Thursday, October 30, 2014
The Property Rights Newsletter Issue #778
October 31, 2014 - Issue #778"She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother." - Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in "Psycho" |
Chocolate as Medicine: Compound in cocoa found to reverse age-related memory loss. In case anyone needed another reason to love chocolate, a new study suggests that a natural compound found in cocoa, tea and some vegetables can reverse age-related memory loss. The findings suggest that the compound increases connectivity and, subsequently, blood flow in a region of the brain critical to memory, the researchers said.
USA: The Military v. Marlboro: We are losing a war in Iraq and Syria, the military is shrinking dangerously as global threats are growing, and yet the Pentagon is mustering its forces against tobacco products. The Defense Department is studying a ban on the sale of cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco on bases and ships.
USA: NJ: South Jersey Town Bans Smoking on Streets, Sidewalks, Stoops and Steps. But you are still allowed to smoke inside your Gloucester City home. So, if you're caught smoking or chewing or vaping outside the Knights of Columbus building or Ben's Barber Shop or your home... USA: TX: The Lubbock City Council will meet this week and could vote to approve an ordinance that would ban smoking in all bars and restaurants across the city. The ordinance would not only apply to cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, but to e-cigarettes and vapor as well. The proposed language would also regulate drivers who smoke in certain circumstances. 
China: Health: Chinese researchers discover why so many writers are heavy smokers - Chinese scientists show heavy smoking boosts the imagination. But the researchers won't be pursuing this finding, they say, as it is "politically incorrect."
UK: FREE FOREST EVENT. November 4, cocktails, canapes, live music and heated smoking terrace. If you haven't yet registered and would like to join us for this special event, RSVP. UK: London Update: London Mayor Boris Johnson's Health Committee, "Better Health for London", wants to ban smoking in 20,000 acres of London parks, along with Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square. also announced a number of other measures in an attempt to reduce obesity. These include moves to surpress alcohol consumption and increase the exercise uptake amongst Londoners, in order to "make London a healthier, slimmer, fitter, city." UK: Nanny State Update: Watch out: the anti-smoking fanatics now want to regulate drinking. The anti-smoking lobby has been offering advice to the House of Lords on how to regulate drinking. Draconian moves could follow. It is tempting to dismiss these demands as preposterous. This would be most unwise. Denmark: Big Pharma. By Klaus Kjellerup. MEDICINAL KORRUPTION. Anti-ryge eksperter var betalt af Big Pharma. 
World Health Organization on Ebola: "The World Health Organization Admits Botching Response to Ebola Outbreak." This article contains some damning statements, such as, "WHO's country offices in Africa are politically motivated," and "What should be the WHO's strongest regional offices because of the enormity of the health challenges is actually the weakest technically and full of political appointments."
World Health Organization: 'Broke' WHO host 1.6million caviar-fuelled beano: UN pockets "bribe" from Russia: The WHO accepted $800k handout from Putin to put the #COP6 tobacco control convention in Moscow. The article focusses on the cost of the whole shebang and sets it against the WHO's poverty pleas regarding the Ebola outbreak. All well and good, but much of the cost could have been covered by that nice Mr Putin, I suppose. Then, world governments were ordered to implement these proposals - from a meeting which was compromised by pharma lobbying, exclusion of press scrutiny, lack of proper voting, intimidation of delegates and utter disregard for evidence - immediately. |
 Our Halloween Card for you. |
Thursday, October 23, 2014
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October 24, 2014 - Issue #777 "When it comes to idiots, America's got more than its fair share. If idiots were energy, it would be a source that would never run out." - Lewis Black |
Thomas Frieden: Idiot Alert: CDC Head Dr. Tom Frieden Behind NYC Smoking/Soda Bans. There is no reason for Dr. Thomas Frieden to keep his job. He may have been ideally suited to fight a war on those dastardly big sodas, but he is intellectually unarmed when we are at war with a deadly disease. President Obama is urging hospitals across the country to protect Americans by learning and following the proper protocols. Well, Mr. President, how about protecting us from Dr. Frieden? Sorry, but a guy who finds sodas and second-hand smoke to be a bigger threat to America than Ebola-stricken travelers really has no business being the head of the CDC!
MA: Westminster. "By Any Rational Means." The Westminster, Mass., Board of Health is proposing to ban the sale of all tobacco products and electronic nicotine delivering devices including electronic cigarettes, reported the National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO). NY: A Smoker's Guide To NYC. Thought you'd like to hear how even with Mayor Bloomberg's anti-smoking regime smokers are catered for quite adequately. NY: NYC Proposes to Include E-Cigarettes in Flavor Ban. Interestingly, the proposed measure applies to any "electronic device that delivers vapor for inhalation." So the law would apply, not just to vapor products containing nicotine, but to any product that allows the user to inhale vapor, even if those products do not have nicotine. USA: Brad Rodu. Federal Survey Data on Tobacco: It's Not About The Children. I have documented for several years a nonstop decline in smoking rates among American teens. Rates of smoking and use of other tobacco products among teens are so low that they no longer provide a valid basis for the draconian anti-tobacco policy prescriptions favored by the FDA and CDC. USA: Tobacco Industry. Why Big Tobacco keeps demolishing the FDA in federal court. Since 2009, the cigarette industry has won three major challenges to make their products more accessible to kids. Australia: Violence over jail ban. The Queensland Law Society is calling for a review into the ban on smoking in prisons in response to reports that it sparked an increase in assaults on prison guards. President Ian Brown says the ban was ill-considered, and has had dire consequences. Hong Kong: Casinos. Smoking ban from this month seen further denting revenues. Up to 300 dealers at the flagship casino of MGM China Holdings Ltd, a unit of U.S.-based MGM Resorts International, took collective sick leave at noon on Friday. Russia: International Conference on Smokers' Rights. The event attended by delegates from 21 countries: Australia, Belarus, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Latvia, Moldova, Nicaragua, Peru, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Finland, Croatia, Switzerland and Estonia, - the territory of which in the aggregate are more than 250 million smokers. UK: David Hockney. Tobacco killjoys are less healthy than the smokers they ban. Spiteful restrictions mean any place meant for pleasure is now off-limits. So the mean-spirited are at it again. I'll repeat: the mean spirited and the utterly humourless are at it again... UK: Man has fine increased... for dropping cigarette outside burger van. A man fined seventy five pounds for throwing a cigarette on the floor outside his burger van in Stafford town centre must now pay more than four hundred and fifty pounds. Zimbabwe: 4 tobacco farmers commit suicide... because they could not pay their debts to a Chinese contracting company, Tian Ze Tobacco. The company unilaterally imposed prices - forcing farmers to accept what they were offered. This put them in a vulnerable position and most failed to pay. The money owed accrued annually and quickly reached unmanageable levels, following which the company would attach property. |
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
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October 17, 2014 - Issue #776 "Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly." - Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind |
U.N. approves increased global tobacco tax during secret session. WHO: Global Tobacco Tax. Margaret Chan: fully occupied? The terrible thought crosses my mind that when she talks about 'the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times' she wants people to think she means Ebola but she is actually thinking about tobacco. That way, in her own mind she wouldn't be telling a lie about her whereabouts. Money and Politician Family Ties: Exploring the intersection of public office with private family interests. Official Payroll: 19 members have paid 19 family members a total of $6,876,026 from their congressional office payroll. Earmarks: 298 members have earmarked $3,781,697,207 for organizations connected to them or their family members. Lobbying: 85 family members of 67 members of Congress have worked as federally registered lobbyists, helping out on lobbying contracts worth $1,208,065,382. Payments from Big Pharma reach hundreds of thousands of doctors. Creepy ties between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. The federal government released details of payments to doctors by every pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturer in the country. The information is being made public under a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The law mandates disclosure of payments to doctors, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists and optometrists for things like promotional speaking, consulting, meals, educational items and research. Australia Carmen Opera. WA minister intervenes to lift opera smoking ban. West Australian Opera last week dumped a planned performance of Carmen because it depicts people smoking. The opera has a $400,000 sponsorship deal with Healthway, which explicitly warns all arts organisations it funds that they cannot portray smoking on stage. CA: Turlock - Oops. City Spends Months Debating Smoking Ban in Public Parks, Discovers Smoking Was Already Banned in Public Parks. It turns out smoking in Turlock's public parks has been illegal for more than a decade. There was never any enforcement, never any signs posted. GA: Okra mistaken for pot. "I was scared actually, at first, because I didn't know what was happening," said homeowner Dwayne Perry. All he noticed was that there was a chopper sitting unusually low over his house, then Bartow County deputies and a K-9 unit appeared at his doorstep in minutes. "They were strapped to the gills," Perry said. 
White feathers for smokers. During the first world war, a marketing technique to get people to sign up for service, was to have young ideologically brainwashed women presenting men, not in uniform, with White Feathers to infuse them with shame. This was done in public so the shame was seen by everyone else too. Men were frightened of actually going outside. To counter this agoraphobia, the government issued badges for those men who had done their active service, or who were home, injured, or were doing war work somewhere, so they would not be given "The Order of the White Feather." The marketing of war through shame technique is used by Tobacco Control in marketing their war on Tobacco. They are shame marketers. Sometimes what their White Feather Brigade does, is simply DISGUSTING! They are the ones who should be ashamed.
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Thursday, October 09, 2014
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October 10, 2014 - Issue #775 "Common sense is not so common." - Voltaire |
Australia: David Leyonhjelm. Senator David Leyonhjelm thanks smokers for keeping up habit, says generosity via taxes 'truly staggering.' A crossbench senator has thanked Australia's smokers and attacked successive governments for increasing tobacco taxes in a speech in Federal Parliament. Liberal Democratic Party Upper House representative David Leyonhjelm voiced his gratitude to smokers for the $8 billion they provide in tobacco taxes each year. "Your generosity to the nation's Treasury is truly staggering," he told the Senate. In his speech Senator Leyonhjelm argued the tax on tobacco hits the poor hardest and makes the Government's tax increase "all the more perverse". Senator Leyonhjelm also criticised bans on smoking in public places and institutions, including prison.
Shipyard workers picket smoking ban at six Vigor Industrial facilities in Oregon and Washington conducted unfair labor practice (ULP) strikes. Opland said the company has expanded tremendously over the last several years, and with that growth it has begun operating "more and more like a dictatorship." Big tobacco pushes e-cigarettes as 'medicine': E-cigarettes are a medicine designed to reduce the harm of smoking according to documents 7.30 has obtained from a British American Tobacco company's submission to the Therapeutic Goods Association, but health experts dispute that claim. World Health Organization Wants in on Bloomberg's Sweet, Sweet Cigarette Tax Money. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's most enduring legacy is that of the ultimate nanny stater. In addition to his failed Big Gulp ban, ban on trans fats, and ban on e-cigarette use in public places, Nanny Mike also pushed a range of anti-smoking policies including a ban on smoking in public places and a really massive tobacco tax hike that drove the price of a pack of cigarettes in Manhattan up to as much as $14.50. All in the name of public health. Fired Researcher Who Killed Self Was Evaluating Drug Backed by Clark. The researcher who committed suicide after being fired from the British Columbia health ministry in 2012 was designing a way to evaluate a project that was one of Premier Christy Clark's pet initiatives and that included a drug that continues to generate serious safety warnings. At the time that Champix was being considered for funding in B.C. it was already the subject of warnings elsewhere. The Tyee reported that France stopped paying for the drug publicly and both Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration in the United States issued warnings about the drug. Time to end nationwide litigation against Pfizer anti-smoking drug Chantix. All of the nearly 2,900lawsuits claiming pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.'s smoking cessation drug Chantix triggered suicidal thoughts and other psychological problems in patients have been settled - for about $300 million - so the nationwide litigation should now be dismissed, a federal judge in Alabama ruled Monday. Despite the end to those lawsuits, Pfizer next week will continue its fight with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a less severe warning label for Chantix. |
 Airbrushing History Iconic Photos: The Case of Missing Cigarettes. Iconic Photos looks back at a visual issue that regularly graces our semi-annual, revisionist political correctness hissy fits: cigarette censorship in photos. Tucker Carlson: Smoking in children's cartoons is a "symbol of freedom and masculinity." Expressed outraged that male comic book characters were being "wussified." The Truth? Latest Anti-Smoking Effort Is a Hot Mess. Using Paparazzi Shots of Smoking Celebrities and Calling Them Idiots Is Cheap. With great power comes great responsibility. Spider-Man's uncle said that once. And if it's good enough for Spider-Man's uncle, it's good enough for the folks over at the American Legacy Foundation. In the latest iteration of its "Truth" campaign, the group switches gears from getting kids to stop smoking to getting celebrities to stop smoking - while blaming them for teen smoking and calling them unwitting dupes of Big Tobacco. |
Thursday, October 02, 2014
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October 3, 2014 - Issue #774 "God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man." - Arthur Young |
Still a cash crop? US tobacco growers brace for tougher competition. Starting next month, America's remaining tobacco growers will be totally exposed to the laws of supply and demand. When the last checks are cashed, surviving growers will be on their own, forced to find profits in a tremendously competitive global market. But those who remain in the business are thriving right now: Many are producing more leaf than they have in years, and enjoying higher prices as well. "The people who can hang on can make a substantial living," said Harry Lea, a leaf dealer and tobacco warehouse owner in Danville.
Nicotine, the Wonder Drug? This notorious stimulant may enhance learning and help treat Parkinson's, schizophrenia and other neurological diseases. Every drug of addiction must have its day. Morphine remains one of the most potent painkillers ever discovered. Cocaine's chemical cousin lidocaine is still used by physicians and dentists as an effective local anesthetic. Even demon alcohol, when taken in moderation, cuts the risk of heart attacks, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis and a hodgepodge of other ailments. Now comes nicotine, perhaps the most unlikely wonder drug ever to be reviled. If dozens of human and animal studies published over the past six years are borne out by large clinical trials, nicotine - freed at last of its noxious host, tobacco, and delivered instead by chewing gum or transdermal patch - may prove to be a weirdly, improbably effective drug for relieving or preventing a variety of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Tourette's and schizophrenia. It might even improve attention and focus enough to qualify as a cognitive enhancer. And, oh yeah, it's long been associated with weight loss, with few known safety risks. 
WV Illegal Ginseng: Police seize 190 pounds of illegally harvested ginseng. West Virginia natural resources police say they have made 11 arrests and seized 190 pounds of dry ginseng that was illegally harvested. The West Virginia Department of Natural Resources estimates the market value of the native herb at $180,000. Natural resources officials say demand has spurred illegal harvesting. - AND - Ginseng is any one of 11 species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae. Ginseng is found in North America and in eastern Asia (mostly Korea, northeast China, Bhutan, eastern Siberia), typically in cooler climates.
Australia medical cannabis closer to federal approval: The federal government would be given oversight over the production and distribution of medical cannabis under new legislation to make the drug available to patients with chronic pain. For any form of cannabis to be approved for medicinal use in Australia an application needs to be made to the Therapeutic Goods Administration with supporting data to assess its quality, safety and efficacy.
U.S. Forest Service Update: Taking a Picture in a National Forest Could Get You a $1,000 Fine, Unless You Buy a $1,500 License. Liz Close, a spokesperson for the Forest Service, says that the laws are intended to "preserve the untamed character of the country's wilderness", whatever that means. According to the agency, these laws were created to protect the environment and prevent areas of wilderness from being "exploited" by photographers. Gregg Leslie, the legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Alexandria, Va. says that these permit laws could be used to discourage journalists from covering certain topics or gaining access to certain areas. "It's pretty clearly unconstitutional, they would have to show an important need to justify these limits, and they just can't." he said.
Carl V. Phillips: Mike Siegel inappropriately blames the failure of his ill-advised research plans on others. it was far too expensive to fund via crowdsourcing. If even only a few percent of the total budget were collected from the e-cigarette community, it would take away enough funding to crowd out every other advocacy, education, and research the community wants to support.
Dear Public Health: The public despises you, so you are probably doing it wrong. It is easy to despise "public health" for what they do. But it is a different matter if you can understand what it looks like from the inside and how they got there. Once you understand that, you can still despise them for what they do, but you might want to consider despising them even more for how they got there. World Smokers News - See breaking news about smoking. |
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