Christmas 1999 - Dear Readers,

Another year has gone by, and the war for liberties becomes more fierce with time.

As the anti-tobacco cartel strives to reach its (failed) goal of eradicating smokers and tobacco by the year 2000, there are still 70-80 millions of us in North America, way over 360 million in Europe, and over 1.2 billion in the whole world.

As this reality is driven home, the health Nazis are showing their colours more and more every day. And those colours are the ones of fascism, not health.

The year 2000 is not, as many believe, the beginning of the Third Millennium, but the end of the Second. This means that anti-tobacco 2000 will still be the greatest fraud of the 20th century for one more year!

Many more restrictions and infringements of our rights have been forced on us in 1999, and some of us are affected by the repression. Do not get depressed, as we have many things actually in our favour: the dark administration of Bill Clinton in the US has only a few months left to torture us, for example, and unless America votes for Al Gore, the anti-tobacco cartel may see the beginning of its end. The cartel knows that, and this is the very reason why it is trying to put in place as much junk science and prohibition as possible to make sure that its infamous legacy of hatred and scientific fraud stick with us for at least a few years.

Notwithstanding statistics that show a decrease in the number of US smokers (they are only based on legal sales of tobacco), the number of smokers has stayed the same, and there has been a sharp increase in the number of young smokers, indicating another fundamental failure of the cartel to control society. And by the way, who believes statistics issued by corrupt organisations anyway?

But why do I keep talking about America? Because the US is the battlefield. The antismoking cancer was born in America, but so were the antibodies. A defeat of the cartel in America will cause a cascade effect in other nations in the West.

FORCES has done much to contribute to the fight against prohibition and fraud, but it has not been the only one. Other SRGs have widely contributed to the struggle for freedom of choice.

Among them,

The National Smokers Alliance , Smokers Fighting Discrimination, The Smoker's Club, Californians For Smokers' Rights, American Smokers Alliance, North American Smokers Alliance, Mr. Smokers, Forest and other European Groups, and many others.

Personally and on behalf of FORCES, thanks to them all.

FORCES itself has grown and evolved thanks to the help of an ever-increasing number of dedicated people who have given an astonishing contribution to unveil the medical, statistical and political frauds of the anti-smoking establishment. Among them,

Martha Perske, Wanda Hamilton, Marty Ronhovdee, Carol Jensen, Carol Thompson, Paul Plakosh, Randall Voigt, Jack Little, Marty Ronhovdee, Cyrus Stow, Davit Hitt, "Smokin' Joe," Fred Collier (Derf), Hugh High, Jack from Houston, Jackie Miller, FORCES columnist James Leavey, FORCES columnist Judith Hatton, Lauren Colby, Don Oakley, author of the wonderful book Slow Burn - The Great American Antismoking Scam (a must-read for all), Otto Muensk, Pierre Lemieux, Rosalind Marimont, Steven Milloy, Terry Nicsch, Tom Graves, and Tom Oyler.

To them and to the ones who have not been mentioned, the most felt thanks for contributing to FORCES in so many ways.

A sincere thanks to the FORCES chapter heads for their exemplary dedication:

• Enoch (Andy) Ludlow, California
• Pat Hagen, Canada
• Walt Hanley, Georgia
• Tom Muller, Los Angeles
• Felt Lair, Minnesota
• Jesse Silverman, New York
• Joy Faulkner, New Zealand
• Karyn Kimberling, Virginia

A special thanks to the president of FORCES Inc. and FORCES USA, Raymond Sasso.

2000 will be truly a pivotal year in the battle against oppression, for the Millennial goal to eradicate the joy of smoking and persecute smokers will be at its peak. Already, in areas where this social cancer has rooted itself in a nearly-terminal way such as New Zealand and Western Canada, sick smokers are refused the medical care they are entitled to after they have paid for it both directly, and indirectly through tobacco taxes. In the US, episodes of harassment and violence against smokers are more and more frequent as the unrelenting propaganda, now fuelled by smokers' own money through the tobacco settlement, keeps drumming on the fraudulent health effects of primary and passive smoke. On the international scene the WHO, now just a mouthpiece of the United States and of the pharmaceutical industry, is instigating other governments to persecute smokers while presenting computer-generated statistical frauds on mortality as if they were real body counts. Many smokers will quit or hide for fear of violence, loss of job, or because of straight-out intimidation. But others will react and will not be intimidated, and the fight will continue.

The anti-tobacco fascists have to put one thing through their corrupted thick heads: WE WILL KEEP SMOKING, and we will do so under no-smoking signs, in restaurants, and everywhere it is "forbidden," for smoking is a RIGHT, and it cannot be taken away. Where that right is in conflict with non-smokers' right not to smell tobacco, accommodations are possible and must be implemented -- and this is not negotiable. We will fight prohibition legally, psychologically, politically and with any other means at our disposal. May of us are ready to face jail, and others to defend their rights directly. We will be after the anti-tobacco frauds for as long as prohibition lasts and beyond. This will not fade away, and no, we won't "just get used to it."

Cartel operatives, we will be after your lies until your frauds are exposed and understood by masses and politicians, and until we're back smoking in offices, restaurants and at home (and yes, with our children!) and until many of you are in jail under lock and key.

This is where tobacco and anti-tobacco, respectively, belong.

We will continue until no-smoking signs are in the only logical places they should be: near gas pumps, in operating theatres, and wherever the INDIVIDUAL - not the STATE - decides that they are appropriate.

How is that for a peaceful Christmas message?

In 1999, the FORCES website has been visited an estimated 1.7 million times from all over the world, notwithstanding the interruption caused by a fire that shut down our main server for over 40 days, forcing us onto an emergency server without a statistical engine. This indicates to us that the FORCES message of rebellion and denunciation against the cartel, as well as solidarity with smokers of all ages and walks of life, is expanding exponentially. In 2000, FORCES plans much expansion above and beyond the virtual reality of the Internet. We have many surprises in store for both our readers and the anti-tobacco cartel, but we will not reveal them here, for like for any good surprise, we don't want to spoil the excitement!

Many new sections and public services are also foreseen on our site. Among them, finally, spoken commentaries and talk shows, so that our readers will be able to listen to us while surfing the Internet, or better yet, browsing our huge site.

So, friends of liberty, do not get discouraged by the campaigns of fear by the health Nazis: they bought big microphones with money stolen from us, but all they have is hot, smelly air to blow into them! Remember that, though provided with the public money pipeline, the health cartel is an inefficient bureaucratic machine. For each one of us who spends little or nothing while opposing resistance that can be as simple as smoking where our right is denied, the antismoking gangsters and their enforcers have to spend huge amounts of money to maintain the pressure, and even more if they want to gain ground. Soon, the bastards will become such a drain on economy, somebody will have to shut down the leacky pipeline.

Let us keep on lighting up and, like a beautiful article by Walter E. Williams of World Net Daily said, let's "stand up to the Nazis, and make them smell our breath" -- after a smelly Tuscan cigar, may I add?

Correspondence with our readers has also increased enormously in 1999. In our FORUM, we post but a small cross-section of the letters we receive. The encouraging sign is that we are receiving the warmest support from young readers, who receive an additional dose of antismoking brainwashing at school. While many youngsters have unfortunately become the unwilling victims of distorted information and hate propaganda on tobacco and smokers, the brightest of them can see through the smokescreen, and they don't just resist the propaganda: they actively fight it and are even getting enraged at those who teach contempt and disrespect for their smoking parents!

Like all totalitarians, the anti-tobacco cartel wants to perpetuate itself in a new generation of haters, and it is working hard at it. The reaction of these young people against the cartel is a breath of fresh air, and a bright ray of hope not just for a habit that is trivial in itself, but much more importantly, for the fundamental concept that the health establishment does not have the right (nor we do we want it to have the duty), to forcefully impose behaviour through propaganda, fraud and/or legislation. The duty of a responsible health establishment should and must be limited to objective and unbiased information. Heavy-duty advocacy must be legislated out of publicly-funded activities.

It is with this determination to achieve a future without anti-tobacco that I take my leave. Have a peaceful Christmas and a pleasant beginning of 2000. Light up your cigarettes, pipes and cigars, and enjoy them in peace with your families and without guilt, for each time you light up, you substantially contribute to the economic well-being of all -- something you should be proud of. Those who don't smoke can have a toast with an alcoholic drink. And those who hate smoking should really give it a try.

They may realise finally what they are missing!

Yours for an antitobacco-free future.

Gian Turci
FORCES Inc. C.E.O.,
FORCES INTERNATIONAL