Clearing The Air

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Lawmaker learns there are consequences to legislative actions

This article is from 2007 but can help explain alot about our states' budget shortfalls.
http://www.columbusunderground.com/state-government-faces-smoking-ban-side-effect

Ohio’s budget is dependent to the tune of $1 billion a year on smokers lighting up at a time when voters have just dramatically reduced the number of places where they can light up. (smoking ban)

“We’re of two minds when it comes to cigarettes, aren’t we?” said Gov. Ted Strickland. “We don’t want people to smoke, yet we need the revenue coming from the tax. That’s just one of the multiple contradictions that we find in our society and probably within our budget.”

For the first time, revenue from the tax surpassed the $1 billion mark in the fiscal year that ended June 30 (2006) thanks to a 70-cents per-pack hike that took effect in July, 2005 — the biggest increase in the tax’s 76-year history.

As of Dec. 31, the halfway point of the current fiscal year, taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products were 8.8 percent below last year’s collections.

This is clear cut proof that smoking bans and higher tobacco taxes reduce government tax revenue......even a legislative assistant should be able to figure that one out.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Drugmakers learn lesson from smoking bans

Drugmakers like Johnson & Johnson learned there's big money in politics. Specifically if they spend millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers for laws that benefit their business interests....the payback will be huge.

Johnson & Johnson (maker of Nicoderm) used their partner, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to fund lobbyists who would get tobacco use banned.

Now with a government run healthcare obsession gripping all of Washington DC, PHARMA is actively lobbying lawmakers to make sure the new government healthcare program benefits their business interests.

Examples:

"a string of victories" plucked from the Senate Finance Committee by drug company lobbyists, including no cost-cutting steps, no cheaper drugs to be allowed across the border from Canada, and no direct Federal government negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies to lower Medicare drug prices........And that's not all. The Senate Health Committee is giving the biotech industry monopoly protection against competition from generic drugs for 12 years after they go on the market.

Full WSJ article found here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124779006528954995.html

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

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation not only lobbies lawmakers to pass special interest laws..they fund lawmakers directly

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?last=COLBY&first=DAVID

Democrats like Barack Obama, John Kerry, Bill Richardson, etc. seem to be the preferred party of RWJF funding.

Thanks for the find Pam

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Warning: Nicorette, Nicoderm, Commit, and other alternative nicotine products may be hazardous to your health

Teenager hospitalised after overdosing on nicotine gum (link)

A teenager was hospitalised after overdosing on nicotine gum given out at school.

Published: 7:30PM BST 20 Jul 2009 Telegraph U.K.

Mother Caroline Williams, 36, has called for the smoking aid to be banned after discovering children as young as 12 can be given up to 105 pieces of gum per week without their parent's knowledge.

"I couldn't believe that this gum can be give out like this without parents knowing," she said, "It is then being passed around the playground

"The doctors said that he could have died and he had to be kept in for 24 hours for observation......"

The irony is that smoking ban activists are heavily funded by pharmaceutical interests which manufacture and sell the alternative nicotine products aforementioned. Chief among the smoking ban promoters is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) who is partner to Johnson & Johnson company, maker of Nicoderm & Nicoderm CQ and now owner of Nicotrol, Nicorette, Commit since J & J acquired Pfizer Consumer Health.

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/02/smoking-bans-good-public-policy-or.html

Meanwhile, smoking bans are responsible for massive business closings and job losses around the globe.

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

Saturday, July 18, 2009

World's oldest man and oldest surviving WWI veteran passes away at 113...credits his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women."

We know however, that he must have been a liar, because from everything the smoking ban activists tell us, smoking causes instant death.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090718/world/britain_military_history_senior?printer=1

Sat Jul 18, 8:19 AM

LONDON (AFP) - Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and oldest World War I veteran, died Saturday at the age of 113, the nursing home where he spent his last years said.

Allingham, who in 2008 led the country in marking the 90th anniversary of the World War I armistice, put his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women."

I look for the tobacco control activists to either attack the credibility, military duty, and/or age of Henry Allingham.....or try to ignore the press released story altogether. Perhaps they'll get the Agence France Presse to change Mr. Allingham's quote to put his longevity down to "Nicoderm, whisky and wild, wild women."

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Military won't be pushed around by anti-tobacco special interests

Clearing the Air reported yesterday about a study attempting to force the military to ban smoking, today in a follow-up story the Pentagon tells special interest activists to take a flying leap.

Pentagon Won't Ban War Zone Smoking, Despite Study

Posted: 2:14 PM Jul 15, 2009
Last Updated: 2:14 PM Jul 15, 2009
Reporter: Associated Press

The Pentagon says it won't ban smoking by troops in war zones despite a recent study recommending a tobacco-free military.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell says troops already are under enough stress and making enough sacrifices from fighting the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he says Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't want to do add to that stress by taking away one of the few outlets they have to relieve it.

But Morrell says Gates will look at the study to see what other things can be done to move toward a goal of a tobacco-free force.