14 Klarner W. Vom Rauchen: Eine Sucht und ihre Bekampfung.Nuremberg: Rudolf Kern, 1940.

15 Rauchverbot fur die Polizei auf Strassen und in Dienstraumen. Die Genussgifte1940;36:59.

16 Berlin: alcohol, tobacco and coffee. JAMA 1939;113:1144-5.

17 Kleine Mitteilungen. Vertrauensarzt 1941;9:196.

18 Mitteilungen. Off Gesundheitsdienst 1941;7:488.

19 Charman T. The German home front 1939-1945. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1989.

20 Fromme W. Offentlicher Gesundheitsdienst. In: Rodenwaldt E, ed. Hygiene. Part I. General hygiene. Wiesbaden: Dietrich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1948:36.

21 Informationsdienst des Hauptamtes fur Volksgesundheitder NSDAP. 1944;April-June:60-1.

22 Muller F H. Tabakmissbrauch und Lungencarcinom. Z Krebsforsch1939;49:57-85.

23 Schairer E, Schoniger E. Lungenkrebs und Tabakverbrauch.Z Krebsforsch1943;54:261-9.

24 Kittel W. Hygiene des Rauchens. In: Handloser S, Hoffmann W, eds. Wehrhygiene. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1944.

25 Goedel A. Kriegspathologische Beitrage. In: Zimmer A, ed.Kriegschirurgie. Vol 1. Vienna: Franz Deuticke, 1944.

26 Pritzkoleit K. Auf einer Woge von Gold: Der Triumph der Wirtschaft.Vienna: Verlag Kurt Desch, 1961.

27 Werberat der deutschen Wirtschaft. Volksgesundheit und Werbung. Berlin: arl Heymanns, 1939.

28 Peto R. Smoking and death. BMJ 1995;310:396.

Funding: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC; Hamburger Institut fur Sozialforschung in Hamburg.

In August of 1994 Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the tobacco industry alleging violation of state antitrust and fraud statutes.

This was not against a single tobacco company, but the entire industry. In the same way antitrust suits could no doubt be brought against the automobile industry for causing injury and death or the detergent industry for causing pollution.

Three and a half years after filing the lawsuit, jury selection began.

During proceedings the tobacco companies fought to avoid turning over 39,000 secret industry documents until finally ordered to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court. Overall, 33 million pages of industry documents were collected.

The case went on for almost 4 full years, until May 8, 1998 when a $6.1 billion settlement was reached. The amount is to be paid out over a 25 year period.

Thus Minnesota became the fourth state -- after Mississippi, Florida and Texas -- to win settlements from the industry.

In July of 1998 the state is in the process of setting up a nonprofit group to administer $202 million of the settlement money to be dedicated to anti-smoking efforts and research into smoking and public health. (Apparently they don't have all their facts yet?) An additional $650 million may be added to the ante later. Already, gubernatorial candidates have lined up with ideas on how to spend it, from buying prescription drugs for senior citizens to a comprehensive anti-smoking campaign.

To one degree or another the anti-tobacco forces see themselves as engaged in a Holy War against the Devil's Weed. This manifests in different ways, from the religious ardor characteristic of the movement in general, to some of the methodology employed.

There is for instance one document titled "The Collaborators" in which appears a long list of publications rated as to whether or not they carry tobacco advertising to readers 18 or under.

Included is a "gang of twelve noxious magazines" that do carry the offensive advertising. On that list, Cosmopolitan, People, Better Homes, Playboy, Time, TV Guide, Newsweek, Family Circle, McCalls, Woman's Day, U.S. News and Sports Illustrated. A pretty "noxious" group alright. Maybe they should be happy -- a 22 country study showed that advertising bans have led to a rise in smoking.

There is also a list of approved retail stores in various cities and of course, a Black List of scores of retailers, publications and even cultural organizations which are either "carriers" or "collaborators."

In the last category appear the Metropolitan, Whitney and Guggenheim Museums, Joffrey Ballet, National Newspaper Publishers Association, Untied Jewish Appeal Federation of New York and the League of Women Voters. The list goes on.

(The document is printed in its entirety in APPENDIX A)

An even more interesting albeit obnoxious document is one put out by "Action on Smoking and Health" (ASH), an aggressive anti-smoking organization entirely supported by tax-deductible contributions -- at least so they say. This little gem lays out guidelines for tax-wise charitable giving including making contributions in the form of 1) stocks which have appreciated, 2) insurance policies no longer needed, 3) a remainder interest in real property and 4) setting up a charitable remainder trust (CRT).

It then goes on to caution readers that retirement plan assets are subject to a combination of taxes which "reasonably can be described as confiscatory in three forms: taxes on "income in respect of a decedent," estate taxes and excess accumulations taxes.

As a desirable alternative to losing such assets to taxation ASH will be willing to discuss "with your spouse, children and tax advisors" various tactics for participators in 401k, 403b IRA or a similar plan to dispose of such assets otherwise.

All of which sounds like a thinly veiled hint to hand your money over to ASH. It puts one in mind of some cults which have been in the new in recent years and their practice of milking their adherents of their assets. Almost makes you wonder if anyone ever gets out of ASH alive.

As the anti-tobacco war progresses there is no longer any room for accommodation, either in government policy or the minds of the more vehement and impatient adherents of the anti-tobacco movement. The howl is for anti-smokers' rights alone, no quarter to be given to smokers' rights.

Thinking is becoming more and more polarized, anti-smoking action more and more repressive. New, restrictive laws are enacted and existing legislation re-interpreted at an astounding rate with little regard to the direction they are taking us. With precedents being set on the tobacco front the worst elements of authoritarian control will be encouraged to slam further limits on our traditional liberties.

This may sound unduly alarmist to the casual observer, but a closer look will find ample cause for such concern.

Some indications of this trend have been presented in the preceding pages, others will be listed here.

Because they function so cohesively it is hard to assign responsibility for this state of affairs between the two camps at work -- the official/governmental and the private organizations. Particularly so in view of the overlapping funding of private groups by state and federal monies. In other words, your tax dollars subversively at work.

The two parties are engaged in an obscene waltz to seduce the country into a sense of being looked after, well taken care of while our options, and with them, our liberties are systematically stripped away under the guise of "Public Health."

According to "The Weekly Standard," a conservative weekly magazine, the anti-tobacco crusade is doing more harm than tobacco itself, that it is promoting victimization rather than personal responsibility. "The only conceivable consequence of equating hard drugs, which can destroy the mind and soul, with tobacco, which can actually have positive effects on the mind and has no deleterious effect on the soul, is to lessen the fear of real drugs among young people... The truth is that tobacco doesn't interfere with the soul, mind, conscience or emotional growth of a smoker." (July 20, 1998 issue)

Contrary to what anti-tobacco activists and Public Health cheerleaders would have you believe, a Washington Post poll published July 14, 1998 indicated that tobacco legislation ranked low in importance in voter's minds. Unfortunately the truth is, the majority of people probably have little idea of what is going on in the tobacco arena or what it portends.

Non-Smokers' Rights are riding roughshod over Smokers' Rights and in so doing is, by its tactics, raising the specter of social control by taxation, litigation and legislation -- all this attacking an industry subsidized by the government in the production of a legal product.

A smoke-free society is a society in which a sizable segment of the population has been discriminated against and deprived of rights. Forget equal protection under the law. If necessary, change the law... Constitutional Amendments... the Constitution itself. According to this philosophy due process and equal protection under the law are antiquated concepts.

According to a Heartland Institute Policy study, as of June, 1997 "Two dozen state had filed lawsuits against the tobacco industry seeking reimbursement of Medicaid and other public health monies spent on smokers." They add that such suits "are flawed and do not fall within standard legal theories of liability" and go on to say that "they represent a dangerous expansion of tort law that conscientious state attorneys general should avoid." Few if any attorneys general seem to be paying any attention.

The craze for litigation against the tobacco industry is epidemic. As of this writing four states have settled with tobacco companies; Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Minnesota. Other State suits Scheduled:

Washington, 1998
Arizona, 1998
Oklahoma, 1998
Massachusetts, February 1, 1999
Wisconsin, September 13, 1999
Ohio, May, 2000

And other Attorneys General await in the wings, law books and tax proposals in hand. All the State and Federal taxes are not for Public Health either, as the antis would have you believe, they are for fattening big government's purse. Just look at the settlements -- $11.3 billion... $3.4 billion...$14.5 billion... $6.1 billion. And guess who will wind up paying when all is said and done.

For the industry it is harassment. For smokers themselves it is taxation without representation, pure and simple.

May, 1998

Two examples of the way the government and its agencies play fast and loose with laws, rules and regulations are a recent congressional funding shift and a statement on VA policy.

First, a move to fund a pork-barrel project to finance transportation projects involving highway construction by cutting veterans health benefits. Since most elected officials have such projects in their state/district which they believe their constituents want they were anxious to pass the scam in an election year. Monies skimmed from the VA program were variously estimated at $10.5 billion to $23.8 billion over five years.

The Clinton Administration has been advocating cutting veterans disability benefits for tobacco-related illness because they are "expensive and inconvenient to process." On the other hand, military service during wartime has presumably always been cheap and convenient for veterans.

Secondly, the above move was followed a week later by news that the lawmakers went so far as to declare any veteran who smoked on active duty as having engaged in "willful misconduct"! This from a government which has not only long subsidized tobacco growers, but whose policy on servicemen's smoking has traditionally been permissive, even actively encouraged by the military.

This is government by whim, one finger in the wind, another proctologically placed. With such fickle U-turns of policy no one should assume that their rights are going to be protected if the tide should turn against them.

America fights its wars with the help of tobacco. During the Revolutionary War George Washington made a public appeal: "If you can't send money, send tobacco."

Tobacco was given out as a ration in both the Union and Confederate Armies during the Civil War. In 1862 the first Federal tax on tobacco was introduced and yielded about $3 million to help pay for the war.

During World War I, General John J. Pershing, commander-in-chief of the American forces in France, cabled Washington, "Tobacco is as indispensable as the daily ration; we must have thousands of tons of it without delay."

In WWII General Douglas McArthur emphasized the need to keep U.S. troops supplied with tobacco. Cigarette ads during World War II, like those during World War I, linked the product with patriotism and the boys in uniform."

In fact, the military provided free cigarettes to overseas service personnel up through the Vietnam War.

In the Army the lingo was, "Smoke 'em if you've got 'em." In the Navy it was, "The smoking lamp is lit."

To turn around now, in 1998, and charge veterans who smoked with "willful misconduct" is scurrilous. Veterans were properly outraged. Without delay they took their complaints to the Whitehouse and Capitol Hill and won a no doubt grudging agreement that the language would not appear in the proposal that was part of Clinton's budget audit and, it was said, did not originate in the Congress.

June 10, 1998 -- In Florida a jury found the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation responsible for the death of Roland Maddox and awarded his family $950,000, ($500,000 compensatory damages plus $450,000 punitive damages.) This is the largest ever jury verdict in a lawsuit over tobacco's dangers and the first time punitive damages have been ordered in such a case.

The anti-smoking brigade undoubtedly crowed over the victory. I think it stinks. Not because it is aimed at a tobacco company but because it is one more (giant) step in the ongoing resignation from personal responsibility taking place in today's society.

Before his death from lung cancer in 1997 Maddox had been a smoker for nearly 50 years. The risks of smoking were well known during that period, even before the Surgeon General's warnings began to appear on every pack. You didn't have to have been a long-time smoker to be aware of them.

In the trial it was asserted that Maddox did know the dangers associated with smoking, often referring to cigarettes as "coffin nails." The term goes back to mid nineteenth century. So who didn't know??

Choosing to smoke despite the dangers associated with the practice is tantamount to accepting those risks. It should also signal acceptance of personal responsibility for one's actions in so doing.

To claim ignorance of the risks and victimization, then charge the company with negligence for failing to warn the public of the dangers of smoking is ridiculous, fraudulent, perjurious and should be a crime in itself.

The government's actions on the tobacco front have some peculiar aspects and ramifications on various levels. It may be doing harm to itself in more ways than one.

Numerous writers, speakers and researchers are remarking on the dissipation of American trust in government and democracy these days. More people are said to consider the government as the single greatest threat facing the country -- ahead of big labor and big business.

One poll indicated that only about 20% of the public trusts government. When it comes to the politicians who run the government the level of distrust runs much higher. In the popular view politicians are corrupt and untrustworthy. In terms of trustworthiness they rank below lawyers but above used-car salesmen!

This overwhelming disenchantment cannot be laid at the feet of the anti-smoking crusaders. In fact, what with all the encouragement, reinforcement and funding they get from government sources, they are most likely among the staunchest supporters of current government practices.

But, to the extent that the truth surfaces about government complicity in the despicable activities launched against not only the tobacco industry as such, but against a sizable (although declining) proportion of its citizens, such distrust can only increase.

In participating in malicious propaganda, dubious research and faulty science as well as in its funding the attack on tobacco through various of its agencies, government shows once more that it is not deserving of respect and trust.

Our legislators certainly dropped several points in the minds of veterans when they tried to scam them out of well-earned VA health benefits. Many of these are the very men who are often held up as the nation's saviors for their efforts in World War II. To spit in their faces with such a move is reprehensible.

If the current philosophy prevails and further personal liberties are destroyed or effectively limited, the time will come when an effective backlash will occur at the ballot box if nowhere else.

But this isn't the only way our government is demeaning itself. If the current trend continues and a smoke-free society were to be realized it would be hitting itself where it really hurts -- in the pocketbook.

In 1994 tobacco was the 7th largest cash crop, worth over $4,000 per acre. 673,000 acres were harvested bringing in $2.8 billion at auction. Manufactured tobacco products that year were worth almost $27 billion, including exports of $5.4 billion and providing nearly $2.1 billion in compensation for more than 42,000 people.

According to R.J. Reynolds (and who should have more accurate figures on this than a tobacco company), the excise taxes on cigarettes raked in a total of $13,226,759,000 in 1997. This represents sub-totals of $7,306,959,000 on the state level, $5,734,393,000 in federal revenues and $176,407.000 on the local level.

For organizations that are constantly trying to raise money through taxation, this represents quite a debit. If it came to pass it would only mean a comparable increase in your taxes in some other area.

Not only that, when it comes to tobacco the federal government has a conflict of interest. While trying to convince the public that tobacco is deadly and smokers are "serial killers," federal crop insurance subsidies to tobacco growers add up to approximately $30 million per year.

On the whole, our government looks more and more as if it is suffering from a serious fragmentation; the tobacco industry is killing people... but we'll support them in doing it. Could it be that they are doing so to keep the industry on its feet and keep the excise money rolling in?

If that's the case our "leaders" (pardon the expression) are even more duplicitous than we thought.

It looks more and more like the two party system is in mental, moral and ethical decline and changing horses in mid-stream is the only hope.

So where is a third party that can deliver us from these crackpots? Really deliver us?

ITEM: As reported in the Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1998:

----------------------------------------------------------

A federal judge ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency wrongly declared secondhand tobacco smoke a dangerous carcinogen in a landmark 1993 report, a decision that could impact some local and regional ordinances banning indoor smoking.

The controversial EPA report concluded that environmental tobacco smoke is a Class A carcinogen, as hazardous as radon and responsible for about 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year. The tobacco industry promptly sued in federal court to force the study to be withdrawn, arguing that the agency ignored accepted scientific and statistical practices in making its risk assessment -- a contention made at the same time by many independent scientists.

After five years of court pleadings and deliberations, U.S. District Judge Thomas Osteen of the Middle District of North Carolina ultimately agreed with the industry. He issued his opinion late Friday, and many EPA and tobacco industry officials were still unaware of it even when contacted Saturday evening.

Michael York, an attorney for cigarette giant Philip Morris Cos., called Osteen's decision "a very important ruling" that could force the EPA to reverse its stand on secondhand smoke. "Now it will be up to the agency to reexamine all of the relevant studies and make the honest determination that the statistical correlations are extremely weak -- certainly below that necessary to justify their classification of [secondhand smoke] as a Class A human carcinogen."

From the time the report was issued, even scientists not affiliated with the industry criticized the EPA for using too low a standard for what constitutes causation rather than chance.

Osteen agreed that the agency's science was lacking. "Using its normal methodology and its selected studies, EPA did not demonstrate a statistically significant association between [secondhand smoke] and lung cancer," he said.

Statistical significance is the scientific standard that separates interesting results that could be the product of chance from more convincing evidence that is likely to constitute a true association.

"EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded the industry by violating the Act's procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion; and aggressively utilized the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs' products and to influence public opinion," Osteen wrote.

Of course the anti-smoking storm troopers immediately went to work trying to discredit Judge Osteen and blasting away at his ruling. Stay tuned for later developments.

The blow to the EPA report could give new energy to opponents of these bans, since "the release of the original risk assessment gave an enormous boost to efforts to restrict smoking at the state and local levels," said Matthew L. Myers, a spokesman for the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids.

In addition, a number of lawsuits filed against tobacco companies over claims of injury from secondhand smoke still hang in the balance. For example, a class-action suit was settled with airline flight attendants last year for $349 million, but individuals still have to sue the industry and prove that secondhand smoke harmed them, which could be more difficult without the EPA's support.

Myers said, however, that one judge's ruling could not blunt the national trend, especially given that so many reports have found secondhand smoke dangerous. "While the move to restrict smoking indoors could be temporarily set back by this decision," he said, "it won't be stopped."

"As the anti-tobacco movement has gained strength across the nation, a backlash against tobacco control initiatives has emerged. While it is clear why the tobacco industry has a stake in a counter movement, it is also important to understand why some smokers feel compelled to affirm their "smoking rights" and how the tobacco industry supports the movement.

The ideology behind the backlash against tobacco control initiatives stems from arguments of liberalism and free choice. The Economist attacked anti-tobacco activists in an editorial (12/20/97) that posited, "...the attack on tobacco has crossed the admittedly fuzzy line that distinguishes moral enthusiasm from illiberal vindictiveness, and at such a time good fun should yield to good thinking." According to The Economist, the government should not have the right to regulate personal freedoms, even if they cause harm (they concede that smoking is risky, but that the risks are exaggerated).

Some companies are pursuing the reinstatement of smoking sections in public places. In September, 1997, R.J. Reynolds opened two smoking lounges in Georgia malls. The Associated Press interviewed a store employee at the North Point Mall in Georgia. She called the lounge, "[T]he weirdest thing in the world. I was thinking that everybody wanted to stop smoking in public places." According to RJR, 500 to 600 hundred smokers a week visit the North Pointe Mall store outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Eventually, cigarette companies like Philip Morris Cos. Inc., who has secured the rights to distribute its own products in all 50 states, may open their own cigarette-only stores.

Smoker's rights. Cyber support. New Products. New smoking lounges. Astro-Turf campaigns. Determined, dedicated smokers may be down, but they are not out. Indeed, some are fighting back through civil disobedience of smoking bans and other political actions. Tobacco control warriors should continue to monitor developments in the "smokers rights" movement. As the saying goes, where there's smoke, there may be fire."

Just possibly the madness will run its course after all!

But don't hold your breath. The dogs of the anti-tobacco war are rabid. If state lawsuits pending against the industry are any indication the struggle will go on well into the 21st Century. Either side may lose a battle now and then. Which side ultimately wins the war is open.

Right now things look dark for the tobacco industry and its clientele. The winds could change though. An informed public aware of all that is at stake could make a difference.

We could go on... and on... and on -- there's a mountain of material out there to counter the sound and fury of the anti-tobacco claims -- but why? By now it should be evident that it's not just about tobacco, somebody lighting up a cigarette, but their right to do so. And, along with that, everyone's right to follow their inclinations, make their own choices and decisions without having them made for them by Big Brother and the Nay Sayers.

THAT'S WHAT IS IMPORTANT AND WORTH DEFENDING.

The anti-tobacco crusade is only the tip of the iceberg. More significant by far is the assault on personal freedom which it spearheads.

Apathy becomes the enemy. Never mind that some people want to smoke while others don't -- think about how you want to live your life... and whether of not you want the Politically Correct crowd and Big Brother dictating your choices.

If not, BE ON GUARD!