I spend alot of time thinking about the smoking issue and recently it occurred to me to look out on the net to see what anti-smokers were saying about pro-smoking rights groups. I put a good amount of effort into it. I won't bore all of you with a bunch of links and references. Here's what I have to report back.

There is not only a voice for pro-smoking rights on the internet, there is a ROAR. I didn't keep any statistics on the whole thing, but there are alot of people out there who feel the same way we do and are making the same points we do. On a Google search you'll find tons of people who are angry about the anti-smoking movement.

It seems, though, that we are all preaching to the choir. In the same way that no one heard the screams of Kitty Genovese because of a phenomenon called "diffusion of responsibility", no one has heard our screams. I would guess that this because:

1) With exception of people like Audrey Silk at C.L.A.S.H and the people at FORCES, and others, no one wants to stand up in a crowd and take the anti-smoking heat.

2) People who choose to smoke didn't anticipate all of this and didn't organize. I think this is probably because we never thought that we would have to, we shouldn'thave had the need to think that we would have to, and, to be honest, we didn't have that much in common when we started. It's a bit like trying to rally people together because they own a hair dryer. The whole scenario is a bit odd, really. Tobacco is a consumer product and this is America. My God--who would ever think they would have to defend his/her self for that?

3)There's money in anti-smoking. There's no money in pro-smoking rights.

4)We've been silenced by laws that forbid tobacco advertising and pro-smoking rights doesn't have the funding, or the unity, to launch its own campaign.

So what do anti-smokers think of pro-smoking rights groups?

Well...nothing new as far as I can tell. They think pretty much what they've thought from the beginning:

1) Despite the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, I've never even brushed up against an employee of a tobacco company in the street, my pro-smoking views are a result of my nefarious ties to "Big Tobacco".

2) Despite being an educated adult who fully understands every ramification for his behavior, I'm just so enticed by the seductive, ever-present advertising of tobacco companies that I just can't take it and give in to the urge. (That camel suuuure is sexy!)

3)Despite the fact that there are now more former smokers than smokers in the United States, I'm just so addicted that I have to spend my time posting on forums like this one, typing posts like this one, in the desperate hope that I can keep my heroine-like addiction going. And, don't you know, if I quit, not long after, as if bitten by a vampire, I'll become an anti-smoker!

4) Despite the fact that I've spent many a late night learning the basics of epidemiology and scouring the net for mortality tables, I have no knowledge about smoking, I think that smoking has no consequences for my health, and I underestimate the risks of my behavior.

5) I deny the fact that I'm harming others through my smoking. Ummmm...that's actually correct. I do deny the idea that I'm harming others by smoking.

6) Despite the fact that I didn't begin smoking until I was an adult, don't have a tattoo, have never owned a cell phone and have a wonderful tendency for presenting unpopular ideas in mixed company, I started smoking because I wanted to "look cool and fit in".

7) The anti-smoking ads only play on the televisions and radios of anti-smokers. I mean, a denial of an idea presented in these always truthful mediums... I mean.. DUH!

8) Human beings live forever if they don't smoke. Death is an avoidable, imaginary, far away thing for abstract old people (that young people never become) who are painlessly picked up by a flight of angels and sent directly to heaven without judgement as a reward for their good behavior.

9) Despite the fact that I know, for a fact (that is verfied for me each day via my profession), that engaging in my behavior largely CONTRIBUTES to health care that mostly benefits non-smokers, I'm increasing health care costs.

10) Despite five to eight decades of footage showing that non-smokers aren't annoyed by tobacco smoke, despite my memory of very rare complaints by non-smokers about smoking (who were regarded as "health nuts"), and despite the fact that I was a non-smoker at the time, who once refused to buy a pack of cigarettes for my freshman college roommate because I was too embarassed to do so (lest someone I didn't know thought I smoked), most non-smokers are now delicate little flowers who cough when a cigarette is lit up 50 feet away from them in open air, are allergic to cigarette smoke, but not allergic to camp fires or car exhaust or marijuana. The decades of my experience otherwise, despite the fact that tobacco companies weren't allowed to advertise on TV or radio,are irrelevant because everyone was brainwashed by tobacco companies.

Bottom Line: If you're like me, you've become educated regarding the issue since anti-smoking swung into action in your area. Good News: People like you are screaming at the top of their lungs. Bad News: No one is listening but us and anti-smoking is singing the same song it has for years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

That sums things up quite nicely.

Good job Winston...I am going to save your post to pass along, with your credits, of course.
Thank you!

Great post, thanks. I think you hit all the nails sqaure on the head with this one.

quote:

2) People who choose to smoke didn't anticipate all of this and didn't organize. I think this is probably because we never thought that we would have to, we shouldn'thave had the need to think that we would have to, and, to be honest, we didn't have that much in common when we started. It's a bit like trying to rally people together because they own a hair dryer. The whole scenario is a bit odd, really. Tobacco is a consumer product and this is America. My God--who would ever think they would have to defend his/her self for that?

You really said it Winston - except for our group here and the others you have found on the web - smokers are pretty complacent and think that they will always be able to smoke if they so choose. Well, all one has to do is take a look at what is happening in Europe, especially in the UK - to see that we're on pretty thin ice and its just a matter of time before the white-coated gestapo kicks in our doors. Thanks to pharmaceutical industry $, the antis are the Goliath we're up against as they get smoking bans and tax hikes passed in many states and they're soon likely to have some very sympathetic friends in DC, so I'm afraid its going to get a lot worse over the next few years. What it will take to stop them are people like Michael Siegel who are part of the public health establishment to come forward and let the public know that the antis are FOS. There are others like him I'm sure who are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their grants. However, we can do are part by writing our elected officials whenever bans or tax hikes are up for a vote, calling in on talk shows whenever a smoking-related issue is being discussed, and most of all, not hiding our habit.

quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:
3)There's money in anti-smoking. There's no money in pro-smoking rights.
.

Well, it is the same money on both sides, our money. Either they extort it from us and use few crumbs for anti-smoking "science" and propaganda, or we keep it. Our money is buying "studies" blaming smoking for every health problem imaginable. Our money is buying politicians and anti-smoker laws crafted to extort even more money from us.

The problem is that most smokers, including many posters in this forum, have been infested by guilt (for allegedly harming themselves) and thus lack drive to defend publicly something they consider a bad habit of their own. It is a clever scheme and until smokers discard the anti-smoker "science", every rotten scrap of it, and realize that tobacco is an ancient medicinal plant, cultivated over milenia for its beneficial and benevolent smoke, thus which is good for them, the smokers will remain at the mercy of the swindlers. Hence, the type of pro-smoker organization which can fight and win, will have to have as its central postulate that smoking is good for smoker.

It is true of course that a blind statistics, especially in recent years, will find correlation between smoking and variety of health problems. But that kind of correlation doesn't differentiate which is the cause and which is the consequence. For example, if you observe use of feeding tubes, you will find that their use correlates with spinal injury i.e. among those with spinal injury the feeding tubes will be found more often than among general population. Does that mean the feeding tubes are cause of spinal injuries? Or that banning feeding tubes will reduce occurence of spinal injuries?

With smoking, even in the smoker friendly era, some portion of those attracted to smoking were people self-medicating themselves. Thus people in stressful or unhealthy jobs always tended to smoke more. Smoking stimulates internal antioxidants, such as glutathione (essential antioxidant for internal detox from mercury, aluminum, lead...), it is a kind of excercise for the immune system. With the social engineering against smokers, the social and economic pressures have filtered out smokers population, so that those who didn't really need to smoke (e.g. those who did it for social reasons, peer pressure) have largely quit, while those still smoking are largely people self-medicating. Hence, the correlation between smoking and various health ailments has increased in recent years.

For those still smoking, quitting would not reduce the ailments but would increase them. Asthma and allergies (for which traditionally smoking was considered helpful) have been rapidly rising, while smoking has been decreasing. Alzheimers and Parkinson, have been increasing, too. Smoking is strongly protective against Alzheimer's e.g. when you match people genetically and socio-economically, such as when comparing between family members, smokers have ten times lower risk of Alzheimer's than their non-smoking relatives! Of course, if you don't match the samples, but compare within general population, the smoking appears only mildly negatively correlated with Alzheimer's, and in recent 5-10 years even slighlty positively correlated. Similarly, smoking is strongly positively correlated with schizophrenia - schizophrenics smoke 2-3 times more often than general population, and smoke much more heavily than general smokers. Unlike Alzheimer's, schizophrenia usually starts in teens, often well before person has started smoking (or has smoked very little), hence it is obvious that smoking is a form of self-medication among schizophrenics rather than its cause (this has been also shown more explicitly).

Even for lung cancer, smoking among asbestos workers was shown to be protective (a non-smoking asbestos worker is much more likely to get asbestos related lung cancer). In famous study by Doll (which was the first to find correlation between smoking & lung cancers), it was found that while lung cancers correlate positively with smoking, it was also found that those who inhale smoke have much lower rates of lung cancers than those who don't inhale! Similar stong protective effects of smoking against lung cancer (induced by radiation) were also demonstrated in controlled experiments on mice. Among nations, Japanese men smoke 2-3 times more often than Americans, yet they have 6-8 times lower rates of lung cancer. Similar "paradoxical" relations holds among Europeans, where Greeks are the heaviest smokers and have the lowest lung cancer rates. In USA, lung cancer has been rising for decades (most rapidly among non-smokers), and is now at its all time high, while smoking has been declining and is now at its all time low (note that CDC had to rig their counting to hide this fact contradicting their ideology and $$$) .

After studying various papers and books (see e.g. Ray Johnstone, Lauren Colby, FORCES), as well as observing myself, my family and people I know, I have concluded that the truth about health effects of smoking is precisely opposite from the present-day conventional wisdom -- smoking is good for smoker. Further, believing anti-smoker propaganda, even partially, is harmful to smoker (due to witch doctor effect, negative placebo).

In summary, there is money on our side, the money being currently stolen from us (only few crumbs of which are used against us). Unfortunately, until enough smokers realize that their habit is good for them (despite financial burden from extortion), there won't be organized and effective resistance against the anti-tobacco swindle. The essential first step in getting organized is to neutralize the key psychological weapon used against our will to defend ourselves, the poisonous anti-smoker pseudo-science.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nightlight,

Thank you all for your responses.

Nightlife, thank you for your thoughtful response. I'm going to do a second response post to address it. I want to address another point here, first.

I don't necessarily agree that most people who choose to smoke are complacent. I think that many don't know where to go with their complaint, know how to phrase their complaint, or even know that there are others out there who feel the way they do. I think they feel kind of blindsided by the whole thing and simply think that the whole world is against them and there's nothing they can do about it.

This gets me into a bit more complicated territory here and I am going to try and have this make sense and keep it short and sweet.

I'm certainly not advocating a whole new lexicon of politically correct speech for people based on the consumer products they use. I would honestly despise such a thing. Personally, though, I am coming to dislike the word "smoker". I am not proposing that everyone try to come up with another word, or start a bandwagon. Just go ahead and say "smoker". Its just a personal thing. I just try not to use it.

My reasoning is that the word kills a distinction that so desperately needs to be made: I am not a "smoker" anymore than I'm a "meater" or a "potatoer" or "skin creamer" or "brown coat wearer". Again, cigarettes are consumer products, just like anything else. No cigarette has ever jumped off a shelf into my pocket. I chose to buy them and use them for their intended purpose. Just like when I buy a steak and eat it, I buy cigarettes and smoke them.

So, in my mind, if people feel that life is simply easier for them without smoking; more power to them if that's what they want. I'm not sitting here typing because I'm particularly worried about what someone else wants to do.

There is a larger issue at hand that has nothing to do with the consumer products themselves. I think what I'm trying to point out about our being blindsided is that, though there are definitely organized groups called "anti-smokers", the whole idea of "smokers" is an illusion that is reinforced by the fact that people who choose to use a certain product are forced outside where they appear to form a loosely organized group.

If people were forced outside to use their hair dryers, it would probably contribute to the illusion that the people in bath robes standing in the street every morning were forming some sort of coalition. If people were to object to such treatment, I don't think it would be correct to say that their objections are being raised because they so love their hair dryers. Their objection would be that the whole thing is stupid and they're getting screwed. I don't think that they would be so much worried about losing their hair dryers as losing their right to use a hair dryer. In my opinion, dividing the world into "smokers" and "non-smokers" is a creation of anti-smoking. It's an empty distinction that was created by anti-smoking and has no meaning.

Bottom Line: I don't feel our problem is so much whether or not cigarettes or smoking will exist. Pardoxically, though, it is the whole problem. I feel that anti-smoking is a larger, political problem that is antithetical to, and comtemptuous of, the very freedom that is the great, defining quality of our most successful societies. You can take the cigarettes, but if you do, we'll never get our country back. If one goes, so does the other.

You are precisely correct about the Kitty Genovese syndrome. There is no one in close proximity to get the group organized and moving; each smoker is an individual island, in their minds, cast adrift with no idea how to find their way back to "civilization" (that's more of a truth than a metaphor...we are literally being cast from society).

The old National Smokers Alliance was very active and public, but they were backed by money from Phillip Morris, which pretty much demolished their credibility in the eyes of nonsmokers and the media (well, the media has yet to give any pro-smoker group credibility).
Nothing has come forward to replace the NSA simply because those groups who exist don't have the money.

Imagine how we would all feel if we had no internet, no way to find others who felt the same way...at least with the web, we do have a way to communicate. It's a beginning. Perhaps more will develop from it as the antis get more strident and our freedoms are rapidly vanishing. Sooner or later, I'd hope we would be really ready to fight back, to genuinely organize. Right now, most such efforts have failed partly because smokers themselves have bought the propaganda and are afraid to speak out - as you properly noted.

I do know this. I can't wait to vote Tuesday. I know that if the wrong people control one or both houses of Congress, FDA control of tobacco will almost be a given, because it was only stopped by the House last year. I think a national smoking ban could even appear on the table. It is the one way we have now to fight back - vote. 50 million smokers is a powerful lobby; it's a shame we haven't learned how to use it.

NightLight,

First, thank you for taking the time and work for your very informed response. I did take a quick look at a few of the links you provided (which included a very cool bonus; a handwritten letter from Richard Feynman, whose books I have read and who contributed to my understanding of what's wrong with modern science). I'm going to save these links in my "favorites" and take a longer look at them at another time.

I'm very familiar with the points you make regarding the confusion between correlation and causation. One of my college psychology professors referred to this phenomenon as "Ice cream causes crime".

I am extremely interested in learning more about psychogenic causes for illness, and the mind-body relationship. I think the reason that more research hasn't been done in this area is that people have a tendency (once again) to be too damn sensitive. I think people believe that their symptoms are being illegitamized if someone tells them that the cause of their ailment is either psychogenic or psychosomatic. There's little doubt in my mind that this can take place on a massive scale. Witnesses of the Salem Witch Trials fell ill because they believed they were under the spell of the witch on the stand. Most psychogenic ailments today are triggered by the belief that is so often propagated in the media; that the environment is toxic.

http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00000092.htm
http://familydoctor.org/648.xml
http://www.fumento.com/disease/cough.html

I've seen many theories on pro-smoking rights sites, including this one, that other environmental factors are the true cause of alleged "smoking related illnesses". Personally, I don't agree with these theories.

First, I don't think they're relevant. Smoking does not increase health care costs, but contributes to paying for health care. Secondhand smoke does not harm anyone, but the social engineering telling people that it should, does hurt people. Second, in my mind, these theories only hurt the pro-smoking rights cause because it's contradictory.

Many will claim that smoking only harms them, saves them from being put into a nursing home, and saves social security and direct-care costs. Then, smoking doesn't cause any illness, the whole thing is a statistical manipulation, and smoking has never contributed to a single death. Then, it's not the smoking that's causing premature death, it's the environment, and I suppose we're supposed to join forces with many of the same people (environmentalists) who are against us and propagate the same junk science that caused the problem to begin with.

I don't think it's necessary to encourage or discourage smoking any more than it's necessary to encourage or discourage salad dressing.

I think it's essential that we advocate smoking rights.

I know that there are benefits to smoking, because I experience them, and I've factored them into my own costs/benefits analysis. As I know that, I also know that smoking has a physical cost. I am not completely dismissive of the idea that this can be attributed to psychological factors. Personally, I noticed that I began experiencing more "smoking related symptoms" (cough, chest congestion) when I became concerned about smoking rights and smoking related thoughts began to occupy my mind. Then again, I've also gotten older. Who knows.


I'm a bit typed out at the moment, so forgive me if I'm not giving your post the response it deserves. Perhaps I'll try again later. I'll say that I'm open to learning more about causes for lung cancer, etc., other than smoking that are perhaps being misattributed and I don't doubt at all that smoking prevents certain ailments, because I've seen these studies myself. I'll certainly agree that the effects of smoking are greatly exagerrated by anti-smoking. I'm not ready to sign on the dotted line yet for the idea that "smoking is good for you". I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I'm just looking to learn more.

Freedom,

Very good point about the internet.

I have no doubt that the amount of people who are concerned and the amount of thought that so many have put into the issue will eventually grow into a pwerful political force.

The questions are how quickly will it happen, will it be past the point of no return, and how far will they be willing to go.

quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:
First, I don't think they're relevant. Smoking does not increase health care costs, but contributes to paying for health care. Secondhand smoke does not harm anyone, but the social engineering telling people that it should, does hurt people. Second, in my mind, these theories only hurt the pro-smoking rights cause because it's contradictory.

Many will claim that smoking only harms them, saves them from being put into a nursing home, and saves social security and direct-care costs. Then, smoking doesn't cause any illness, the whole thing is a statistical manipulation, and smoking has never contributed to a single death. Then, it's not the smoking that's causing premature death, it's the environment, and I suppose we're supposed to join forces with many of the same people (environmentalists) who are against us and propagate the same junk science that caused the problem to begin with.

I don't think it's necessary to encourage or discourage smoking any more than it's necessary to encourage or discourage salad dressing.

I think it's essential that we advocate smoking rights.

It is hard to fight for right to do something you yourself consider to be a bad thing. For example, there is no movement fighting for rights of thieves, wife beaters,... etc. As long as smokers buy into the swindlers' propaganda (dirty, harmful behavior), they will not defend against the ripoff, not on their own, let alone organize. To use analogy, you can't build an army of solders who would rather be on the other side.

As to actual health effects, as explained, I have concluded that smoking is good for me. I do smoke the way it was meant to be done over the millenia that tobacco was cultivated for its beneficial properties -- I use additive free, organically grown tobacco (some industrial fetilizers contain radioactive ingredients) and no filters (just cigarette holders; filters stuff your lungs with non-biodegradable fibers and increase proportion of carbon monoxide per unit of nicotine, while leaving "tar:nicotine" ratio unchanged, which is roughly 10:1). I also stuff my own cigarettes, which largely avoids feeding the anti-tobacco swindlers (it costs $8-$12 per carton, using 5-7 minutes per day), it punishes the Big Tobacco backstabbers (who sold out their customers with MSA scam) and it provides much greater variety of tobaccos and tubes.

quote:

I know that there are benefits to smoking, because I experience them, and I've factored them into my own costs/benefits analysis. As I know that, I also know that smoking has a physical cost. I am not completely dismissive of the idea that this can be attributed to psychological factors. Personally, I noticed that I began experiencing more "smoking related symptoms" (cough, chest congestion) when I became concerned about smoking rights and smoking related thoughts began to occupy my mind. Then again, I've also gotten older. Who knows.

For years I largely bought into the anti-smoking brainwashing and I experienced dutifully the prescribed bad effects of smoking, more congestions, more colds, poor sense of smell & taste, bad gums,... etc. Then, with arrival of internet, after critically examining the actual evidence and considering how much of my money is being extorted (by bureaucrats and Big Pharma) based on the alleged anti-tobacco "science", I realized I have been had -- the swindlers are not only ripping me off, but are also making me feel guilty, holding me in a permanent "I must quit" state, all these years and actually harming my health via witch doctor (negative placebo) effect and the use of lighter & filtered cigarettes (both of which are anti-traditional ways of using tobacco, which increase the proportion of actually harmful stuff, the hundreds of additives, paper smoke and filter fibers).

I rejected all of the anti-tobacco indoctrination, every slimy word of it and switched to non-filtered cigarettes and traditional pure tobacco. The bad effects simply vanished -- my wife and our five kids get one or two week-long colds every year, I get one every several years that lasts a day or two. The wheezing I used to get every now and then was gone. My senses of smell and taste are just fine. What I perceived for a while as a loss of taste for fruits and veggies, turned out to be the result of actual degradation of the quality of the supermarket foods -- the genetically modified strawberries, apples, tomatoes,.... are optimized to look good and last long on the shelves, but lack taste. Switching mostly to locally grown organic produce and free ranging cattle, chicken and wild fish meats, I discovered the fruits and veggies and meats taste as well as when I was a kid, when we ate less industrialized and manipulated foods.

Some years earlier I stopped going to doctors (even though both of my parents were doctors), haven't gone for a check-up for about twenty years. Last time I went to doctor was about ten years ago to get a prescription for a nicotine inhaler (I was still in anti-tobacco brainwashed state back then), she gave it to me (it was a peace of throat & chest irritating junk) and also tried to convince me to use anti-depressants for smoking cessation (I refused that one and never went back there again). From my experience, I have concluded that doctors are fine for problems like broken bones, cuts, bleeding,... the self-evident mechanical problems. For anything more subtle, they are mostly a self-serving money making business, glorified drug & gratuitous procedure pushers, optimized to provide short term relief of symptoms at the cost of turning you into a life-long subscriber to their further services (needed to fix the problems their previous fixes had caused).

This may seem extreme to some (see Dr. Douglass and News Target, though), but I have grown up with both parents doctors, with their friends doctors always around and a large medical library at home. What I realized eventually, after years of schooling (as a theoretical physicist), was that a single cell of my little toe knows more about cellular biochemistry than all of the medicine, pharamaceutics, molecular biology, genetics,... taken all together. Consider, for example, that a single cell knows to how engineer a live cell from scratch, at the molecular level and from inorganic materials, while all of the current biological & medical science in the world, if you were to focus them entirely to this single task, wouldn't even know how to get started on making just one organelle, a little organ of a cell, from scratch, let alone a whole live cell, to say nothing of an unimaginably sophisticated network of trillions of live cells which make up a human organism. Our modern medicine is a glorified money making superstition, not very different from those of ancient Egyptian priesthoods who figured out few bits about calendar seasons and Nile floods, then puffed up these few little bits of real knowledge into a pretense of knowledge about everything else, life, death, health disease, universe, gods,... Our medical priesthood knows few bits more than the ancient ones, but much of their apparent knowledge is a pretense and guesswork, propped by mutual backpatting and obscure language. Your own cellular biochemical networks know vastly more about your health and healing than all of the puffed up Big Med and Big Pharma in the world. These big "health" industries are in it for their own profit. If doing what is best for you is what brings the maximum profit, they will help you. But if bribing politicians and bureaucrats yields a better profit, they will do that regardless of what harm it does to you, as long as they can fool you into believing it's all for your benefit.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nightlight,

I think we essentially agree, except for the idea (if I'm understanding correctly) that I consider something to be "bad" because it either does or doesn't cause long term harm to one's health. Whether it does or does not isn't relevant in my mind as long as someone is making an accurate cost/benefits analysis.

I very much agree that the medical community is far down the path on convincing people that they know far more about things which they have no clue. I think your point about trusting the medical community for treatment of anything beyond setting a broken bone,etc. is very accurate. Most (if not all) medicine beyond this point is based on questionable theory.

You've provided a great deal of interesting reading in your response, Nightlight. Thanks. I'm looking forward to taking a look at it, but I can't take the time right now to look at all of it to give it all of the thought that would be required to give you an appropriate response.

This is an excellent discussion! However, I'm going to have to re-read a lot as I did more of a quick read. But I DID get some of the the major points that were expressed. And before I forget - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, Winston and Nightlight! I have learned a lot more after reading posts! (but again, I have to go back and reread).

Before I forget, cause my brain often works like a sieve - but I REALLY believe that we can fight the anti-smoking movement. And I do feel it can be done - and I feel we can make an impact - however minimal - during this next presidential election. It may not be a big impact but I think that we can start to change people's negative views about us. For starters, Winston - yes, we could change the term "smoker" because of the negative way we've been portrayed by the anti movement. Semanitcs is everything with this fight! Semantics is what made smoking and smokers, viewed negitively.

I don't know about others here on this forum but I don't like being complacent or want to be. I would like to be much more pro-active (more than I am now, which is participating in this formum) but with working 2 jobs - you guessed it, I have little time. BUT - I believe that with the little free time that I do have, I can do something to help. I just don't know what or how to go about it! And I think that's the issue with those of us in support of smoking rights......time. Which brings me to another thought/suggestion - if there was a way to organize and do something - would anyone be willing to do so? Yes - there are groups like FORCES and NYC CLASH and the Coalition of Social Smokers - but what about smaller groups that can reach out to the legions of sidewalk smokers, who are fed up and do want to do something? What do some of you think?

Another thought - I'm sure you are all aware of groups like PETA, who have really HIGH profile people that affiliate themselves with that organizaiton - I think that there are just as high profiled people who would join our cause - it's a matter of convincing them that this is an important issue. I would love to elaborate more on this but I'm at work now and don't have the time (damn!).

Again - I have to go back and reread most of the valuable information from much of this discussion. Thanks for you time!

I don't think talk will make a difference anymore. I have proposed here and elsewhere that smokers throughout the world provide cigarettes to smokers in a single state for a month.

We individually would send product to smokers in the state for distribution. In order to receive a pack they would have to supply an empty one and smoke at least one cigarette before leaving. The smokers in the state would meet their fellows and organize. It would also reduce the revenue of the state for taxes imposed and MSA payments based on market share.

Trucks handing out cigarettes obscured from view by clouds of tobacco smoke would make an impression. Tax deprevation would also make an impression, especially on local antis looking for state funding.

Because tobacco companies are restricted from distributing FREE cigarettes it would also imply a citizens movement.

Local smokers could be encouraged to donate what money they saved to the Forces legal suit fund or to fund local prosmoking groups formed at the trucks.

I think both your ideas are great - Varla and Bruce. I agree, we need to publicly stand up for ourselves, now more than ever...Earlier this summer, I suggested a protest at an international tobacco control conference that was held here in DC. Problem was, it took place during the week when most of us are working - so its hard to find the time. I saw something on the FORCES website about organizing a protest at a Canadian Tobacco Control conference - I wish them well...we really need to confront the antis directly, to show them that we are grown ups who are not ashamed to enjoy their vice. If we could get more organized as our own special interest group, we could have a real effect on policy, especially considering how close this past election was, we need to make it known that neither party can afford to piss us off - just like the NRA.

quote:

Originally posted by NickM_71:
If we could get more organized as our own special interest group, we could have a real effect on policy, especially considering how close this past election was, we need to make it known that neither party can afford to piss us off - just like the NRA.

Getting more organized is the key - especially at the local level! Unfortunately, the majority of us, who are in support of SMOKING RIGHTS, work for a living .....but it doesn't matter. Many special interest groups started small - look at PETA (for lack of a better example, I'm using them). Back when PETA were first noticed, no one took them seriously! But then they got the support of all those super models and high profile Hollywood types......now, believe it or not, they are taken very seriously. No one dares laugh at them now. I would have used your NRA example but I'm not really a big fan, but it doesn't matter - we're not here to discuss the merrits the NRA (by the way, it's a good example just the same).

I also think, and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but since the majority of politicians have embraced the anit smoking message (yes, it was started by the democrats but I've noticed that the republicans have jumped on it too), maybe we should start speaking to each major political party and insist, that they remove it form their agenda. I dunno - it's just a ramdom thought I had...

Oh well - thanks again for your time!

Very good thoughts, everyone. One place where we need to be cautious, I think, is using the term "smokers rights". A judge has literally ruled there is no right to smoke. If you use the "rights" argument, the antis will say our "right" stops at their nose, or lungs, or whatever body part they use at the moment.

A far better approach, I think, is to attack the science itself. The secondhand smoke assault, which is the basis of almost all the attacks on smokers, is junk science. If you approach politicians with that, however, be prepared to be laughed at...initially. There are some cracks in the anti movement because of the junk science, cracks that might be exploited to our advantage.

Since the Dems have already announced they're going after big tobacco again, it would be nice if we could find one or two Republicans willing to challenge the whole anti junk science as a way to derail the Dems. Unfortunately, particularly after Tuesday, I don't think any of the GOP will have the guts to take on tobacco. They'll figure that's one topic that will make them even bigger targets than they are.

Which takes us back to protests - either by phone (swamping Congress with phone calls when they begin their investigations asking, among other things, why in the world they're still stuck on that with everything else happening in the world), street protests, or anything else people can come up with, or all of the above.

Once the Dems start their "investigation" of big tobacco, it could be the beginning of the end for us - unless we do fight back. It just needs to be, I think, based on the false science and the fraud of the anti-tobacco movement.

I'm open to any ideas or suggestions, though. These are going to be desperate times, I'm afraid.

quote:

Originally posted by varla_pussycat:
Getting more organized is the key - especially at the local level!.... Many special interest groups started small - look at PETA (for lack of a better example, I'm using them). Back when PETA were first noticed, no one took them seriously! But then they got the support of all those super models and high profile Hollywood types......now, believe it or not, they are taken very seriously. No one dares laugh at them now. I would have used your NRA example but I'm not really a big fan, but it doesn't matter - we're not here to discuss the merrits the NRA (by the way, it's a good example just the same).

The principal difference between smokers and PETA, NRA (or m