March 21, 2003 - One of the reasons I am in this fight is that it never ceases to amaze me, and I am a sucker for excitement. The other day a reader sent me an interesting link to an antismoking site (if the link does not work, click here), where it is “revealed” that FORCES and I are involved with the tobacco industry. Mind you, this has been the antis’ deranged line all along. Many told me that what is “revealed” is so small and irrelevant, I shouldn’t even bother wasting my time to comment. Perhaps they are right. Nevertheless, I have decided to write a few lines -- and have some fun. Certainly, it is not because I feel that I need to justify or explain myself and FORCES to a bunch of parasites who lie for a living, nor do I think that having a relationship with an industry that happens to be demonised by professional cons would be wrong.

Rather, I write this because I want to highlight the pettiness and the paucity of antitobacco in general, and its desperate grasping at straws. Furthermore, I want to highlight the depth of the intellectual and moral corruption of antitobacco operatives. To them, it is inconceivable to defend the right of self-determination and the integrity of science and institutions unless one is paid off to do it – just as they are paid to disseminate statistical junk science, hate, and false information on smoking. I don’t know of any major antismoking organisation that is not paid either by the pharmaceutical industry, and/or by a myriad of state funds anywhere in the world. And they ain’t working for beans, either: we are talking about literally hundreds of millions of dollars disappearing in the pockets of these… people. The Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights is one example. Just a quick check through The Evidence archive showed me that they are paid by Big Pharma, for example. Being sold out to Big State and Big Pharma pays well – and unfortunately there are those on our side who are naïve enough to still believe that immoral behaviour will be punished, one day. I hope for everyone’s sake that they are right, but I am much more cynical about that. I believe that when corruption pervades the system, it is bound to become the bent institutional ruler to measure twisted morality.

So, what happened in 1997? Exactly this: I contacted the now defunct Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council as a PR cold call, and in the hope to make them understand that the defensive and evasive (almost apologetic) posture taken by the tobacco industry was dead wrong. It is quite clear that the “science” behind antitobacco is a distortion at best, and a total fraud at worst – and worst is much more common. Mr. McDonald, a great guy with intelligence, great integrity and a clear vision of the situation, found our position interesting, and invited me to deliver a speech in Ottawa at the following meeting of the CTMC. He offered to pay for all the expenses, but I preferred to get there on my own money. Why? Because I can think like a crook (I just choose not to be one), and I was concerned that what is happening now was exactly what would have happened – and I was right. In fact, I even paid the cab from the airport! What did I accept from Big Evil Tobacco? Lunch at a classy smoking restaurant before the speech, which turned out to be non-productive, as most of the participants were more interested in the latest, glossy PR publication featuring stupid girls smoking cigs (and also, to flirt with the female participants to the meeting) than to take positive action, and bring the antitobacco cons to court. I did a bang up speech (if I may say so myself), and many listened – but not enough, as they felt they were so safe in their ivory towers to be untouchable, and that a “good” PR campaign was all that was needed. Smiling with complacency on the sinking ship is the happy death of the fool, and look at them now. In that occasion I also met another great guy, Dr. John Luik, with whom I established some exchange of data and cooperation, as well as a warm, human relation.

Returning to British Columbia where I was living at the time, I sent the fax now “exposed” (if the link does not work, click here - to see the fax directly, click here) to Mr. McDonald out of common courtesy. Fortunately for the antismokers, nothing came out of that contact. Why “fortunately?” Because if we had obtained some serious tobacco money, the situation would be quite different by now -- in Canada and elsewhere. But the tobacco industry seems to be too chicken to fight, and it prefers to hide and dodge lies rather than taking grifters to court and exposing their frauds to the public.  That passivity has been its undoing, and it may become its extinction. As I said, I see nothing wrong in taking tobacco money – providing that it is enough to put up a good fight. The purpose of FORCES is to destroy antitobacco and its lies, and to restore scientific integrity, liberty, and self-determination. We know that we are dealing with fanatics who have too much power, and with crooks; we also know that “reasoning” with them is just as good as reasoning with a convinced Nazi. We have a lot of ammo, but our guns are too small to fire them far enough. So, the health Nazis better pray that the tobacco industry (and the hospitality industry, just to mention another one) keeps having no balls and no direction, and keeps being fearful of our approach – for if that would change, I am sure that new prisons would have to be built, and that all the great “professors” who now lecture everyone on anything from false mortality statistics to passive smoke to movie contents for Big Pharma denaro would eventually reside in them. There has to be no compassion for deceiving public and governments.

So, that’s that about the “Canadian event”. But I have even more stunning revelations for you, dear ANSR! Hear this: in the same year, my wife went to Las Vegas for a Smokers’ Rights meeting that turned out to be basically a visit to a Luna Park. Her trip was paid by the now extinct American Smokers’ Alliance with money from a tobacco manufacturer (I don’t remember which one). WOW! Stuff this in your hole and smoke it!

Concerning Mr. Bagatelos, he just happened to be an excellent lawyer who did a good job for a good price. The job? Getting us the non-profit status in the US. What about him being a “Philip Morris man?” We did not know, but even if we did, so what? Connections between FORCES and PM? Impossible: who wants to have connections with a company without balls? THEY would be too afraid! And even PM’s documentation (if the link does not work, click here - to access the document directly, click here) shows no connection – unfortunately for them. Links with other tobacco companies? None so far, but we’ll let you know if something solid comes up -- with the first lawsuit… and by the way, when are we going to audit ANSR to establish if there is no one else who pays them off, other than Big Pharma, and how much of OUR (smokers') tax money has been used to produce these dossiers and enemy lists?

The conspiracy theories of the antismoking crooks become more pathetic every day, and people can see that clearer and clearer. I’ll smoke one (under a no smoking sign) to that, and if someone from ANSR comes close enough, I will smoke it right in his face – to no avail, mind you, since the dangers of passive smoke are a fraud. As long as antitobacco sucks off public and pharmaceutical money, the saga will never end; perhaps one day we’ll read something like this:

Go climb a tree. Not even in 300 years antitobacco will be able to prove the harms of tobacco anymore than they can prove our involvement with the tobacco industry. And they will still ask for waste grants to prove the indemonstrable with propaganda – talking about addiction to something!

Gian Turci
FORCES Italiana, president
FORCES International, C.E.O.