education Fund money, as stated in Section VI. (h.) of the November 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), expressly forbids use of that money to lobby, yet this is clearly a citizen lobbying trip. And the discussions with legislators will undoubtedly echo statements by Washington Secretary of Health Mary C. Selecky that secondhand smoke kills, which vilifies smokers as killers of their fellow citizens -- in direct violation of the settlement’s language that prohibits use of National Public Education Fund money to vilify or demean any person or any group. Perhaps a principal architect of the MSA, Washington Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire, intended that the prohibition against using MSA funds to vilify any person or any group only applied to tobacco company executives, and not to persons who lawfully consume legal tobacco products, when she personally negotiated MSA language. So where's the bus that gives an equal-access free-ride to smokers to lobby against a statewide smoking ban? Where is the bus that picks up folks from restaurants and taverns in Pierce County, so they can ask legislators to respect the law about preemption and exemptions as it presently stands, and that Judge Culpepper already upheld? How many members of the general public solicited through this newspaper notice are workers who are actually exposed to secondhand smoke? How many smokers will show up at the Capitol at the same time those blessed with an anti-smoker free-ride are there? It is time to explore the extent to which out-of-state special interests are directly or indirectly involved with and coordinating promotion of a statewide smoking ban is in order. We put the below information in context of the ultimate out-of-state special-interest’s blunt agenda, a June 2003 research paper published by the Robert Wood Johnson funded Tobacco Control journal, "Estimating The Health Consequences Of Replacing Cigarettes With Nicotine Inhalers." I wrote about that research paper in "XXX Products," which includes several quotes. The paper’s author describes how a deeply inhaled, fast acting, and highly addictive new aerosol or powder nicotine inhaler could be employed to reduce tobacco use. The paper also states that nonsmokers could use the new nicotine inhaler. Apparently, consumers going cross-eyed toking a "Smoke Free" plastic stick pharmaceutical nicotine inhaler pseudo-cigarette is the way to achieve public health bliss. One genuinely wonders what else they’ve been toking in public health departments, such as Pierce County’s. Is there a secret pharmaceutical inhaler – distributed to and used only by self-anointed elitist public health officials -- that dispenses "Smoke Free" agenda hallucinatory policy mandates?James Repace, contributor to the George H.W. Bush administration's December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke, testified at the Pierce County hearing when the vote on the smoking ban took place. Repace has a direct $300,000 financial connection to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A consistently reliable source tells me that Pierce County paid Repace to appear at that hearing. Persons at Pierce County health who could confirm that are Kevin Knox and Rick Porso.Questions that make sense about Repace’s appearance at Pierce County to support its now-unlawful smoking ban are: 1. Was Repace paid from Tacoma Pierce county general fund, or other fund such as tobacco control? 2. Did Pierce County receive money from Legacy Foundation or RWJ foundation for all or part of the alleged payment to Repace? 3. Why was it not disclosed to the public at the time of his testimony before the board that Repace had significant and sustaining economic ties to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that could materially influence his testimony? Repace’s RWJF current grant does not complete until 2005. Repace is the fellow who recently testified that air exchanges of 34,000 times per hour (566 times per minute, or about 10 times per second) are necessary to remove secondhand smoke risk. CBS Online recently reported that story:Also related to the Pierce County ban and extending it to King County, please note that a member of the King County Board of Health who joined the board January 2003, Ray Nicola, works at the CDC on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Turning Point Initiative (managed through University of Washington) that used the services of Seattle’s Pyramid Communications. He has also previously served as a health officer in Tacoma and Seattle. Considering King County Councilwoman Edmonds’ attendance at a RWJF conference as a speaker which I previously reported (see "Press, Public Bamboozled?" in my corner at Forces) the links draw tighter. Ms. Edmonds said that she would love to see the Pierce County ban enacted in King County. There is also a Turning Point related effort on public health and the law that came up while researching that program.As to other RWJF related employees in King County government readers may want to check out Mark Wirschem who oversees a new $454,520 RWJF Reclaiming Futures grant No. 049710 to King County Superior Courts I have disclosed tape recordings of interviews with a Superior Court Judge and various staff members of that program that were conducted summer of 2003. At least two King County executive branch persons who influence county governance – Mr. Wirschem and Mr. Nicola – have direct professional and/or economic ties to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and one member of the King County Council (Ms. Edmonds) is at least indirectly associated with the foundation through her appearance at a conference sponsored by the foundation. See below for numerous examples of RWJF grants to King County. I believe that information merely scratches the surface about King County staff and RWJF grants because I have not yet tracked down all grants nor have I cross-referenced all persons who manage the programs with county employee lists. What is astounding to me is that we are observing explicit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program goals being forcefully implemented here in Washington as to both the restructuring of public health governance and legal process according to the foundation’s wishes. For example: The first link, " Project To Promote Public Health System With The Media," says:"The project addressed concerns within RWJF’s Turning Point Program – a national program to promote the reorganization of state and local health agencies . . ." Expressly and willfully violating state preemption statutes and industry-specific statutory exemptions – as Judge Culpepper recently concluded – is about as blunt-instrument an approach to reorganizing state and local health agencies as one can find. Such actions directly circumvent the will of our legislature. The second link , "Conference On the Public’s Health And Law In the 21st Century," says:" . . . to help states improve the performance of their public health functions through a state-level strategic assessment of public health’s mission, it’s relationship to the private sector, organizational structure and governance, work force capacity, accountability and sources of revenue." Pierce County enacting a smoking ban in willful violation of preemption statutes and statutory exemptions, thereby abruptly changing the organizational structure and governance of public health, quite directly addresses the subject of that conference. Having our attorney general who is clearly tied to RWJF tobacco control goals write a letter to Pierce County encouraging them to go ahead with a smoking ban and, in effect, reversing her offices 1998 opinion that such bans violate state preemption certainly helps in that regard. Using RWJF money to fund the American Lung Association’s 2001 I-773 successful 60 cents per pack cigarette tax initiative, for which 10 percent of the proceeds were dedicated to tobacco control and 90 percent of the proceeds are earmarked to expand health insurance for the poor certainly addresses new sources of revenue. Are we seeing in today’s Pierce County smoking ban, and attempts to
expand it to other counties, an aggressive implementation of RWJF policy
as previously expressed in the foundations program guidelines? Is the ALA’s
2001 I-773 (10% to anti-tobacco, 90% to fund expansion of medical
insurance) an extension of RWJF policy regarding funding sources for
public health? I believe that the evidence strongly suggests the answer to
both of those questions is "Yes." Could that demonstrated
ability to create new consumer-mandated sources for health funding also
apply to anti-obesity? My belief is yes it will. If 60 cents per pack of
cigarettes can be mandated by special-interests through our initiative
process to finance expanding health insurance for the poor, how can we
believe that we will not see a 25 cents per Big Mac or $1.00 per pizza to
finance anti-obesity programs and obesity related health care? Let’s put together a few known facts:
Based on the above very brief outline of facts, it is fair to say that there are millions of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dollars floating around the state of Washington that influence executive, legislative and judicial branch decisions at both the state and county level. Moreover, it is clear that such funds are managed to achieve the foundation’s goals through nationwide conference coordination. Finally, it is clear that those funds and the influence that they represent are not publicly disclosed. It is my personal experience with the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, the King County Council, and tobacco control advocacy groups that also have members on Attorney General Gregoire’s tobacco control task force, that such funding and its potential undue influence are often affirmatively denied when questions are raised by members of the public. Let us assume for a moment that all the above RWJF money and all the above-described relationships with the foundation is perfectly legal, totally above board, and impose no undue influence whatsoever on county or state policy decisions (that assumption is made by me with considerable tongue-in-cheek . . .) Even if that were true the above information has not been disclosed by county and state officials, it is not commonly known to voters, consumers, and business owners, and policy that goes precisely as outlined by RWJF still is implemented or enacted (even though sometimes overturned as in Pierce County.) The public still has a right to know about that information, particularly when the relationships with RWJF virtually mandate policy that directly and negatively effects lawful consumers of legal products, business owners, persons who have their differences litigated in Superior Court, and costs the state incurs by mandating policy in accordance with RWJF goal areas, etc. Just based on the above limited research, interesting subject areas present themselves. For example:
Having read to this point you are now more well-informed about smoking bans and other tobacco control issues that most politicians or reporters, even if you did not read any of the links. You have also acquired a historical perspective about the current push for a statewide smoking ban. And you have a considerable understanding of the vast sums of money that flow into our state from private foundation special-interests that do influence executive, legislative and judicial branch decisions at state and local levels. What you do with that information is up to you. But I urge you to consider the adage that all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to stand silent. We only get the quality of government that we deserve through our own inaction (and, truth to tell, probably less.) When considering what to do with this information do not feel that you must master every facet or comprehend every detail. Even anti-tobacco, with its multi-billion-dollar nationwide infrastructure, does not do that. Learn from what you observe tobacco control activists doing: they boil their issues down to a few repetitive mantras and mindlessly repeat them, forever, until they get what they want. Follow that example by simply writing down no more than a dozen points that are important to you from the above information, then communicate those points when the subject of tobacco control and smoking bans presents itself. By doing so you will become more professional, and have greater clarity that tobacco control advocates do. You will acquire that clarity because your statements will be own, no just regurgitation of the party line that assures next year’s grant. Then have the confidence of conviction that you understand a few important point about tobacco control that you believe others should know – so tell them. Ten minutes of informed conversation between several members of the voting public has more power that an hour of air time for Dr. Koop’s "talking head." And, in the final analysis, isn’t informed communication what government of the people by the people is really all about? People can only govern themselves if the understand the people’s business. You, as a citizen and consumer, certainly have as much right to informed communication as a professional activist grant junkie does. Like your vote, demand and exercise your right to communicate about the people’s business, too. Norman E. Kjono |