If you're as confused as I am about youth smoking rates (one day we read they're down, the next day we read they're up), check out Wanda's article and you'll see why you're confused.

It's posted on NSA's website -- http://www.smokersalliance.org -- under WHAT'S NEW, "Anti-tobacco Doubletalk on Smoking Rates: Or Who's Smoking What?"

As you might guess, it depends on whether it's beneficial for the anti-tobacco clan to say the rates are up or beneficial to say the rates are down, "depending on the funding and legislation of the moment."

Wanda caught them, simply by using their own words.

Martha

[This message has been edited by Martha Perske (edited 02-25-2000).]

Today's news brings published spin doctoring by anti junk scientist Michael Siegel whose latest "study" proports to show that the heavily-funded Massachusetts anti-tobacco advertising campaign has been successful in reducing underage smoking. Actually, the underage smoking rates in Massachusetts were higher in l999 than they were in l990, three years before the ad campaign began. Even Siegel's study found that the ads had no effect on those 14 or older, and during the course of his study, 25% of the teens involved became smokers.

The study was funded by the pharmaceutical money of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which spends mucho dinero each year in fighting tobacco use and promoting cessation and cessation products (products such as, for example, Johnson & Johnson's Nicotrol).