We "Smokers" have been spit-on, verbally abused, taxed to benefit everyone else, forced outside of bars and restaurants, turned into second class citizens, treated like we were the addicted scum of the Earth, and repeatedly told that smoking causes all sorts of deadly diseases and is killing us and everyone else!!!!!

Anti-smoking groups have been spreading lies and propaganda for decades. In fact most smokers, if asked, would say that they "KNOW" that smoking is bad for them and that they should quit.

This is not the truth; but, the result of a well orchestrated, highly funded campaign by the makers of nicotine replacement programs.

The spending of as much as $880 million dollars a year on "Tobacco Control" (according to the AMA.

For instance, The Johnson and Johnson Company (makers of Nicorette gum and Nicoderm patches) created the R.W.Johnson Foundation. The RWJ Foundation has given about $500,000,000 to anti-smoker groups over the last few years.

The drug industry, according to estimates by the Center for Public Integrity, has spent $758 million on lobbying - more than any other industry - since 1998.

The LA Times also recognized that "outside the confines of a doctor's office, pharmaceutical marketing efforts become more extravagant."

Drug companies also score favor, spending $1.12 billion in 2005 just to fund medical education seminars:

Smokers can not hope to come up with that kind of money; but, we can vote.

We just need to say: "We smoke and we are tired of all the lies and BS and we are 'MAD AS HELL' and we do VOTE!!!"

The "American Smokers Party" is being started so as to give smokers a chance to know the facts about smoking and disease. We have been lied to and scammed for tooooo long!!

ASP is not meant to be a political party like the Republicans or Democrats.

ASP is meant to be a group like "The American Rifle Association" is for gun-owners and hunters.

ASP is meant to be a means for the some 60+ million smokers in this country to work together at the local, state, and national level(if needed) to achieve political togetherness thru votes and other actions.

We do not have to run for political office; but, I do think that we can be a large enough group to vote out of, or into, office any politician that is either against, or for, smokers as citizens with undeniable rights.

1. Enlist enough smokers to be able to be a deciding vote for which Senators and Representatives are elected and sent to Springfield.

2. Get the 'Smokefree Illinois Law' repealed.

3. Since Illinois smokers have to pay a state sales tax on the state mandated excise tax on cigarettes, repealing the state excise tax and not paying a tax on a tax is another good goal.

4. Make certain that nothing like the above law and taxes ever happen again.

5. The goal for ASP-ILL and smokers must be to "make it difficult’ for politicians and “public health” to tramp on the rights of citizens, especially when using scientific fraud and misrepresentation of scientific evidence as a tool and justification.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

Become a part of ASP and spread the word to other smokers.

Since no one knows the problems of your local area as well as you do, become a contact person for the smokers in your local area. Help educate and organize local groups.

I SMOKE AND I VOTE
Gary Kayser
Montgomery,Illinois
E-mail me: gkayser30@aol.com

Below are a few out of the thousands of pages of material available to prove that smoking "does not cause " heart disease, cancers, emphysema, asthma, and that smoking does protect against some really nasty diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

More information will be posted, check back frequently and stay informed.

This is one series of questions that should always be asked antis and politicians. - Gary K.

A. You say that nicotine(cigarette smoke) is more addictive than heroin; in fact,about the most addictive substance on the planet.

B. You say that food/drink servers in smoking allowed places are exposed to enough SHS to equal smoking about a pack of cigarettes per shift.

C. You says smoking bans are needed to protect these workers from the adverse health effects of SHS.

Now; if cigarette smoke is that addictive and workers are exposed to that much smoke, shouldn't all servers be addicted and be smokers?

If all servers are smokers, is not a smoking ban to protect them from SHS stupid?

So which is it?

A. Is cigarette smoke(nicotine) not addictive?

B. Are servers actually only exposed to such a very,very,teeny, tiny amount of cigarette smoke that they do not become addicted?

C. If servers are only exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS as to not be addicted, the adverse health effects of such exposure would be miniscule too and would smoking bans not be necessary and actually be stupid?

D. If servers are exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS, then are not patrons exposed to only a tiny part of that miniscule amount and bans are certainly not needed to protect them?

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths.

Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.

The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Washington, D.C. is 3rd, about the highest.

The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 51st, the lowest.

Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking and SHS cause Asthma.

Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Oregon rank 32nd and 42rd in smoking rates and North Carolina ranks near the highest at 13th.

In the ranking of Asthma incidence rates:
1. The highest is Washington, D.C.
2. Oregon

51st: The lowest incidence of Asthma is North Carolina.

If smoking and exposure to SHS causes Asthma, how is it that the state with the higher smoking rate ranks lowest and states with a much lower smoking rates rank the highest and second highest in Asthma incidence?

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:
You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths.

Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.

The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Wash DC is 1st, the highest.

The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 39th or among the lowest.

Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:

You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths?

Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.

The 'Total Death Rate' ranking for Washington, D.C. is 4th highest.

The 'Total Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 47th or 4th lowest.

Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Total Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??

The lies started at least 40 years ago. The Surgeon General's Report of 1967 stated that smoking kills.

This is what the report actually contained; do not bother looking for this in their archives, it has been deleted.

The lies started at least 40 years ago.
The SG's Report of 1967 stated that smoking kills.

This is what the report actually contained; do not bother looking for this in their archives, it has been deleted.

"Prevalence rate for given smokers." smoking category divided by prevalence rate for never smokers.
Ratios of less than 2.00=not significant
Ratios of 1.00 = same as "never smoked"
RR of less than 1.00 are a protective effect!!

Surgeon General Report-May 1967 (Page 11)
Table D. Ratios of age-adjusted prevalence rates of chronic conditions for persons 17 years and over who have ever smoked to persons who have never smoked, by cigarette smoking status, number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount, sex, and selected chronic conditions:

United States, July 1964 - June 1965 Sex and selected chronic conditions

Male Ratio - All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount
Relative Risk

Female Ratio- All chronic conditions
Number of cigarettes smoked per day for present smokers-heaviest amount

Relative risk of lung cancer for asbestos workers was "highest for those who had never smoked, lowest for current smokers, and intermediate for ex-smokers. The trend was statistically significant. There was no significant association between smoking and deaths from mesothelioma," [emphasis added].
0565. University of London, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Cancer of the Lung Among Asbestos Factory Workers."
[Many other studies show similar findings for asbestos workers].

Graves' pooled reanalysis found, "A statistically significant inverse relation between smoking and Alzheimer's disease was observed at all levels of analysis, with a trend towards decreasing risk with increasing consumption (p=0.0003). A propensity towards a stronger inverse relation was observed among patients with a positive family history of dementia."

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have a considerably decreased life expectancy, with the entire course of the disease taking an average of about eight years. It is hard to distinguish during life because of other damage and dementias. As many as 80% of the cases may be unrecognized by general practitioners.

Acute administration of low doses of nicotine improved mental processes and may be protective in AD. This possibility was first put forward by Appel, who noted that only 6 out of 30 patients had smoked at any time in their lives. Since that time, nineteen case control studies have been published and are considered here. The overall from these showed a clear negative association, 15 out of 18 studies reporting a lower risk of AD in men and women who had smoked.

Of the 19 studies, 15 found a reduced risk in smokers, and none found an increased risk and smoking is clearly associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, another disease in which nicotine receptors are reduced. The fact that acute administration of nicotine improves attention and information processing in AD patients adds further plausibility to the hypothesis.

"The risk of Alzheimer's disease decreased with increasing daily number of cigarettes smoked before onset of disease. In six families in which the disease was apparently inherited, the mean age of onset was 4-17 years later in smoking patients than in non- smoking from the same family."
(Conelia M. van Duljn MSC Albert Hoffman Md., Erasmus Univ. Md. School)

March 20, 2007
Smoking lowers Parkinson's disease risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study adds to the previously reported evidence that cigarette smoking protects against Parkinson's disease. Specifically, the new research shows a temporal relationship between smoking and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. That is, the protective effect wanes after smokers quit.

As reported in the March 6th issue of Neurology, Thacker and colleagues analyzed data, including detailed lifetime smoking histories, from 79,977 women and 63,348 men participating in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. During about 9 years of follow-up, 413 subjects developed definite or probable Parkinson's disease. Compared to people who had never smoked and were considered to have "normal" Parkinson's disease risk, former smokers had a 22-percent lower risk of Parkinson's disease and "current smokers had a 73-percent lower risk. "

"The results were similar for men and women, and were also similar to the results of studies by many other researchers looking at the same topic," Thacker noted. "A 30 percent to 60 percent decreased risk of Parkinson's disease was apparent for smoking as early as 15 to 24 years before symptom onset, but not for smoking 25 or more years before onset," the investigators report.

"The results of our study," Thacker said, "can probably be explained by something in cigarettes -- most likely in the tobacco itself -- actually protecting people against getting Parkinson's disease. That would be the simplest explanation that makes the most sense."
SOURCE: Neurology, March 6,, 2007.

County Health Dept. brochures state that one of the benefits of smoking bans is that nonsmokers will not have to wait for a table in the nonsmoking section when there are empty tables in the smoking section of restaurants.

http://www.idph.state.il.us/health/bdmd/leadingdeaths05.htm

In 2005 in Illinois,Alzheimer's Disease(AD) is listed as causing 2,282 deaths, Parkinson's Disease(PD) caused 896 deaths.

These are real causes of death on "Death Certificates".

Smokers are about 25% of the population of Illinois and would be responsible for 705 AD deaths and for 224 PD deaths.

If all of us were forced to quit, we would then have an extra 705 AD deaths and an extra 672 PD deaths, that is 1,377 people caused to die.

The scummy, filthy antis would willingly, even cheerfully cause the real deaths of at least 1,377 from AD and PD; just so that they do not have to wait for a table when they go out to dine!!!

Our politicians are with them all of the way.

I can not say what I would like to say about what should be done to these people.

What about heart disease, then? It's on the cigarette packet in capital letters: SMOKING CAUSES HEART DISEASE.

The most authoritative study on this is certainly the Framingham Heart Study, which is known as the Rolls Royce of studies. In this town in Massachusetts, 5,127 men and women have been studied since 1948. They have had the fullest details taken on their health and life-style, and have been checked every two years. Dr. Seltzer of Harvard University discusses this study at length in 'Framingham Study Data and "Established Wisdom" abut Cigarette Smoking and Coronary Heart Disease', Journal of Critical Epidemiology 42, no. 8 (1989).

The results of the study show that there is no relationship between smoking and heart disease in women except a very slight favorable one (women who smoke have a very slightly lower rate of angina, not statistically significant).

For men, the relative risk starts at 1.3 in smokers of forty or more cigarettes a day. Remember, the risk ratio of 2 has been designated the lower boundary of a weak association, so this means in fact a non-significant association. This risk went down to exactly one, that is, no risk at all, as the subjects aged.

When information about certain of the other 300 risk factors for heart disease were taken into account, the relationship between smoking and heart disease was lost.

More recent results from the "Framingham Study", this done by doctors at Northwestern Univ.'s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. This was published in "Circulation" the journal of the American Heart Association.
First Lifetime Heart Disease Risk Assessment Developed Monday , February 06, 2006

Just more than half of men and 40 percent of women at age 50 in the U.S. will develop cardiovascular disease during their lifetime. But researchers say the danger is much greater for people who have multiple risk factors for heart disease by age 50.

The first-ever comprehensive lifetime risk assessment for cardiovascular disease highlights the importance of reducing risk early in life to prevent heart and vascular disease later on. Cardiovascular disease events included heart attack, angina, coronary heart disease, stroke, and claudication (peripheral arterial disease).

The researchers reviewed the medical records of 3,564 men and 4,362 women who did not have any record of cardiovascular disease at age 50. The men and women were followed for several decades and all cases of heart attack, coronary heart disease, angina, stroke, claudication (pain in the legs caused by circulation problems), and death from cardiovascular disease were recorded.

When the researchers calculated the impact of modifiable risk factors such as body weight, smoking history, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure, they found that: --Smokers and nonsmokers had similar lifetime risks for cardiovascular disease. The study appears in the Feb. 14 issue of the American Heart Association journal' Circulation.'

SOURCES: Lloyd-Jones, D.M. Circulation, Feb. 14, 2006, vol. 113: online. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, department of preventive medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago.

When normal science encounters some correlation between the exposure to some substance A and cancer B, the immediate next step is to use hard science to test whether A causes B. For example, it is trivial to establish that radiation or inhalation of radioactive particles causes lung cancers -- you expose some mice to such radiation in dose of interest and they develop lung cancers like clockworks. The same goes for various chemical carcinogens for which OSHA and EPA set exposure limits based on easily reproducible animal tests (cancer is a primitive disease, not specific to humans).

So why then, fifty years later, are we still only handwaving statistical association of smoking and lung cancer, such as "85-90% of the cases..."? Can't we just make some animals breathe enough tobacco smoke and develop cancers at higher rates, so we can establish it once and for all? We could do that, and it was done, of course, except that the data went the "wrong way" -- the smoking mice get fewer lung cancers than non-smoking mice, with dose-response relation showing that tobacco smoke is protective against lung cancers:

QUOTE
Inhalation Bioassy of Cigarette Smoke in Rats
A.P. Wehrner, et al. Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs, Richland WA Journal of Toxiology & Applied Pharmacology, Vol. 61: pp 1-17 (1981)

The results show that the highest number of tumors occurred in the untreated control [non-smoking] rats. The next highest number of tumors occurred in rats subject to sham smoking, i.e. rats which were placed in the smoking machine without smoke exposure, and the lowest number of tumors occurred in the smoke-exposed rats. Among the latter, the largest number of tumors occurred in rats exposed to smoke from cigarettes having the lowest level of nicotine. Here is a later study done with mice.

Finch GL, Nikula KJ, Belinsky SA, Barr EB, Stoner GD, Lechner JF, Failure of cigarette smoke to induce or promote lung cancer in the A/J mouse, Cancer Lett; 99(2):161-7 1996

No matter how much tobacco smoke they made poor animals inhale, even in equivalents of a carton or more per day (through surgically implanted breathing tubes), the more they smoked the fewer lung cancers they get. It just doesn't work and it even contradicts their "theory" so they just gave it up.

With humans, we can't force them to smoke, or even not to smoke, hence the next best thing, closest to hard science, are randomized intervention trials -- you take a group of smokers, assign half of them randomly into a 'quit group' (strongly advised not to smoke), and a 'control group' (left alone, to smoke as they wish), then follow them up for some years or decades, observe the smoking rates (which are normally lower in 'quit group') and check for lung cancers or other diseases.

That was done, of course, but only a handful of times in the early years of antismoking "science". As with animal experiments, the results of these few randomized intervention trials,whenever they showed anything at all, also went the "wrong way" -- the 'quit group' ends up with more lung cancers than the 'control group' (and generally higher death rates).

These were the "Whitehall and Mr.FIT" studies,to name a couple.

The first 'Whitehall' study, starting in 1968, which recruited 1,445 British civil servants. Half were encouraged to give up smoking, the others were left alone. After a year smoking in the intervention group (the nagged) was down by 75%. After ten years, 17.2% of this group was dead, as against 17.5% of the control group. This difference of percentage is not statistically significant.

There was no difference in deaths from lung cancer or heart disease, and the only other unexpected result was that the intervention group had 28 deaths from cancer other than lung cancer, compared with the control in which the number of deaths from such cancers was 12. This is statistically significant.

Another study, with a wider range, was the 'Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial' (MRFIT) in the US. In this there were 12,866 subjects. They were all shown to be at risk of heart disease because of their lifestyle and general health. (With 300 risk factors that's not surprising.) One group was given drugs for high blood pressure, encouraged to eat more healthily, and to stop smoking. The other was left alone, as in the Whitehall study.

These were not self-selected studies, and seem to have been conducted competently. At the end of the MRFIT study, 41.2 per thousand of the 'healthy' group were dead, as against the 40.4 per thousand of the other.

Scientists investigating the study didn't like the results, and went over them again. They found that the drugs to reduce high blood pressure had in fact increased the death rate among the men given them, and were forced to conclude that the risk factors had nothing to do with the actual risks.

Professor Burch, in a letter to the British Medical Journal (March 1985) pointed out that in these two studies:

In the low smoking intervention groups 56 cases of lung cancer were recorded in a total starting population of 7,142 men (0.78%); the corresponding number for the more heavily smoking normal care groups being 53 in 7,169 (0.74%).

Findings for cancer other than those of the lung were even more surprising.

Some 88 cases (1.23%) were recorded in the low smoking intervention groups, but only 60 cases (0.84%) in the normal care groups. Thus in the category 'all cancers' there were 144 cases (2.02%) in the intervention groups but 113 cases (1.58%) in the more heavily smoking normal care groups.

Reduced levels of smoking were associated with increases in cancer incidence.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/adult/table_2.htm

Smoking Status

1970

1980

1985

1990

1995

2001

2002

2004

Current

37.4

33.2

30.1

25.5

24.7

22.8

22.5

20.9

Former

18.5

21.3

24.2

24.6

23.3

22.2

22.6

21.4

Never

44.2

45.5

45.8

49.9

52.0

55.0

54.9

57.7

This is a 31% increase in never smokers

http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf
Health,United States,2006
Page 229
Table 39 (page 1 of 3). Death rates for malignant neoplasms of trachea, bronchus, and lung, by age: United States, selected years 1950–2004
[Data are based on death certificates]

All persons: Deaths per 100,000 resident population

1970

1980

1990

2000

2003

2004

All ages, age-adjusted

37.1

49.9

59.3

56.1

54.1

53.2

This is a 43% increase in lung cancer deaths!!

If you go back to 1960:

Lung Cancer deaths (age adjusted) were

1960
24.1 per 100,000

2004 equals 53.2 per 100,000
This is a 121% increase.

Never Smokers, adult population:

1965
44%

2004
57.7%

This is a 31% increase.

A 31% increase in never smokers caused a 121% increase in lung cancer deaths!

One should also say that smoking protects against lung cancer because, over the last 40 years less smoking (50%+ decrease) and more never smokers (31% increase) equals more lung cancer deaths (121% increase).

This is from the "American Lung Association(ALA)", we know that they would not lie as they are a public health organization and only interested in our welfare.

NOTE: Smoking has gone DOWN by almost 50% over the last 40 years, over the last 20 plus years the COPD death rate has GONE UP BY 74%.

Clearly, smoking does not cause Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis.

Yet, the ALA and other health advocates say that smoking causes Emphysema!!!!

COPD Age Adjusted Death Rates Population, 1979-2002
Age-Adjusted Death Rate per 100,000 Persons

Source: Age Standardization of Death Rates: Implementation of the Year 2000 Standard. National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 47 No. 3.
Additional Calculations Performed by the American Lung Association, Epidemiology and Statistics Unit.

This is what the Canadian Lung Association says: Asthma is not caused by smoking.

The reason asthma develops in one person and not another is not well known. Asthma tends to run in families, but not always.

People with asthma have extra-sensitive airways that overreact to certain environmental elements such as:

" pollens
" fungus
" molds
" animal secretions
" house dust mites
" cold air, etc.

When the airways are exposed to these stimuli, the linings of the airways react by becoming inflamed and swollen. They become "twitchy," meaning that the muscles surrounding the airways tighten and cause the airways to narrow.

For more information about asthma, please refer to the Canadian Lung Association Asthma Resource Center.

Date of original release: 7/17/00

We've all heard that smoking and second-hand smoke cause asthma, but a growing body of evidence is challenging the veracity of this old saw.

The most recent study to exonerate smoking and tobacco smoke as a cause of asthma was published in the British Medical Journal July 8, 2000. [1]

In this 20-year, inter generational study, researchers found that the rate of asthma had doubled between l976 and l996, even as the smoking rate dropped by half during that same period. Asthma and hay fever increased for both smokers and non-smokers, but the increase was higher for non-smokers. The steep rise in asthma was dramatically underscored by the fact that prescriptions for steroid inhalants for treatment of the disease rose more than six-fold between l980 and l990 alone.

This pattern of precipitous increases in asthma coupled with significantly diminishing smoking rates is not unique to the population described by the Scottish researchers in their BMJ article. Asthma and allergy rates are sky rocketing among adults and children in all developed countries, though not in less-developed, poorer countries.

Experts are baffled by the asthma epidemic. In most countries it strikes hardest at the children of middle-class and wealthy parents, and no one knows why.

These good, European middle-class parents have stopped smoking, banished it from their homes, and yet their kids are getting allergies and asthma far more often than children in more smoking-tolerant times ever did.

In the United States, too, the incidence of adult and childhood asthma has climbed to an unprecedented high during the past twenty years, while smoking and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke [ETS] have decreased significantly during the same period.

"...Between 1980 and l995, the number of people reporting asthma in the U.S. more than doubled (from 6.7 million to 13.7 million) [3], a 75% increase in the rate per 100,000 population. [4] And, after a sharp increase beginning in the early l990s, the rate is still climbing. The Centers for Disease Control estimates the l998 rate at 17.3 million, a 150% increase since 1980. [5]

"...Between l980 and l995, the adult smoking rate decreased from 33.2 to 24.7, a drop of 25%. [6] In the late l990s the overall smoking rate has remained steady at between 24 and 25 percent of the adult population, far less than its peak of 42.6% in l966. The inverse relationship between asthma rates and smoking and between asthma rates and exposure to ETS can be seen quite clearly by comparing extremes at the state level.

"...California has had the second-lowest smoking rate in the U.S. for many years. In l998, its adult smoking rate was 19.2. [7] It also has the most draconian smoking bans in the country. Nevertheless, California has the largest estimated number of persons with asthma in the U.S., with an estimated l998 prevalence of 7.1% [8]

"...Utah, which has had by far the lowest smoking rate in the U.S. for many years but which has not had the sweeping smoking bans so characteristic of California, had a l998 adult smoking rate of 14.2. The estimated l998 asthma prevalence in the state was 6.7%.

"...Kentucky has the highest smoking rate in the United States and has implemented few restrictions on public smoking. In l998 Kentucky's adult smoking rate was 30.8%, but its estimated l998 asthma prevalence was only 5.9%.

Asthma is also rising among adults in the workplace. One expert summarized it nicely in a book review in The New England Journal of Medicine:

"We know of more than 250 substances that can cause occupational asthma, and the list is expanding. Occupational asthma not only represents a substantial proportion of all cases of asthma but also is one of the main occupational diseases. The unsolved scientific questions concerning the increasing incidence of occupational asthma in recent decades, the socioeconomic effects of the disease, and prevention are the current challenges." [13]

One thing is certainly true: In recent decades, workplace smoking bans have been enacted far and wide throughout the United States, particularly since the mid-l980s. By l992, workplace smoking restrictions covered about four-fifths of all indoor workers, according to a government survey. [14] Since then, many more workplace smoking bans have been implemented, often as a result of state mandates. In l995, California banned smoking in all workplaces except restaurants and bars, and it has since banned smoking indoors even in those venues.

Nevertheless, occupational asthma continues to rise, and the Centers for Disease Control estimated that California had more cases of asthma in l998 than did any other state.

USING the modern sense of the word 'addiction', it is now widely accepted (even by some tobacco companies) that nicotine is 'addictive'. Unfortunately the word is now used so often - in relation, for example, to sex or chocolate or even television - that it is largely meaningless.

The late Professor Hans Eysenck, one of world's leading psychologists, argued that 'Smoking is not an addiction because the term 'addiction' really has no scientific meaning ... You can call anything addictive which a person does routinely and which he would be sorry to stop doing and which might have all sorts of repercussions on his mental and physical life.'

Using the more traditional definition ('a habit that has become impossible to break', Chambers Dictionary, 1992) it is even easier to argue that smoking is not addictive. Professor John Davis (University of Strathclyde) put things in perspective when he said, 'What I don't agree with is the idea that people who use nicotine become ... helpless addicts who have no say in the choice of this activity - that the nicotine compels them to smoke. The evidence is simply not there. People give up smoking all the time ...' Smoking and common sense

Dr Tage Voss, author of Smoking and Common Sense (1992), agrees. According to Voss, tobacco consumption is a habit not an addiction because it doesn't conform to the criteria of addiction that consumers exhibit 'social collapse, mental dissolution and require an escalation of dosage'. In other words - and unlike alcohol or drugs such as heroin or cocaine - nicotine does not dramatically change people's behaviour patterns. Unlike those who are addicted to heroin, for example, there is no evidence that consumers of tobacco are so desperate for their next 'fix' that they have ever mugged anyone for the money to pay for it. Likewise, on an average Friday or Saturday night, it is alcohol not nicotine that is responsible for hospital casualty departments being rather busier than usual.

Interestingly, in 1996 Dr Sandy Macara, the then chairman of the British Medical Association and a former smoker, wrote (Western Daily Press), 'I don't accept that smokers are truly addicted to tobacco. I think they have a habit ... I believe the majority of smokers could stop tomorrow - no, today - if they really wanted to.' Language of addiction

Dr Macara was possibly influenced by his own experience of giving up and by a BMA handbook, 'Help Your Patient Stop', which stated that 'A balance needs to be struck, acknowledging the potential difficulties of stopping as well as the ease with which many smokers manage to stop.' That was published in 1988 when 2,000 people a day were said to be giving up.

For once the evidence is in the statistics. In the 1950s 80% of all men smoked. Since then the figure has dropped to just 28% of men and 26% of women. In total eleven million people have given up smoking in Britain alone, hardly the sign of a nation addicted to nicotine.

There's a great deal of hypocrisy surrounding the addiction argument. After all, if smoking is so addictive why does the anti-smoking lobby try so hard to ban smoking in all public places? Surely, if smokers are as addicted as they say, prohibition is simply going to increase their suffering.

No, the reason the addiction argument is so popular among anti-smokers is because it takes away the important concepts of free choice and personal responsibility. By arguing so vociferously that smokers are 'slaves to the weed', the anti-smokers are trying to undermine the idea:
"that by choosing to smoke adult smokers are old enough to decide their own lifestyle and are merely exercising their own free will."

This in turn gives anti-smokers the excuse to insist that the state must apply the tightest restrictions on smokers 'for their own good'. What the killjoys cannot accept is that a great many people enjoy smoking and take pleasure from it. The fact that they smoke has nothing to do with addiction.

The truth is that although smoking, like many other habits, can be a difficult one to break, millions of smokers have successfully quit and the vast majority do so without the need for drugs, patches, acupuncture or hypnotherapy.

The Antismoking Lobby believes that its end goal, the elimination of smoking, is important enough to justify all sorts of lying along the way. And the most effective lie they've found to date is that "Secondhand Smoke Kills."

Anti's have told politicians that studies show that SHS causes blah-blah-blah,and bans are enacted.

This is the truth that we smokers must know.

http://www.nycclash.com/CaseAgainstBans/HowToReadStudies.html

Again, in the canon of conventional science, we're told that any RR rating of less than 2 is very difficult to interpret, very iffy, very weak, and very likely to be due to either Bias, Confounding or the whimsy of pure chance. And further, any RR rating of under 3 (3.0) is just a blip of statistical static.

Says who?,
The editor on the New England Journal of Medicine, Marcia Angell:

"As a general rule of thumb, we are looking for a relative risk of 3 [3.0] or more before we accept a paper for publication."

The director of Drug Evaluation for the FDA, Robert Temple:

"My basic rule is that if the relative risk isn't at least 3 or 4 [3.0 or 4.0] forget it."

Here are all the studies available to date concerning the exposure to PS and LUNG CANCER

http://www.forces.org/evidence/study_list.htm

This chart lists 149 studies on PS and Lung Cancer. Only 12 show a RR of 2.0 or greater. Only 2 show a RR of 3.0 or greater. That is a ratio of about 12 to 1 against any association.

That is a ratio of about 74 to 1 against a statistically significant association.

http://www.forces.org/evidence/financial-ties/index_cardio.htm
This lists 40 studies that show Relative Risk (RR).

Of these 40 studies, only 2 have RR's of 3.0 or higher.

That is; only 5% show a significant risk elevation, "95% DO NOT SHOW A SIGNIFICANT RISK ELEVATION."

These studies run 20-1 against a significant association between passive smoke and cardiovascular disease!!

It's now another standard part of the mantra that ETS "kills" 53,000 Americans a year. It keeps getting repeated, even though its source has been pretty well discredited by, among others, the US Congressional Research Service.

We will quote rather extensively from the CRS Report: "Discussion of Source of Claims of 50,000 Deaths from Passive Smoking," Gravelle and Redhead, CRS (3/23/94): "The approximately 50,000 number was mentioned [in congressional testimony] by the AMA. This statement, in turn, appears to be ultimately traceable to an article published in 1988 in Environment International: "An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the US from Passive Smoking," A. Judson Wells.

CRS continues:
"While the death estimates from at least some epidemiological studies are significantly larger than the estimates of [actual] physical exposure, these results are not magnitudes apart. The same cannot be said, however, for the Wells' estimates of deaths from heart disease.

"In sum, this analysis suggests the Wells' estimates are so high relative to measures of physical exposure that they seem implausible."

When Mr. Wells was confronted with defending his own numbers, he backed away with remarkable speed. And though his body-count gets repeated as though his numbers were etched on tablets, he himself brushed them off with this:

"If people are looking at this estimate as a proven number, that is not the case."

-"The Scientist," October, 1989

In 1981 and again in 1988, the American Cancer Society did two major US studies (CPS-1 and CPS-2) and "major" means major: the first studied 1 million people, the second. 1.2. In addition to looking into the correlations of secondhand smoke and lung cancer, it also looked for links to heart disease. And found no connection. In either study. -"Environmental Tobacco Smoke And Mortality," Lee; Karger, 1992

- also LeVois and Layard, "Publication Bias in the Environmental Tobacco Smoke/Coronary Heart Disease Epidemiologic Literature," Regul Toxicol Pharmacol, 1995; 21

Further, the subjects from CPS-1 continued to be followed through 1998, for a total of 39 years. Focusing on a large (35,561 subject) subset of California never-smokers married to smokers for the full period, a statistical analysis, peer-reviewed and published in the British Medical Journal in 2003, repeated these results-- showing incontrovertibly (0.97 @ 95% confidence) that there was no increased risk of coronary heart disease from lifelong exposure to secondhand smoke.

Similar non-associations with secondhand smoke were found for lung cancer, asthma, and other allegedly tobacco-related diseases, leading the authors to state in their conclusion:

"The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality."

-"Environmental Tobacco Smoke And Tobacco-Related Mortality In A Prospective Study Of Californians, 1960-98," Enstrom & Kabat, BMJ 5/17/03

The Antis claim that smoking causes 440,000 deaths every year and that smoking is the #1 cause of preventable deaths.

As we have seen, solid studies show there was no difference in deaths from lung cancer or heart disease between smokers and non-smokers.

The 440,000 deaths are pure lies and a scare tactic without proof.

Smoking does not cause a single death in Illinois. Here are the causes of death in Illinois:

http://www.idph.state.il.us/health/statshome.htm

LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH, ILLINOIS, 2005 -- ALL AGES

All causes	103,654
Diseases of heart	28,145
Malignant neoplasms	24,199
Cerebrovascular diseases	6,232
Chronic lower resipratory diseases	5,056
Accidents	4,157
Motor vehicle accidents	1,459
All other accidents	2,698
Diabetes mellitus	3,028
Influenza and pneumonia	2,948
Alzheimer's disease	2,822
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis	2,388
Septicemia	1,939
Intentional self-harm (suicide)	1,073
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis	1,003
Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease	991
Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids	906
Parkinsons's disease	896
Assualt (homicide)	860
Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period	685
In situ neoplasms, benign neoplasms and neoplasms of uncertain or unknown behavior	604
Aortic aneurysm and dissection	594
Atheosclerosis	0

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:
Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Smoke Free Illinois Act.

Section 5. Findings. The General Assembly finds that tobacco smoke is a harmful and dangerous carcinogen to human beings and a hazard to public health. 1 Secondhand tobacco smoke causes heart disease, stroke, cancer, asthma and exacerbation of asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia in children and adults.

The General Assembly also finds that the United States Surgeon General's 2006 report has determined that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke; the scientific evidence that secondhand smoke causes serious diseases, including lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma, is massive and conclusive

For one thing,here is what the SG's Report says about SHS and stroke:

Introduction, Summary, and Conclusions, page 15

3. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and an increased risk of stroke.

These politicians quote the SG's Report as an authority about "no safe level of exposure";but,the SG's Report can not be trusted to be part of the "massive and conclusive evidence".

These people are guilty of either willfull deceit and fraud or are guilty of gross incompetence.

Either way; they should be removed from office, tarred and feathered and kicked out if the state!!!!!

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:
Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Smoke Free Illinois Act.

Section 5. Findings. The General Assembly finds that tobacco smoke is a harmful and dangerous carcinogen to human beings and a hazard to public health. Secondhand tobacco smoke causes at least 65,000 deaths each year from heart disease and lung cancer according to the National Cancer Institute. Secondhand tobacco smoke causes heart disease, stroke, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome, low-birth-weight in infants, asthma and exacerbation of asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia in children and adults. Secondhand tobacco smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Illinois workers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke are at increased risk of premature death. An estimated 2,900 Illinois citizens die each year from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

The General Assembly also finds that the United States Surgeon General's 2006 report has determined that there is no safe level of exposure to SHS.

Scientific evidence that secondhand smoke causes serious diseases, including lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma, is massive and conclusive.

This what SG's 2006 Report has to say:

Asthma

11. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and adult-onset asthma.

12. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and a worsening of asthma control.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

13. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

14. The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and morbidity in persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

These politicians quote the SG's Report as an authority about "no safe level of exposure"; but, the SG's Report is ignored (junkscience, perhaps?) as a part of the "massive and conclusive evidence".

These people are guilty of either willfull deceit and fraud or are guilty of gross incompetence.

Either way; they should be removed from office,tarred and feathered and kicked out if the state!!!!!

Questions that should be put to anti smokers and politicians. For instance, this is one series of questions that should always be asked antis an politicians.

A. You say that nicotine(cigarette smoke) is more addictive than heroin; in fact, about the most addictive substance on the planet.

B. You say that food/drink servers in smoking allowed places are exposed to enough SHS to equal smoking about a pack of cigarettes per shift.

C. You say smoking bans are needed to protect these workers from the adverse health effects of SHS.

Now; if cigarette smoke is that addictive and workers are exposed to that much smoke, shouldn't all servers be addicted and be smokers?

If all servers are smokers, is not a smoking ban to protect them from SHS stupid?

So which is it?

A. Is cigarette smoke(nicotine) not addictive?

B. Are servers actually only exposed to such a very,very,teeny, tiny amount of cigarette smoke that they do not become addicted?

C. If servers are only exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS as to not be addicted, the adverse health effects of such exposure would be miniscule too and are not smoking bans for their protection stupid?

D. If servers are exposed to such a miniscule amount of SHS, then are not patrons exposed to only a tiny part of that miniscule amount and bans are certainly not needed to protect them?

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:

You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths.

Of the 50 states plus Washington,D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.

The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Washington, D.C. is 1st, the highest.

The 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 39th or among the lowest.

Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Cancer Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:

You say that smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths.

Of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., D.C. and Minnesota have the same smoking rate.

The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Wash DC is 3rd,about the highest.

The 'Heart Disease Death Rate' ranking for Minnesota is 51st,the lowest.

Now; if smoking is the leading cause of preventable Heart Disease deaths,how can there be such a completely different 'Heart Disaease Death Rate' ranking for two areas with the same percentage of smokers and SHS exposure??

Another question that should be asked the antis and politicians:

You say that smoking and SHS cause Asthma?

Of the 50 states plus Washington,D.C., D.C. and Oregon rank 32nd and 42rd in smoking rates and North Carolina ranks near the highest at 13th.

In the ranking of Asthma incidence rates:
1. The highest is Washington, D.C.
2. Oregon

51. The lowest incidence of Asthma is North Carolina.

If smoking and exposure to SHS causes Asthma, how is it that the state with the higher smoking rate ranks lowest and states with a much lower smoking rates rank the highest and second highest in Asthma incidence?

Ban smoking for the Kids
More of the same old crap is not going to do anything for kids.

So after 15 years of constant dunning through TV commercials, the spending of as much as $880 million dollars a year on "Tobacco Control" (according to the AMA!), an increase of probably well over 150% in taxation, and an increase in workplace smoking bans of probably 500% or more....

The Antismokers managed to reduce the nationwide smoking rate from 23.0% in 1990 to ... er... hmm... 23.0% in 2002, to 20.6% in 2005.

Yep. That certainly justifies all those bans and taxes nicely doesn't it?

See: CDC: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System trends Data /p>

http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/taxandteen.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/04/980409080915.htm

And consider this: The Canadian Tobacco Products Control Act of 1989 increased the cigarette tax to C$3.86 on Jan 1, 1990. As can be seen below, even this massive tax hike did not reduce teen smoking.

Canadian Teen Smoking Rates

1989
Male Teen smoking =22%
Female Teen smoking = 24%

1991
Male=19%
Female=25%

1994
Male=27%
Female=30%