At least as far back as 2000, the Big Pharma hacks and their federal bureaucratic buddies ("partners," to use the preferred Centers for Disease Control term), the federal Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health began talking a lot about "treatment" of smokers and increasing federal taxation on smokers to fund some of this "treatment." Read the remarks of some of the participants at this meeting (including those of various Big Pharma $$ recipients like Jack Henningfield.

10/26/00

After many more meetings--some public and some not so public--by Jan. 16, 2003 the "Cessation Subcommittee" of the ICSH finally got their main points down (except for some dithering on whether to call us "smokers" or "tobacco users"). Among these was the call for a raise of the federal tax on cigarettes to $2.00 (from 37 cents). The gist is that smokers would pay in taxes for the feds and others to push them into taking Big Pharma's "cessation" products.

Read the final meeting summary here

Interestingly, at the 12/6/03 meeting, John Seffrin of the ACS bragged that the "ACS has also been involved in 20 states to increase tobacco taxes." How nice that the ACS is so involved in the states' tax policies.

Nasty stuff from the national health nazis--er, I mean nannies.

quote:

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From 1st link:
To a question about why FDA had not used the "fast track" and rapid review approaches for tobacco dependence treatment as it had for treatments for HIV and cancer, Dr. Henningfield acknowledged that the answer is quite complicated and there are differences of opinion on the definition of whether the condition is life threatening and whether there are already existing treatments.

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That's because antis spend all the money they make by persecuting us to help their friends pay their mortgages rather than fund legitimate research and assistance programs.

It's not who you know, it's WHO you know. Follow the dollars for anti-smoker activism in Minnesota and you'll see it goes to the usual culprits.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1659/1018901.html

CORRECTION PUBLISHED 11/25/01: This article incorrectly reported the salary of Judy Knapp, executive director of the Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition. According to grant documents, she was to receive $61,500 from August 2000 through July 2001, and $64,500 from August 2001 through July 2002. About $12,000 of her yearly salary comes from
grants from the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco.

CLARIFICATION PUBLISHED 11/25/01: This article indicated that Andres Flores, a staff representative of Chicanos Latinos Unidos En Servicio (CLUES), served on an advisory committee of the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco. He became director of CLUES' Tobacco Network a year after the advisory committee disbanded.

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It's who you know: four out of five MPAAT grant dollars have gone to organizations or individuals with ties to the MPAAT board of directors or its advisory committees. The committees were disbanded a few months before grants were awarded.

Listed below are the grant recipients, the amounts, and the MPAAT connections.

Grant recipient: Mayo Clinic
Purpose: $477,076 research grant to study smoking cessation in
surgical patients.
MPAAT connection:
- MPAAT Board chairman Dr. Richard Hurt, director, Nicotine
Dependence Center, Mayo Clinic.
- Grant researcher Kenneth Offord was a member of the MPAAT
Research Advisory Committee. . .

Grant recipient: American Cancer Society Midwest Division
Purpose: $199,530 for smoking bans in Hennepin and Kandiyohi
counties; $25,700 in noncompetitive grants.
MPAAT connection:
- MPAAT board member Coral Houle, president of American Cancer
Society Midwest Division.
- MPAAT board member Arla Johnson, a member of ACS's National Issues
Committee and 30- year ACS volunteer. . .

Grant recipient: American Lung Association, Minnesota
Purpose: $369,000 for smoking bans; $15,000 in noncompetitive
grants to Duluth.
MPAAT connection:
- MPAAT board member Steve O'Neil is a paid organizer for the American Lung Association in Duluth. He resigned from MPAAT in August, saying he wished to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
- ALA Director of Tobacco Control Chris Tholkes was on the MPAAT Targeted Populations Task Force and the MPAAT Cessation Advisory Committee. She will receive $18,600 in salary from this grant.
- Pat McKone, Duluth ALA, was a member of the MPAAT Research
Advisory Committee. She will receive $22,000 in salary from this grant. . .

Grant recipient: Center for Energy and Environment
Purpose: $470,501 to research smoke-free air in apartment
buildings.
MPAAT connection:
- MPAAT board member Jeanne Weigum, president of Association for Nonsmokers Minnesota. Her group is donating $18,000 in staff time to this grant. . .

Grant recipient: Chicanos Latinos Unidos En Servicio (CLUES)
Purpose: $245,000 to create a Chicano Latino Tobacco network.
MPAAT connection:
- Mario Anchondo, a CLUES staffer at the time, was on the MPAAT Cessation Advisory Committee and MPAAT Targeted Populations Task Force.
- Andres Flores, Tobacco network director, was on the MPAAT
Targeted Populations Task Force. The grant pays him a $31,500 salary. . .

Grant recipient: University of Minnesota
Purpose: $124,000 to study ways to reduce tobacco use among urban Indian youth.
MPAAT connection:
- Grant recipient Jean Forster was co-chair of the MPAAT Research Advisory Committee. . .

Grant recipient: Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition
Purpose: Two grants: $793,615 for an anti-tobacco Web site and statewide anti-smoking ordinances; $10,000 payment for "Carpe Millennium," a 19-page report on anti-tobacco strategies; a $10,000 noncompetitive grant to fight a smoking ban repeal in Little Falls.
MPAAT connection:
MPAAT board members that are past or present members of the
Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition's board of directors:
- A. Stuart Hanson (president and founder)
- Mary Edwards
- Anne Joseph
- Jan Malcolm
MPAAT advisory committee members that are past or present members of Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition's board of directors:
- Chris Tholkes
- Carol Falkowski
- Jean Forster
- Jaime Martinez
- Thomas Kottke
- Executive director Judy Knapp was a member of the Research
Advisory Committee. $25,200 of her yearly $126,000 salary will come from these two MPAAT grants. . .

Grant recipient: University of Minnesota
Purpose: $494,550 to investigate smoking cessation techniques.
MPAAT connection:
- Grant co-recipient Dorothy Hatsukami was a member of the MPAAT Cessation Advisory Committee. . .

Grant recipient: University of Minnesota
Purpose: $210,198 to study existing tobacco diversion projects in Minnesota.
MPAAT connection:
- As a researcher on this project, Jean Forster, co-chair of the MPAAT Research Advisory Committee, will receive about $19,000 in salary. . .

Grant recipient: University of Minnesota
Purpose: $449,620 to study smoking cessation in adults with Type II diabetes.
MPAAT connection:
- Grant recipient Harry Lando was a member of the MPAAT Research Advisory committee. . .

Source: MPAAT grant agreements and advisory committee membership rosters

Yep, that's the way they operate. It's kinda like the shell game--shifting money around, now you see it now you don't, and it always winds up in their pockets.

Old Dorothy Hatsukami really gets around. She is, of course, on the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health. here

And she's also been one of the "researchers" funded by RWJF/NCI/NIDA for the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers and is/was president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco [SRNT]. Connected thus to RWJF.

She's really raking in the grant money and doing quite well off the sweat of the taxpayers and Big Pharma $$$.