Clearing The Air

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Anti-smoking drug Chantix banned by second transportation regulatory board

The irony of course is that the phamaceutical nicotine industry which manufactures these smoking cessation products initiated smoking bans by funding non-profit groups to lobby in favor of laws which all but mandates the use of their replacement nicotine products and drugs.

First the FAA banned Chantix use, now it's the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issuing the following ban "to not qualify anyone currently using this medication for commercial motor vehicle licenses."

The Federal Aviation Administration banned the drug for pilots and air traffic controllers on Wednesday, hours after seeing the study, which reported that Chantix was linked to 988 serious events in the last quarter of 2007 alone.

From another headline comes the following excerpt:

A SUDDEN TURN: Daniel Williams was driving his pickup on a country road in Louisiana when, according to his passenger, his eyes rolled back in his head and he swerved left — into a bayou. His doctor later made the connection to Chantix, which Williams had just begun taking.

photo courtesy of :

http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2008/05/chantix-found-in-ad-agencys-wastebasket.html

The study linking Chantix to adverse health effects concluded:

....possible links to seizures, dizziness, heart irregularity, depression, diabetes and more than 100 accidents.

Diabetes?......that's an interesting side effect, and one that Clearing the Air chronicled back in April of 2007 with this article:

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/quitting-smoking-is-not-always-best.html

I hate to say we told you so, but Clearing the Air has been ahead of the curve on several fronts.

1) Warning readers about the reported hazards of Chantix

2) Informing the public that smoking bans are funded by greedy, unethical pharmaceutical interests to promote alternative nicotine product sales.

3) And reporting that smoking bans are very bad for businesses, jobs, and the economy.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Johnson & Johnson's unethical management decision and arrogance meets with defeat in a court of law

Readers will remember that J & J sued the American Red Cross for using the Red Cross logo in its advertising campaign. What bold insolence, to use the Red Cross symbol as an advertising logo.......clearly the A.R.C. needed to be taught a lesson, J & J decided they would be the teacher of that lesson.

This Wall Street Journal headline informs us of the outcome:

American Red Cross Defeats Johnson & Johnson in Trademark Spat

On Wednesday, reports the NYT, Southern District judge Jed Rakoff said the Congressional charter for the Red Cross gave it the right to use the symbol even for business purposes. (Here’s the opinion, via How Appealing.) In his second ruling dismissing part of the case — the first one was in November — Rakoff said that charitable reasons for Red Cross’s business ventures made them all the more reasonable. “The fact that the ultimate purpose of these licensing activities is a ‘charitable purpose’ — i.e. to raise funds that A.R.C., a not-for-profit organization, can utilize for its charitable endeavors — only further emphasizes their legitimacy.”

Now that the legal courts and court of public opinion are clearly rejecting J & J's unethical and arrogant behavior, it's time to expose and defeat the rent seeking nature of their pharmaceutical nicotine marketing plan.......worldwide smoking bans.

Just a heads up Warren Buffet, you might want to dump your stock ownership of J & J now while you can still make a profit. Because answering RICO charges may be J & J / RWJF's next appearance in court. Yes smoking bans help increase Nicoderm and Nicoderm CQ sales and J & J's 1st quarter '08 profits by 40%, but the results of their foundation's (RWJF) rent seeking lobbying efforts is massive business closings and tens of thousands of job losses .

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldwide-economic-meltdown-and.html

Feedback from the Red Cross can be found here.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

New ad campaign seeks to boost lagging Vegas tourism since smoking ban took effect

This AP story describes a new ad campaign underway to boost business on the Las Vegas strip.

Research presented during the authority's monthly meeting showed declines in arrivals and departures at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, decreasing visitor traffic from Southern California and a dip in casino gambling revenue.

Even the Federal Reserve has joined the debate on the potential impact of smoking bans

"Economic effects of smoke-free laws may be difficult to identify and interpret, but analysis suggests that at least some businesses do suffer costs," according to an article published in January by the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

In Nevada, home to the Las Vegas strip and other towns with far more gambling attractions than Colorado, business has suffered. Total revenues for Nevada's casinos fell almost 5 percent in January to $1.064 billion, according to the state's gaming division.

I think the end is near for the self-serving, Nicoderm funded, smoking ban era......if it doesn't bankrupt us all first.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Black Hawk Cigar Bar and Casino gets personal "attention" from Colorado state lawmakers

.....that personal attention results in state legislation designed:

to pass a state law whose sole aim and purpose was to shaft (screw over) one, single small businessman.

Read the entire vindictive story here.

What he was operating, it turned out according to state law, was a cigar bar.

That his cigar bar just happened to have 216 slot machines in it, he realized, well, who was he to argue with legal definitions?

"Keep smoking," he told his patrons.

It worked.

The city attorney promptly studied Ed Smith's financial books and the $300,000 a year he was pulling in from tobacco sales, finishing up with an inspection of his humidors. Cigar bar, the city attorney ruled. The state Division of Gaming, soon enough, arrived at the same conclusion: cigar bar.

It all came crashing down on Friday afternoon when Senate Bill 225, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, which would outlaw gaming devices in cigar bars, sailed through a final House committee hearing ahead of deliberation on Monday before the full House.

Someone, Ed Smith believes, has it in for him, and gamed the system to get the legislature to do what it almost never does: target a single individual.

The lesson here is that you don't cross rent seeking legislation funded by the pharmaceutical nicotine (Nicoderm) interests. Namely, Nicoderm manufacturer Johnson & Johnson Company's Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). When RWJF funds the pro-smoking ban, non-profit, activists to the tune of $446 million for personal marketing interests........liberal legislators mysteriously feel compelled to obey their rent seeking master.

Even though air quality test results by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-st-louis-aq-study-published-by.html

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

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2008/03/british-medical-journal-who-conclude.html

All nullify the argument that secondhand smoke is a workplace health hazard.