Clearing The Air

Pharmaceutical interests who funded smoking ban laws expect pharmaceutical nicotine sales to reach $4.6 billion annually by 2016

I guess that answers the question of whether it was a worthwhile investment for Nicoderm manufacturer Johnson & Johnson Company's foundation (RWJF) to continue funding smoking ban lobbyists such as the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Non-Smoker's Rights, AMA, etc. to the tune of $200+ million.

Anti-smoking vaccines: set to ignite underdeveloped prescription market

25th January 2008
By PBR Staff Writer

Although many smokers are keen to kick their habit, will power by itself is often not sufficient and smoking cessation aids are often needed. The prescription nicotine dependence market is set to grow strongly at a compound annual growth rate of 16% to reach $4.6 billion by 2016, driven by two promising pipeline nicotine vaccines and Pfizer's popular nicotine receptor agonist Chantix.

The author does not mention that worldwide smoking bans are the real impetus for such an ambitious prediction, nor the fact that Johnson & Johnson Company merged with the Chantix drug maker Pfizer.

Also left out of the article is the fact that Johnson & Johnson Company's private political wing, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), provided hundreds of millions of dollars to make this high-reaching marketing plan a very real possibility.

Even as these rent seeking smoking ban laws (funded by pharmaceutical interests) are being implemented by local governments to "protect the health of workers"; new air quality testing proves that secondhand smoke is actually 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/11/johns-hopkins-air-quality-testing-of.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2006/02/air-quality-testing-and-secondhand.html

It all just goes to show that unethical business methods can result in large dividends for greedy special interests.....because uninformed or apathetic lawmakers are easily manipulated by false and misleading data; even though tens of thousands of people are thrust into unemployment lines as a direct result of these smoking ban (pharmaceutical nicotine marketing) laws.

(thanks to Iro Cyr for the story tip)

posted by marcus aurelius @ 7:51 PM