The current anti-smoking campaign
is not about your health ...

It is all about YOUR MONEY... They want it!

Socialist liberals have for years been lying to the American public. The same folks that pointed accusing fingers at Tobacco industry executives are the same ones who participated in Bill Clinton's illicit antics in Arkansas and have for years covered up the numerous criminal activities of Bill Clinton and lied to the American public about his illegal and immoral activities. Most of those in influential government posts levying complaints against the tobacco industry were put there by the Bill Clinton political machine.

What's their Motivation to Lie?

Keep in mind the vast majority of those in Congress are attorneys with an unspoken affiliation to the same brotherhood of attorneys who will be earning billions of dollars in the coming years. It wouldn't be right for them to spoil the beds they will be sleeping in when they leave public office.

Raising taxes is nothing new to liberal tax-and-spend Democrats. The U.S. Congress rejected the settlement with the tobacco industry that was an attempt to address youth smoking and instead proposed to impose a HALF A TRILLION dollars in new taxes and to create 17 new bureaucracies to control another American industry. That effort, too, was defeated in Congress as the McCain Bill became bloated with extravagant spending that had nothing to do with smoking.

Sadly, many Republicans who were elected with the mandate of no new taxes has joined the effort to steal more of your money. They have been forced to by the successful PR campaign slogan, "Big Tobacco or Kids?"

Never mind truth! Liberals would have you believe that anyone opposing their efforts of the government takeover of another American industry and their welfare state caring for your children is necessarily supporting youth smoking. How ridiculous, but effective.

Most states have enacted cigarette-tax increases or other legislation designed to discourage smoking or lessen people's exposure to secondhand smoke, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington lobbying group.

In Alaska smokers pay $1 per pack in taxes. Washington lifts 82.5 cents from smokers pockets for every pack they buy. In New Jersey smokers pockets were picked by their legislators when they doubled their tax on cigarettes. The new 80 cent tax will be used to pay the costs of medical care for indigent people without medical insurance. Some states (notably California and Massachusetts) have a special indignity reserved for smokers: They must pay for their own persecution. In California, an additional 25 cents per pack tax on cigarettes was passed in 1988 to be used for cancer research, 5%; wetlands, 5%; indigent medical care, 40%; and "education" - read anti-smoker campaign - 50%.

Recovering the Cost of treating smoking-related illnesses of those on the Medicaid insurance program
The national litigation, which was settled in 1998, sought to recover money that states spent treating smoking-related illnesses of those on the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and disabled and to prevent future generations from smoking . However, many states plan to use the money for projects unrelated to tobacco. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, for example, have either decided or are planning to spend nothing or less than 2 percent of their settlement funds on prevention programs. Many others are using their windfalls to reduce taxes or for unrelated programs. National Conference of State Legislatures recently figured that only 8 percent of the money is earmarked for anti-smoking programs. A good portion is slated for "health care," but much is also going into totally unrelated programs like roads, schools and teenage boot camps.

How do the states want to spend the Tobacco Settlement Money?

• Arkansas wants the money to establish health education centers in the Mississippi Delta, bolster minority health programs, increased Medicaid coverage for pregnant women, expanded benefits for the elderly, and eventually extend coverage to everyone who lives at or below the poverty level. In addition, they want the money to fund medical research for Alzheimer's disease. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , Jan. 22, 2000]
• California wants to spend the money on childhood development programs, child care, and to fund programs that would allow health care workers to identify and track children for future services. [Los Angeles Times , Jan. 20, 2000] An initiative that would have required the state and counties to spend their share of the national tobacco settlement entirely on health care was scrapped in favor of the Orange county supervisors' plan to use most of the windfall to pay off its bankruptcy debt and to add jail beds. [Orange County Register , Jan. 29, 2000] The city of Los Angeles wants to use their share of the tobacco money to pay for lawsuits in the Rampart police scandal. [Los Angeles Times , Feb 20, 2000] In the Bay area, they plan to spend the money on capital improvements for the Alameda County Medical Center or renovations for Benicia's police station.
• Colorado has passed legislation to use their share of the booty to subsidize prescription drug costs and pay for primary care to at-risk newborns. [Associated Press, Mar. 9, 2000]
• Connecticut wants to fund education, new roads, and prisons.
• Delaware would like to use their portion of the settlement to add nine staffers in the Department of Health and Social Services, fund the state's "pill bill" prescription- assistance plan, help the un- and underinsured, and buy automatic heart defibrillators. [The News Journal, Mar. 28, 2000]
• Idaho doesn't plan to spend any of the money, rather they want to invest the money and spend only the interest. Governor Kempthorne has said that health advocacy, state building construction and academic scholarships should be priorities for the money.
• Illinois wants to use the money for tax relief. [Chicago Tribune, 4/21/2000]
• Indiana will spend the money on a children's health insurance program and wants to help low income senior citizens pay for prescription drugs. [Associated Press, 1/28/2000]
• Kansas intends to use all $70 million of this year's settlement to fund the state budget rather than health care. [Topeka Capitol Journal, Dec. 30, 1999]
• Maryland proposed tobacco-settlement funds be used for a teacher pay raise. [SunSpot, February 27, 2000]
• Minnesota wants to use a large share for medical student stipends. [Associated Press, Mar. 9, 2000]
• Nevada plans to use their share of the booty to help low-income senior citizens pay for prescription drugs. [Las Vegas Sun, Mar. 28, 2000]
• New Jersey wants the money to provide free or subsidized health care to thousands of low- and moderate-income New Jerseyans [The Record , Jan. 22, 2000], reimburse hospitals for treating uninsured patients, provise mental health services in prisons, programs to care for the elderly, help low-income seniors pay for prescription drugs, and create a fund to bail out health maintenance organizations that go under. A whopping 8% of the money would be used on programs that discourage children from smoking and help others to quit. [The Record , Jan. 27, 2000]
• Ohio plans to use some of the money to help rebuild or replace aging Ohio public school buildings. [Cleveland Live, Oct. 28, 1999]
• Pennsylvania would devote the funds to a number of important health care-related objectives in Pennsylvania, including an expansion of health insurance coverage for the uninsured and disabled, an expansion of smoking cessation and prevention programs, home and community-based health services, health research, and uncompensated care relief to hospitals which provide health services to the uninsured. [PRNewsWire, 1/27/2000]
• Utah suggests using their share for the University of Utah Health Science Center, for a children's health insurance program and for a permanent trust fund for public schools. [The Salt Lake Tribune]
• Virginia's governor is throwing his state's tobacco settlement money into roads[SunSpot, February 27, 2000].

Notice how they are not suggesting spending the money on recovering health care costs for smokers! It's even more rare for them to use the money to reduce smoking. No, they want to fund the socialist programs, especially targeting children. These folks recognize that for their socialist programs to succeed, they need to win over the children.

In my opinion, states spending the money in this fashion is nothing short of criminal. Why the tobacco companies ever agreed to this extortion in the first place is beyond me. I find it ironic too, that the folks who were complaining about all the alleged lying going on by the tobacco industry, don't seem to have a problem with lying when it benefits them. The next time someone says something to you about the "lying tobacco companies," remind them about the lying Attorney's Generals.

I suppose the other side of this issue of the states not using the money for what it was intended for is you can pretty well count on them coming back for more. Once they have discovered the easy money at the trough, it will be next to impossible to wean them from the public/private nipple.

A conspiracy of thieves

One curious backlash of states rushing to spend their tobacco settlement money that is beginning to emerge is a shortfall in the monies being collected. Apparently states are slated to receive less money from the tobacco settlement than initially expected due to an expected nationwide decrease in cigarette shipments. Connecticut, for example, stands to see up to 10 percent less than the $166 million it expected to collect between now and April, said Marc Ryan, the director of the governor's budget office. The situation puts some state budget-crunchers in limbo as they plan to spend money they do not yet have on everything from education and health care to new roads and prisons.

Price increases, alternative cigarette sources, and marketing restrictions have meant an 8.6 percent reduction in the number of cigarettes sold this year by the leading tobacco companies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service has estimated. [Nando Times, Nov. 25, 1999]

As predicted, state governments began looking elsewhere to make up their shortfalls. Eyeing more that $1 billion a year in taxes not being collected and paid by Internet retailers, state Attorneys Generals, citing "a direct threat to public health," concocted a back-room deal with the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) and the nation's major credit card companies to stop processing credit card transactions with web sites selling cigarettes at deep discounts. Did the States and credit card companies go after child pornographers and the HUGE online pornography business? There's no taxes in online smut and therefore no incentive for them.

I wonder what was the incentive for the credit card companies to target online cigarette sales? Again... follow the MONEY.

How about the major bankruptcy law expected to be signed into law in 2005? Who stands to benefit most from this legislation? Could it be the credit card companies? These same credit card companies that are eager to jack up their interest rates to 29 percent or higher on those least able to pay. Can you see the connection?

In exchange for credit card company cooperation in curtailing discount cigarette sources, they get more favorable treatment when it comes to erasing debts under Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The current propaganda campaign being waged against the tobacco industry amounts to extortion by the U.S. government, trial lawyers, insurance companies, and many others in the health related professions. They are simply coercing your money from you through the spreading of fear and in some cases lying to you in exchange for higher taxes, huge legal fees, higher insurance premiums, and higher medical fees.