We all know the antis lie. In fact, almost everything they say is a lie (or a "spin" on the truth). They lie about ETS. They lie about the negative economic effects of smoking bans. I expect, if you asked one the time of day, he/she would lie about that.

Here are a couple of other outright lies they've fed to the media:

1. The money the states receive from the Master Settlement Agreement was supposed to go to THEM.

2. That few states (7 or 13 or some number in between) have preemption laws.

The fact is that the ostensible purpose of the state lawsuits against tobacco was to collect state money spent on Medicaid for sick smokers, so you'd think the money collected from the settlement would go toward Medicaid. Nevertheless, in the actual agreement (MSA) the money had no strings attached--that is, the states could spend it however they saw fit. Nowhere did it say the money--or any portion of it--was supposed to go toward anti-tobacco or their programs.

When some state or another is considering a preemption law (or preemption clause in a state clean indoor air act), the antis whip up their PR firms to release a flood of press releases which say almost no states have preemption laws or clauses (that is, laws which state no locality in the state can have anti-smoking laws which are more stringent than the state law; in other words, no locality can enact a smoking ban if the state doesn't have a smoking ban).

The truth is that at least 18 states have preemption laws or clauses. But I guess the antis think that sounds too encouraging for other states to enact such laws too, so they simply lie to the press about how many there really are.

When I corrected one reporter about this and asked for her source for the statement that only 7 states had preemption laws/clauses, she hemmed and hawed and said that well maybe more did (I had given her a link to the CDC site that gave the actual numbers), but they were weak and didn't really preempt local bans. When I challenged THAT, she hemmed and hawed some more and said that well, her source was a "report" she had received "last year." She never would say where that "report" originated. Wonder why?

The anti's also have a strange definition of preemption. For instance I don't think states like California or Utah, which have a statewide smoking ban, are considered to have preemption laws. Because, at least in California, localities have the right to impose even harsher smoking bans than the state law, preemption is not in effect. Of course if a locality wanted to allow smoking in a restaurant it wouldn't be able to because that would be weaker than the state law. Sounds like preemption, although in the opposite way, to me.

As to being liars, the American Lung Association lists both California and Utah as "smokefree states" even though Utah allows smoking to occur in private clubs, which include high-end restaurants, mom and pop diners as well as nearly every standalone bar in the state. In California the smoking ban doesn't apply to the burgeoning Indian casinos as well as to bars that are owner/operated. Listing all the lies would require several dictionary sized volumes.

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Originally posted by Andy Ludlow:
Listing all the lies would require several dictionary sized volumes.

And require hourly updates.