Clearing The Air

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Smoking ban promoter & lobbyist RWJF funded the universal healthcare blueprint

$50,000 by Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical manufacturer's partner organization the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to blueprint what is sure to be liberal, big government Washington D.C.'s next agenda..........Universal Healthcare.

Gee why would a drugmaker want to promote universal healthcare?

To insure government payment and taxpayer subsidies of their products.....what a great scam. You think a $10,000 hammer seems expensive?......just wait.

Update: J & J spent $1.5 million lobbying Obama White House for laws that will increase their profits.......just as smoking bans have.

More here:

http://www.rwjf.org/grants/grant.jsp?id=63985&type=690&npo=HFO&NPO_FUND_ID=55089

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Lawmakers can be assured smoking bans were the cause of the worlds economic crisis

Smoking bans increased unemployment at a time when our economy was booming......but eliminating one hundred thousand+ hospitality jobs.....eventually has a negative trickle down effect on other industries. IE 100,000 unemployed hospitality workers stopped buying houses, or worse had their homes foreclosed upon, stopped buying cars, stopped buying computers, TVs etc., then the home-builders, automakers, electronic manufacturers, realtors, etc. started losing their jobs because of the effect from the 100,000+ unemployed bar and restaurant workers.......and the snowball races downhill.

3,382 UK pubs closed after their nationwide smoking ban

1,000 -2,000 US bars & restaurants closed after various local smoking bans were enacted

Nearly 300 Mpls / St. Paul bars & restaurants closed after smoking bans were enacte d

Casino revenue losses in Colorado after smoking bans

Washington state gambling revenues fall sharply

Trump and Atlantic City casinos lose significant revenue after smoking ban

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

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Thank you Warren Buffet for doing the right thing.......dumping ownership of J & J stock

CTA wrote this posting back in May 2008:

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.

Today 2/17/09 I found this Forbes article:

Berkshire Hathaway sheds half of J&J stake

Associated Press, 02.17.09, 06:55 PM EST

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's company sold more than half of its stake in Johnson & Johnson in the last three months of 2008.

Thank you Mr. Buffet......I doubt we at CTA had anything to do with your decision; but we appreciate it nonetheless. Hopefully you made a profit.

Is Berkshire Hathaway interested in exposing the worldwide economic damages to business and jobs caused by smoking bans?

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Nicotine poisoning....one more reason to avoid Johnson & Johnson products

I came across a medical website describing this phenomenon.

Nicotine poisoning results from too much nicotine. Acute nicotine poisoning usually occurs in young children who accidentally chew on nicotine gum or patches.

One more reason to just go cold turkey if you decide to stop smoking. Don't......I repeat don't use Nicoderm, Nicoderm CQ, Commit, Nicotrol, or Nicorette.......these products are all owned or manufactured by Johnson & Johnson Company whose political wing RWJF funds the lies about secondhand smoke in order to encourage lawmakers to pass smoking bans, and increase their sales revenue.

Children exposed to secondhand effects of Nicoderm, Nicoderm CQ, Commit, Nicotrol, or Nicorette, are poisoned everyday. Secondhand effects of the aforementioned products is that these products are commonly found in homes, medicine cabinets, automobiles where children accidently ingest them with dangerous results.

Another indication that the "cure" is as bad as the original addiction to cigarettes:
http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=18612&name=NICORETTE&page=1

Update: According to a new report, alternative nicotine products may cause cancer.

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2009/04/smoking-bans-promote-use-of-replacement.html

Reminder: Smoking bans closed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of hospitality businesses, eliminating one to several hundred thousand jobs...the unemployment snowballed into other industry sectors...bringing the world economy to its current status.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

In the U.K. during past two years 3,382 pubs have closed since their nationwide smoking ban was enacted

.....so far this year they have been shutting at the rate of one every four hours.

Obviously, the drinks industry is quick to blame the economy for the problems but.......the fact that the one thing you cannot do in a smoking room (now) is smoke. There’s no doubt that this has had a profound effect on the licensing trade, and David Cameron must make it a top priority to overturn the ban the moment he takes office. In the meantime, however, publicans must stop whining and carefully study the antismoking rule book to find a loophole.
The rest of the Times Online article can be found online here.

The story is a tale of the tragic truth that occurs when government meddling interferes with free market trade. Pharmaceutical nicotine (Nicoderm) manufacturer Johnson & Johnson Company with their partner RWJF funded lobbyists to pursue a smoking ban agenda in order to increase product sales & profits, lawmakers were happy to oblige for their own selfish reason; primarily they and their constituents; were tired of smelling like smoke....on the rare event that they actually frequented a smoking establishment.

Now however, the world economy is feeling the effects of this rent seeking legislation (smoking bans). Mainstream media of course would never report the turn of events (smoking bans) which preceeded and actually caused our current economic crisis but the Times Online article is a good first step. If lawmakers do not learn from their mistakes (and the bans have been a colossal mistake) they are certainly doomed to repeat them over and over causing misery and economic gloom for all the foreseeable future.

More information on pub closures as provided by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC)

Non-smoking customers can't make up for liquor losses due to smoking bans.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Why are secondhand smoke "studies" conducted by epidemiology "researchers"? Does "science" really play a role?

All of these scare numbers come from epidemiological studies that attempt to compare two groups that differ in a studied behavior (e.g. a smoking and non-smoking group). These studies are done retrospectively (basically asking people to recall their years of behavior in a survey) and prospectively where each of the populations are followed over a period of time.

So, for example, if I wanted to study how much of an effect exposure to books has on brain cancer, I would find, let's say 100,000 people who read regularly and 100,000 people who never read. After 10, 20, or 30 years, I'll take a look at how many people get brain cancer in each population. Let's say my results come out like this:

100,000 book readers had 1000 cases of brain cancer.
100,000 non-readers had 500 cases of brain cancer.

My God! Book readers are twice as likely to get brain cancer! (forget the fact that I never took any other differences between these two populations into account other than book reading).

The results of this would be expressed in epidemiology in "Relative Risk". In this case, my Relative Risk would be 2.0.

I can now extrapolate this information across the say, 80,000,000 book readers in America, do the math, and say that 80,000 people get brain cancer from books every year.

With this "scientific" information in hand, I head on down to my local courthouse because I've got alot of money to get out of those damn, child killing, brain cancer causing booksellers. I sue the largest publishing houses and booksellers in the nation, manage to convince a jury and, Holy Cow, I win! I've got a Billion dollars!

Now, every book comes with a Government Warning on it.

This also opens new markets for products such as translucent reading assistants to block people from the harm of the cancerous effects of the deadly books.

"Reading gloves" are sold to protect people from the deadly books. These are particularly popular because, really, what pretentious, hip, health conscious, pseudointellectual would be caught dead in public without their "reading gloves"?

(They come in multiple styles and colors--for the discerning paranoid! They're great conversation starters; can't you just see yourself sitting in the "look at me, I read" bookstore cafe and having the woman of your dreams sit next to you and asking "Why are wearing gloves to read?...Oh, really; I never knew that!...and IS THAT Chomsky in French translation you're so easily comprehending? My place or yours, Intellectual-Socially-Conscious-Glove Boy?" Okay, I'm straying. Really, though, that's the way alot of these anti-smoking people think.)

With my lawsuit won, my cash in hand, and even more cash in hand from the "book gloves" people I made a deal with before pursuing my case, I head on down to Washington and start talking to some politicians. I'd like to start an organization that protects people from the deadly effect of books, and, in exchange for a nice campaign contribution, I'd like some government funds for my organization. I even have a way of helping this politician get the funds for my organization: a book tax!

After all of this, guess what? Since I convinced a jury that books cause cancer once, I can convince them again! I do yet another study and, Eureka! not only did the booksellers and publishers not take enough necessary measures to protect their customers from books, the books actually got worse! My latest study shows that book cause THREE TIMES the amount of brain cancer instead of two times the amount! I get two billion dollars more!

No one bothered to consider that the book readers in my original study had a tendency towards all kinds of behaviors that could possibly cause a small rise in cancer. No one can prove that I've created a very strong bias in my original lawsuit by putting government labels on books. This affected everyone, including the subjects and researchers of my second study, so it was only natural that there would be an increase in their findings. There better be! I created it!

I now have my 3 Billion Empire and a nice salary that I pay myself through the organization that my political friends and I began, and fund, along with anti-book commercials, through the book tax.

I now dare anyone to say that books don't cause cancer. After all, everyone knows that they do. 20 million owners of reading gloves and 50,000 brain cancer deaths a year from reading can't be wrong.

Repeat cycle as desired……….. (Example letter provided by a CTA reader.)

Scare mongering by using false and misleading data is very effective in raising special interest funding, and in getting unnecessary laws passed. Pharmaceutical nicotine interests (J & J / RWJF) are the special interest funding behind smoking ban ordinances. And lawmakers appear to be the sheeple poised to give pharmaceutical companies unprecedented power in a whole host of issues, from smoking bans, alcohol prohibition, obesity laws, and now to universal healthcare.

Unfortunately for lawmakers (and the rest of us), I fear it will be too late to regain the power they relinquished to the pharmaceutical industry, once they realize their mistake.

How hazardous is secondhand smoke?............

Sunday, February 01, 2009

The days of pharmaceutical nicotine funded smoking ban activists running roughshod influence over lawmakers may be at an end

A round of applause, please, and -- what the heck -- a standing ovation, too, for the Gladstone City Council.

That suburban community's elected leaders appear on the brink of overthrowing the tyranny of the anti-smoking majority....

Gladstone council member Les Smith gets it. "It is really simple," he said. "You have a choice not to go in."

Mainstream media has done little if anything to inform lawmakers or the public about the fact that the real driving influence for the exaggerated need for smoking bans has been the alternative nicotine lobbyists. Namely RWJF and the non-profits they funded (to the tune of $446+ million). RWJF is partner to Johnson & Johnson Company, the manufacturer of Nicoderm, Nicoderm CQ; as well as maker of Nicorette, Nicotrol, and Commit since the Pfizer consumer health buyout. The alternative media (internet) can take full credit for blowing the whistle on the special interest motive and influence behind the rent seeking scam known as smoking bans; as well as the damage to our economy caused by these special interest laws.

Let's hope that we can continue to count on real change by ensuring that the pharmaceutical nicotine funded smoking ban lobbyists are exposed for the charlatans they are and shunned by lawmakers and politicians everywhere.

Update: YANKTON, S.D. (AP) - A legislative effort to ban smoking in most public places statewide was snuffed out in the (South Dakota) state Senate (article link)

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