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KNOW YOUR ADVERSARIES

Go to Anti-Tobacco Advocates & Researchers for a comprehensive list of these and other proponents of anti-smoking activities.
 

Adversaries Right Here At Home
 

  Hillary Rodham Clinton
  On November 7, 2000, New Yorkers inherited Hillary Clinton as she won a seat on the New York Senate.  Not only did we get saddled with someone who has no ties to our state but we now have the mother of all anti-smokers sitting in our capitol.  Senator Clinton was the catalyst in the implementation of smoking bans around the country.  She is now public enemy #1 in our fight to retain our freedoms in New York State and City.

  Midwest Today reported, "She banned smoking in the White House and put more fruits and vegetables on the menu."

  The New York Post reported, "Also, someone might want to ask the tobacco-hating Hillary - who banned smoking at the White House - how she feels about Gore's decision to hire Carter Eskew, the Big Tobacco image-maker whose pro-tobacco ads were denounced by her husband as "absolutely false."

  Read about Hillary Clinton's Anti-Individualism

  As a nationally recognized leader in the fight to limit smoking, Assemblyman Grannis authored New York's Clean Indoor Air Act, which long stood as the most comprehensive set of restrictions on smoking in public and work places in the nation.  (See NYS Assembly Directory Bio for more).  Assemblyman Grannis was the main sponsor for the bill requiring that only fire-safe cigarettes be sold in the state which was passed and signed by Gov. Pataki.  NYC C.L.A.S.H. had an opportunity to question the Assemblyman about this and seek out his true motives in pushing for passage of his bill.. When asked, he openly admitted to being anti-smoking.  Since NYC C.L.A.S.H. is under the belief that this bill is nothing more than an attempt at further controlling smokers by forcing a sub-par product on them, he was further asked that if it is true he is looking to save lives due to fires, why not point the finger at all products which can cause fire in the home?  He replied, "This is what I'm working on right now."  In other words, he's only against cigarettes. Loss of life due to fire is secondary to him (if even that much).

Antonia Novello was appointed Surgeon General by President Bush, beginning her tenure on March 9, 1990. She was the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position.

During her tenure as Surgeon General, Novello focused her attention on the health of women, children and minorities, as well as on underage drinking, smoking, and AIDS. She played an important role in launching the Healthy Children Ready to Learn Initiative. She was actively involved in working with other organizations to promote immunization of children and childhood injury prevention efforts. She spoke out often and forcefully about illegal underage drinking, and called upon the Health and Human Services Inspector General to issue a series of eight reports on the subject. Novello also similarly worked to discourage illegal tobacco use by young people, and repeatedly criticized the tobacco industry for appealing to the youth market through the use of cartoon characters such as "Joe Camel." [click here for full bio]

Dr. Novello became Commissioner of Health for the State of New York in 1999.  And that's where she now plans to employ Third Reich tactics to harass smokers.  On May 18, 2001 she unveiled her latest plan to attack smokers by sending out squads of anti-smokers to confront smokers on the street and in public places in an effort to "persuade" them to join cessation programs. [PRESS RELEASE: Commissioner Novello Awards $2.4 Million Statewide to Recruit New Yorkers into Smoking Cessation Programs].  Once Governor Pataki got wind of this he abruptly snuffed it out and the state Health Department "scrapped" the campaign.  After the New York Post asked Pataki's spokesman if the governor endorsed such a Big Brother effort to confront adults engaged in a legal activity, Health Department spokesman John Signor called to say his agency made a mistake. NYC C.L.A.S.H. contacted Mr. Signor in an effort to verify whether he believes the only mistake was reporting that Gov. Pataki supported the campaign, and planning to continue with the campaign, or was the campaign itself a mistake and "scrapped" for good as reported.  As expected, there has been no reply.

Joe Cherner
SmokeFree Educational Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 3316
New York, NY 10008
212 912-0960

email: SmokeFree@usa.net
http://www.smokefree.org

Joe Cherner is also the policy chair for the group, Coalition for a Smoke-Free City.  On July 31, 2000 he sponsored a full page ad in the New York Times pleading for the City Council to expand smoking bans to bars.  This is a man on a mission who needs attending to posthaste by those who choose to smoke.  He has let his personal prejudice and personal history (someone close to him was a smoker and died of cancer) dictate public policy and has imposed his will on the rest of the New York City residents by being the loudest whiner in the chambers of City Hall.

In the September 8 -14, 1999 weekly issue of the Village Voice they report:

"Cherner, the city’s foremost unpaid anti tobacco activist, thinks he will soon finish the work he set out to do. For his parting gift, the crusader would like the city to finish the job by banning smoking in restaurants with 35 seats or less, nightclubs, and bars."

"He figures that [ad] campaign, along with his frequent meetings with various city officials, will help get a total workplace ban passed within the first half of next year."

  Hospital-workers union President Dennis Rivera is one of the most liberal, and pro-Democratic, labor leaders in the state.   You can thank him directly for the cigarette tax increase that went into effect in the beginning of the year 2000 and 2002.  He acted as chief negotiator that brokered both deals.  The latest tax increase has put New York State in the lead as having the highest cigarette tax in the nation @ $1.50/pack.  Governor Pataki is equally to blame for supporting such a measure.   Not only was this arranged by Dennis Rivera but it was accomplished secretly between only the two of them, disallowing input from other state officials or their constituents.
 
 

1999 - The New York Daily News reports:  State in secret dealings to aid health, hosps Pataki never released a formal proposal, and negotiations have taken place in secret, closed-door meetings. It is Rivera who has emerged as the unlikely broker of one of the  most sensitive — and expensive — deals of 1999. State officials normally involved in health care negotiations have said they were kept mainly in the dark. "I have huge, huge reservations" about the process, one legislator said.

1999- The New York Postexplains: REPUBLICANS BURN OVER GOV'S SUPPORT OF CIG TAX   2002 - FURIOUS FEDS STAGE $ICK-OUT ON PATAKI'S NEW HEALTH PLAN

11/10/00 -  Rivera Loses Seat on Executive Board.  Union Dues at Issue.

 

Adversaries Elsewhere
 

Leroy J. Pletten, Ph.D.
The Crime Prevention Group
Sterling Heights, MI 48313
email: lpletten@tir.com

Don't let the Ph.D. after his name fool you.  There is something obviously very wrong with this man.  He connects smoking to everything from abortion to AIDS.  He contends that tobacco is a "crime issue."  He refuses to use the "phony" reference Environmental Tobacco Smoke, instead insisting on calling it Toxic Tobacco Smoke (TTS).  He provides instruction and explanation on why smokers should not be hired for employment.  He claims that Hitler suffered from illness due to smoking which is blatantly misleading.  One of Hitler's first acts was to ban smoking.  He is the author of numerous letters to public officials and others.  In review of one of these letters (obtained through a source other than his site.  Letters on his site link to error messages) it is likely that the recipients had a good laugh before regaining their composure long enough to send a professional sounding reply back to appease the man.  It's unsure how much power Mr. Pletten actually wields in the anti-smoking community but nonetheless, he should not be overlooked as a foe.

Examples of his fanatical rantings:  "In essence, the old Confederacy and its killer tobacco and trilisa farmers, are still exercising the 'right to torture,' via the tobacco killing process."

AND

"Smokers have disproportionately higher rates of behaviors dangerous to themselves, others and property.  These behaviors include some that can be deemed immoral, illegal, career-shortening, or otherwise disqualifying."

ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), is an antismoking organization so fanatical, it is kept at a distance even by many operatives of the anti-tobacco cartel.  ASH is an organization devoted to instigate hatred against smokers.  They will instruct you, FOR A FEE, on how to win custody of your child if your spouse smokes and how to sue your neighbor for smoking.

ASH is run by a lawyer named John F. Banzhaf III, an arrogant and overzealous anti-smoker, and uses intimidation through lawsuits and threats of lawsuits to force business, and legislative actions against smokers rights.

Clive Bates, Director of ASH,  is a professional liar paid to divulge false information about smoking.

The University of California is particularly subject to charges of hypocrisy since it receives hundreds of millions from tobacco in the form of grants funded by tobacco taxes.  It's most famous "researcher" is the mechanical engineer turned heart expert Stanton Glantz.  Without tobacco money funding his statistical alchemy, Glantz, and his fellow charlatans would have to get real jobs to justify their presence on the staff of what once was a great University.

Read a transcript (search page for "Glantz") of an interview by LA talk show host Dennis Prager with Glantz and see just for yourself what kind of person he is and how he carries himself.

James Repace is in cahoots with Stanton Glantz.  They have, and continue to, work on many anti-smoking projects together.  Producer of junk science extraordinaire and anti-smoking activist,  he makes a living on mass-production of reshuffled studies. He is a former senior policy analyst for the EPA who has authored more than 50 scientific papers (but no, the research isn't biased) on the secondhand smoke issue. He runs a consulting firm where he offers his services by providing courses, lecturing, media interviews and "expert" testimony on secondhand smoke.  In other words, he gets paid.  Would he continue his zealotry against secondhand smoke if he wasn't?  This is a rhetorical question.

For a more in-depth look at the man, it is suggested you read The Modern Day Leper.

Read a wonderful essay about how and why they use their funding to promote anti-smoking propaganda:

PHARMACEUTICAL MULTINATIONALS: BUYING
GOVERNMENTS, SELLING ANTISMOKING

Also, Special Report: Behind the Neo-Prohibition Campaign:
April 2003

Prohibition ended 70 years ago this month, but there's a new temperance movement afoot. The massive -- yet largely unseen -- effort to reinstate prohibition drip by drip is coordinated and funded by the $9 billion Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Follow the money, and you’ll find that nearly every study disparaging alcohol in the mass media, every legislative push to limit alcohol marketing or increase taxes, and every supposedly “grassroots” anti-alcohol organization leads back to the RWJF. Read the new report from the Center for Consumer Freedom.

The Truth Campaign is the publicly funded playground for old freeze-dried hippies who are finally
realizing their dream of bashing American corporations.  The ads have nothing to do with smoking, let
alone Truth, and make sense only to the 60's refugees who watch them through a fog of marijuana smoke.

New horrific movies and advertisement of the horror "caused" by smoking have
hit the public, fuelled by the immense amount of money extorted from the smokers themselves through
the settlement. The horrors in question have of course no correspondence with scientific reality, but the
goal of the campaign is not to speak the truth, but to instigate more and more hatred against smoking,
and to condition the behaviour of the population through disgust and intimidation.  The horrible reality
is that children are the main target of this campaign of misinformation.  The never-ending exploitation
of "the children" have reached incredible levels of corruption.

FORCES reports "TRUTH" CAMPAIGN IS ANYTHING BUT:

We have all, nonsmoker and smoker, been assaulted by the jerky, poorly produced Truth
advertisements polluting the TV airwaves.  Most ignore the incomprehensible and idiotic
dialogue the losers spout on screen but attention should be paid to the serious misuse of public funds
producing these indulgent exercises in self-indulgency.  The National Review Online sums up the
problem with the Truth Campaign:

There is very little Truth and a hell of a lot of demagoguery.  Tobacco education, if it is to be considered a legitimate activity, should once in a while educate.  The Truth Campaign's only purpose is to divide people and attack American corporations.  It must be eliminated.

Read The National Review Online article Tobacco & the English Language ; An ad campaign against an industry