WHO And Mayor Bloomberg Fuel Anti-Smoking Propaganda 
 Saturday, February 9th, 2008 

The World Health Organization released a ridiculous report Thursday, financed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (NYC-R), claiming that up to a billion people could be killed by tobacco in the 21st century.  The report included a six-point program for fighting the tobacco industry: including raising cigarette taxes, banning smoking in public places, monitoring tobacco use, warning people of the dangers, etc.  New York City, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, has been among the strictest of bans against tobacco, with only 5% of the entire world having smoking laws like the Big Apple.

Mayor Bloomberg, the Andrew Volstead of tobacco products, proudly announced the report by saying in a grading system "The United States would get a C or a D," and New York City an A or a B, with regard to cracking down on smoking.

Now, let me tell you why this ridiculous, and why this is dangerous.

First off:  Mayor Bloomberg's own city, as we've previously reported, has the same problems the rest of the world does with narrowing down causes of death due to lung cancer - there are almost endless possibilities as to what can lead to the disease, including but not limited to genetics, exposure to pollutants in the air (more concentrated in some work environments than others), all the way to prescription drugs that have this unfortunate side effect in some patients.

However, when it is revealed that an individual is a smoker to medical examiners, the investigation into cause of death often grinds to a halt and is chalked up to tobacco use instead.

It's a smear campaign of the utmost discrimination - to both social and regular smokers - who make the choice to chew or light up and who cannot help but realize (from the ban on cigarette commercials, the Surgeon General's warnings, the health warning introduced to children in schools at such a young age) that smoking is a habit that may be a danger to one's health:  but no more and no less than abusing alcohol.

Yet alcohol is not banned, and liver disease reports on alcohol not pushed in the mass media like antismoking propaganda is.

Both are choices.  But one of them is socially accepted; and the other used to be, but is now under fire by reports that project numbers to an invented accuracy.

Secondly:  what Mayor Bloomberg will fail to tell you, is how extremely damaging this type of mindset is to our economy.  While Japan Tobacco Inc.'s group net profit just rose 24% in the last quarter (the Tokyo-based owners of products like Camel's), Altria (the US-based owners of Philip Morris Companies, with brands like Marlboro's and Basic's) are forced to create a spin-off tobacco company based in Switzerland in an attempt to avoid the lawsuits against American cigarette manufacturers and each other everywhere from local to Supreme Court's.

And off we go, sending more jobs overseas, that we so desperately need here. Japan's international tobacco sales are spiking; and here in America, we are accepting the media and our politicians' Prohibition Era-mentality towards the same end:  our own personal choice.

"Perhaps it should come as no surprise to me that you published three letters lambasting Philip Morris for its new overseas business plan," Jeremy Siegel wrote to The Wall Street Journal.  "Anytime a tobacco company makes any attempt to increase its profit there is an outcry of 'murder' and 'negligence' from all corners.

"Let's just set the record straight:  Any person who is presently smoking is making a personal choice to participate in a behavior that is well publicized to be hazardous to one's health.  I refuse to accept the idea that companies like Philip Morris should cease to exist...Should they be outlawed?  At some point personal choice needs to enter the equation."

I've written on the subject multiple times...but I doubt I could have said it better myself.  I agree with the superior job teachers and schools do to educate children on the dangers of smoking.  But once a person reaches a legal age:  there just should not be a blacklist ban on any group of people.  As long as there are bars, and they are owned by private business owners, those business owners and their state officials should be making it as easy as possible for our businesses - and that includes bars, restaurants, arenas, what-have-you, as well as our own tobacco farmers and cigarette manufacturers - at least as free from persecution as they are in Japan, for crying out loud.

Let's make a resolution for BOTH sides, and present it to the next President of the United States of America with all of your signatures!! This petition to the Federal and state governments requests we encourage states to assign a portion of tobacco tax towards the designation of a closed-off, ventilated room for smokers in public facilities and private facilities that CHOOSE to do so, to benefit both smokers and nonsmokers. Instead of banning smoking and sending our tobacco taxes to other people's health care that are concerned about second-hand smoke, we could be easily nipping this in the bud by creating the successful ventilation regulations that many areas have adapted. Sign the petition today, and get your Smokers' Rights Freedom Fighter Graphic!

Click here to get your Stop Exporting American Jobs graphic! For a list of states where you can and cannot smoke, click here. A handy travel guide!

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