March 2, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up VI - The bad news first.  Lawsuits based on constitutional and property rights are never successful in overturning smoking bans.  This fact is ugly businesses that wish to cater to their smoking customers but is far uglier for the nation as a whole since it is one more indication that this country has divorced itself from the principles that once were its underpinnings.  The good news is that businesses are finally shedding their illusions that the property rights hold any value for a legal and legislative system that long ago turned over too much of their prerogatives unelected, unaccountable and radically out of touch health-related organizations.  Norman Kjono reports on the positive developments in tactics to end the plague of prohibition.  In addition he relates how smoking ban proponents, when faced with their victims' opposition, are creating a myth that those who do value property rights and scientific integrity are violent troglodytes who must be firmly suppressed.

February 28, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up V - How long would products, especially those that have been judged risky, remain on the market or legal if the manufacturers of these products took out ads decrying them and advising consumers not to buy them.  Not long in the capitalist society in which we live.  We have, however, a huge American corporation that pursues such a lunatic marketing plan and it does very well indeed.  How is this possible?  Norman Kjono explains this apparent contradiction and also weighs in on how the secondhand smoke of the elite is somehow not dangerous at all and how Joe Sixpack is stuck with the tax bill that the champagne sippers don't want to pay.

February 26, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up IV - Non-compliance is the name of the game in Colorado as a growing number of bars refuse to obey the statewide smoking ban.  For them it is a matter of survival.  Data indicate that whenever smoking bans come to town (or to state) patronage dips way down.  Complying with unjustified smoking bans is not an option so law-abiding business people become lawbreakers so they can make payroll and feed their families.  As Norman Kjono reports it isn't just Colorado that is sharply questioning the imposition of prohibition as more states slam the breaks on smoking bans.  More people and businesses are becoming aware that most ventilation systems render indoor air quality suitable for the standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that sets standards for healthy workplace conditions.

February 22, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up III - We are happy to present an audio stream for the Chuck Baker radio show on which Norman Kjono appeared this week. The specific subject is Colorado's draconian smoking ban, a ban that is not being accepted by the good citizens of that state. In addition Mr. Kjono explains why it is absolutely crucial to bring up the secondhand smoke fraud when fighting each and every smoking ban. A reliance strictly on the sanctity of property rights has not served us well in this era where "Public Health and Safety" trumps all arguments used to promote freedom of choice. Kill the secondhand smoke fraud and smoking bans are history.

February 21, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up II - Norman Kjono's appearance on the Chuck Baker show yesterday provided food for thought to the growing opposition to smoking bans.  We expect a link to the show to be available soon.  In the meanwhile Mr. Kjono features an extremely interesting dialog he is having with a Colorado resident who lustily endorses smoking bans.  The tired canard of "show me where in the Constitution it states that you have the right to smoke" makes a vacuous appearance and is deftly answered, especially considering yesterday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the tobacco industry.  We don't often post anti-tobacco, anti-smoking or anti-smoker comments but in this case we felt the confrontation between Mr. Kjono and a dyed-in-the-wool and doctrinaire layman would be useful and entertaining for our viewers.

February 20, 2007 - Opposition to Smoking Bans Heats Up - With all the bad news these days about smoking bans it is important not to let the mainstream media's biases obscure the good news that, believe it or not, is percolating through society.  Norman Kjono has compiled an impressive list of serious efforts to overturn various smoking bans.  He discusses these positive trends on the Chuck Baker Show today.  As we all know the foundation upon which all smoking bans are based is made of sand.  Getting the word out is critical.  We thank Chuck Baker for allow us to present the facts about smoking bans and we recommend that those who live in Colorado and can access 1580 AM give Mr. Kjono a listen.  An Internet stream is available for those outside the area.  The Chuck Baker Show begins at 1:06 PM (Mountain States Time).

February 19, 2007 - Dear Mr. Fancher - The editor at large for The Seattle Times released a cri du coeur lamenting the potential demise of the antique media, including his newspaper.  His heartfelt threnody included shrinking newspaper readership and declining profit margins.  Less than half of the public regularly reads a newspaper, Mr. Editor laments.  Those swept into a paroxysm of grief over the pending annihilation of organs such as The Seattle Times would be well served to examine the record of this paper's embrace of anti-tobacco junk science, strident advocacy for higher and higher tobacco taxes and its relentless demonization of people who choose lawfully to consume a legal product.  This paper, as well as most others, have chosen to promote demonstrable lies about tobacco.  Why should it be given credence about any other issue before the public?  Norman Kjono offers a eulogy for an organization that long ago shirked its responsibilities to inform.

February 15, 2007 - Urinal Cakes Support Public Health Policy, Too! - The men's room will no longer provide a respite from the hectoring world if an experiment in New Mexico takes hold.  Instead of relief those relieving themselves will be harangued by a chirpy female voice give a lecture about the dangers of drinking and driving.  The voice will issue from the urinal, undoubtedly causing the bar patron to spray wildly as he attempts to locate the voice's source.  Bathroom messiness is the least of our problems as the behavior police intrude ever further into every moment of our lives.  Norman Kjono, as only he can, takes the absurd talking urinal cake to the all too predicable outer limits.

February 12, 2007  - The Light Begins to Break Through, II - Giving meaning to the old adage of "better late than never", the mainstream press is finally taking a gander at the ties between the anti-smoking movement and the pharmaceutical industry.  Ties may be too mild noun for the relationship between Big Drugs and anti-tobacco.  Partnership is more appropriate as evidence emerges that prominent anti-smoking spokesmen are being paid by the manufacturers of smoking cessation nostrums to rail against smoking and to tout the usage of the products that purportedly make quitting smoking a breeze.  Norman Kjono, who has been aware of the tight links between the anti-tobacco movement and the pharmaceutical industry for a very long time, takes us through the webs that operate more for the financial benefit of corporations than for public health.

February 5, 2007  - Some Legislators Get It About Smoking Ban's Negative Impact - A bi-partisan group of Hawaii state representatives have introduced a bill that would restore the right of bar, restaurant and nightclub owners to set their own smoking policies.  The bill is in response to the record of financial losses facing the hospitality industry after smoking was arbitrarily banned.  Norman Kjono reports this happy turn of events and contrasts these legislators who "get it" with those in Colorado who are still unclear about what to do regarding prohibition in that state.  The Colorado experiment demonstrates clearly why government should keep its heavy hands off private property where a legal product is enjoyed at the discretion of the property owner.

February 2, 2007 - Legislature Takes Smoking Down to the Millimeter - The pharmaceutical corporations, on high looking down on the Washington State legislature, issued a new order and, lo, it was obeyed with the utmost alacrity.  This time the lawmakers are furthering the smoking cessation racket by requiring the cigarette companies to alter their cigarettes so that they won't burn.  No burning cigarettes, no accidental fires but best of all smokers will abandon the distasteful "fire retardant" cigarettes and take up smoking cessation nostrums.  Norman Kjono explains how the pharmaceutical companies and their handmaidens in the legislature pass ever more intrusive laws to further the mercantile agenda of Big Drugs.  Law making ain't pretty but this bit of sausage making is truly revolting.

February 1, 2007  - An epidemic of bigotry - Just a few years ago people laughed when presented with the proposition that anti-smoking campaigns will inevitably lead to physical violence against smokers.  The laughter is a bit hollow but few people even now believe that violence is the inevitable end to state-approved propaganda that target one group of people.  Norman Kjono knows better.  He has watched the progress of anti-smoking activity and is usually not surprised at the increasingly blatant hatred displayed against smokers.  He was taken aback, however, with a recent opinion piece published by the rabidly anti-tobacco San Francisco Chronicle that exceeded even the hateful rhetoric of the Puritanical anti-smokers operating in his hometown of Seattle.  Both San Francisco and Seattle imagine themselves to be bastions of progressive thought, tolerance and acceptance.  People who live there, of course, know better but, as No butts about it makes glaringly clear, a line between mere distain and actual violence is being blurred.  Certainly a hateful piece that gloatingly advocates violence would not have been printed even in San Francisco a few years ago.  On a positive note Bay Area residents did object as these letters to the editor (final two letters) attest.

January 26, 2007 [03:00 GMT] - About Dogs and Smokers - When smokers were thrown out of Washington State bars the spin masters in the press and anti-tobacco assured the public that "clean air" would draw the throngs into the establishments that depended upon smokers for survival.  The throngs of nonsmokers haven't materialized but the spinners keep spinning.  For the legislature comes a proposal to allow hospitality venues the option of permitting customers to bring their dogs onto the premises.  As one canine enthusiast said, dog owners, if allowed to bring their pets, would be more likely to go out on the town.  Oddly that same logic applied to smokers, namely they would be likelier to frequent bars and restaurants if they could smoke, is completely discounted by the behavior modification artists that now run the state.  Some people truly are more equal than others as Norman Kjono observes.

January 23, 2007 - Poor Pfizer - Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is closing plants and laying of thousands off workers.  Quel dommage.  The company's latest problems coincide with its halting development of a cholesterol drug but its malaise runs deeper than one aborted attempt to foist yet another drug upon the public.  Pfizer, through subsidiaries, is a big time player in the smoking cessation rackets and recently introduced a nicotine receptor blocker, a product that appears designed to ensnare the smoker who believes that nicotine is bad.  Other smokers are offered a panoply of produces infused with "good" pharmaceutical nicotine.  The bottom line for all these nostrums is explained by Norman Kjono who has studied the mercantile machinations of anti-tobacco extensively.

January 22, 2007 - Lucky Susan Paynter - One of the charms of tobacco control is how it deludes itself by seeing itself as a benign force for good.  Actually only the lower echelons see it in that light for the ones who run tobacco control know damn well that they are in this racket for the money and power it brings them.  Susan Paynter is a useful idiot who is not only deluded about the true nature of tobacco control but who is incapable of examining life outside her narrow prejudices and circle of friends just as blind as herself.  Nuances are not for the Susan Paynter's of the world but for a nuanced view of anti-tobacco bigotry we can go to Norman Kjono who derives much amusement from watching a soi-disant progressive cheerfully betray any true progressive thoughts or emotions that rattle around a vacant brain.

January 19, 2007 - Washington’s Jim Crow Legislators - For the past few years stories about a few companies that have decided to not hire, or in some cases even terminate smokers, have angered the nation.  People may hate smoking but most fair-minded folk are highly opposed to organizations discriminating against those who lawfully enjoy a legal product on their own time.  Anti-tobacco has been able, so far, to get away with lying to the public about the risks of secondhand smoke and the impact of primary smoking but the movement faced a public relations disaster when it became clear that the goal all along has been to force people to quit smoking even if it meant depriving them of the right to make a living.  From Washington State, always in the forefront of anti-tobacco legislation, comes word of a bill that the authors describe as providing job protection for employees who smoke.  Norman Kjono has some thoughts on this bill and, as is often the case, the politicians' motives are less than transparent.

January 18, 2007 - Politics, Housing, and Tobacco Control - The progressive, up-to-date citizens of Washington State decreed through a voter initiative in 2005 that smoking would be forbidden everywhere with some significant exceptions.  Exempted from the smoking ban are Tribal businesses such as casinos, which include bars and restaurants.  The Indians are ardent supporters of the state-wide smoking ban since it affects them very positively for they now have the monopoly on hospitality venues were customers can enjoy smoking.  The other significant exemption were private homes.  This exemption was constantly highlighted in the campaign literature supporting the smoking ban.  Smoking wouldn't be prohibited.  Smokers at restaurants and bars merely had to step outside (moving 25 feet away from the door) if they wanted a smoke.  They could also smoke their brains out in the homes.

That was then.  A mere year later, the same people promising that smokers would be left alone in their homes are agitating to insert the power of the state into people's houses.  Norman Kjono highlights the deliberate lies, the distortion of facts and the truly ugly plan to turn people out of their residences.  The first to suffer, of course, will be the elderly and the poor.  Pay attention to this since the Washington plan will be replicated throughout this country.

January 15, 2007 - California’s Proposition 86: A Review of Voting Patterns and Broader Issues - Much has been written about why Proposition 86, an initiative to impose a tobacco tax, failed. The reasons cited include low voter turnout, heavy opposition advertising by tobacco companies, and shifting support among traditional voters on such ballot measures. Each of the preceding views have merit and they do identify circumstances unique to both Proposition 86 and the November 2006 general election. It is apparent, however, that there may be deeper, more fundamental, influencing forces at work. Those fundamentals go to the core of personal beliefs. As reported in survey responses for Proposition 86, factors that influence voter choices include distrust of governing institutions and ballot measure sponsors to assure that new funding is applied as represented by proponents. It is also apparent that voters incorporate new information concerning the nature and purposes of tobacco control advocacy in their decisions. The underlying forces present deeper long-term implications than issues concerning one ballot measure or a specific election. The purpose of this work is to examine fundamental underlying forces that appear to influence the degree to which voters approve of specific cigarette taxes and to address the broader issue of public support for tobacco control advocacy.

December 17, 2006 - Best of the holidays - Some see a glass half full while others see it as half empty.  Norman Kjono, however, sees it as overflowing with positive developments.  Is he a closet Pollyanna?  Hardly.  Few have examined the pathologies of anti-tobacco with a more critical eye or more coldly accessed the damage it inflicts upon the culture.  In this Merry Christmas message, however, he persuasively encourages those who value human dignity and liberty that agendas defined as "anti" cannot survive.  He sees, in fact, the beginnings of the final stage where the "agenda afflicted" and "anti-mentality" activists start to consume themselves.  His cheerful message commences the healthists' and social engineers' obituary and will warm the hearts of those who despair.

December 13, 2006 - How breaking wind grounded a jet - The country snickered over the recent news that a jet made an emergency landing after a woman passed gas on a flight from Washington DC to Dallas.  It wasn't that odor that ignited the panic button but the poor woman's attempt to obscure the smell by lighting a match.  Bomb sniffing dogs found the offending matches on her seat.  The woman was released without charge but had the cabin air been thoroughly examined the airline might have faced charges since air quality took a nose dive when smoking was banned from the friendly skies.  Norman Kjono examines the real threat to our mental and physical health.

November 30, 2006 - That's Ridiculous! - The old adage of "lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas" is particularly apt when discussing the medical establishment's rapturous collaboration with the charlatans and con men who make up anti-tobacco.  From trafficking with tort-whore lawyers to behavior dictators, the medical profession consistently declines when it embraces the criminals who have grown rich off the anti-smoking rackets.  So far the doctors haven't gotten the message that anti-tobacco is harmful to their health but could, as Norman Kjono relates, if the pincers squeezing them get even tighter should a new money-making scheme proposed by anti-tobacco get off the ground.

November 22, 2006 - $1 Trillion is More than Enough - It strikes me as a cultural aberration that charities with $1 trillion in combined endowments stridently hustle folks who balance their budget by mere dollars for more. It is an absurdity that organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association turn donor contributions around to finance state-wide initiatives that levy more taxes on all taxpayers and increase costs for all consumers.

November 3, 2006 - Tobacco Tax Initiative Is a Costly Pro-Business Hoax - From the pages of the Los Angeles Daily Journal forum of November 2: "...What has not been disclosed is the plan to replace tobacco nicotine delivery devices with nicotine replacement tools. The measure will force a tax spread between tobacco and nontobacco that will assure significant profits for nicotine replacement device distributors. Should Proposition 86 pass, nonsmokers who went into the voting booth to tax the other guy who smokes to pay for health care programs will actually turn state cigarette tax revenues into corporate subsidies." Use the zoom tool of your Acrobat Reader to enlarge the text if needed.

October 31, 2006 - The Agenda-Afflicted Rose In Full Bloom - There is much ballyhoo in the press today about the winds for change on the political front based on next week’s elections. That the winds of change blow with uncommon velocity is self-evident. But what new direction does that wind portend? Are we to merely replace Republican “Deciders” with Democrat “Deciders”?

October 30, 2006 - Tobacco Company Files Suit to Enforce Federal Court Ruling - My initial response was to question why the headline for your article did not – more accurately – read “Tobacco Company Files Suit to Enforce Federal Court Ruling.” Are we citizens to believe that the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, and other state health departments, have unlimited license to ignore previous rulings of our federal courts and that companies that lawfully manufacture legal tobacco products have no legitimate legal recourse? I also read the statement by Mayor Nickel’s spokesperson, Marty McOmber, with tongue firmly in cheek: "It appears to be the tobacco industry once again trying to use its legal muscle to try to undermine some common sense public health regulations in this city and county." As I read the above quote from Mr. McOmber the following information from the referenced Robert Wood Johnson Foundation documents came to mind:

October 13, 2006 - They're beginning to get it in Colorado - The below link to an article in the Denver Post should be of immediate interest. It not only addresses the issue of unwarranted damages to small business tavern owners imposed by smoking bans but it also brings to the fore constitutional issues that the District Attorney is pursuing in the U.S. District Court.

October 4, 2006 - California Nonsmokers Poised to Vote Their Own Tax Increase - "...The additional information also concerns facts that tobacco control advocates aware of, but have not disclosed in their advocacy to pass $2.1 billion in new taxes. Information that is not disclosed raises the possibility that the 70 percent of nonsmokers who would vote “Yes” are ultimately voting for a $2.1 billion per year in tax increases on themselves. I explain why below, in context of what we citizens in Washington have experienced after passing a similar cigarette tax ballot measure, Initiative to the People 773, in November 2001."

September 29, 2006 - How the Pharmaceutical industry, with the complicity of Philip Morris, wants to establish a nicotine market monopoly using trash science and legislation -  f readers really want to do "something" to begin to break the back of the anti-tobacco criminal enterprise, now is the time. If the bills pass it means serious trouble for smokers - more that meets the eye. Those bills will make it possible for those who finance the antis such as Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to garner literally billions in profits by replacing heavily taxed cigarettes with ZERO TAXED “Smoke Free” nicotine delivery devices and pocket the tax differential as pure profit.

September 10, 2006 - The mysteries of Governor Gregoire, part III - Final part of the analysis of the misrepresentation of facts by Washington's Governor Gregoire.

September 4, 2006 - 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.

September 2, 2006 - The mysteries of Governor Gregoire - 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.

February 10, 2006 - Littering with secondhand fat - Norman Kjono talks about the war, not on obesity or smoking, but on the working class.  It's Robin Hood in reverse as the elite riffles the pockets of the poor and middle class, remorselessly promoting its thieving ways as the path towards happiness and good health.