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Illinois Supreme Court And Smoking Charade |
Current rating: 0 |
by Watchdog
Email: jejonik (nospam) juno.com (unverified!) |
13 May 2003
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Picture this Supreme Court as a profoundly bogus Pro Wrestling referee in the current Phillip Morris "lite" cigarette case. Both "evil" Big Cig and "good" anti-smokers win; everyone else, even non-smokers, loses. |
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This Is Not Just About "Smoking"
Assuming that the Chicago, and Illinois, area contains activists who have a few problems with the Big Oil and pesticides, with pharmaceuticals that overcharge for under-tested drugs, with public officials corrupted by corporate campaign funding, and with insurers that stand in the way of a universal tax-based public health system...here are a few items of interest regarding the Philip Morris case now before the Illinois Supreme Court.
* Big Oil remains oddly unnoticed as manufacturer and supplier of many tobacco pesticides. Many of these are chlorine chemicals. The residues that remain in typical (non-organic) cigarettes produce dioxin when burned. Dioxin is a U.S. designated KNOWN human carcinogen, the worst classification, and is so bad that even the U.S. signed a treaty to phase it out globally. Nevertheless, Big Oil and the cigarette makers are still permitted, even by supposed "anti smoking" officials, to poison unwitting, unprotected and insufficiently-warned consumers with these deadly substances.
(See: Wash. Post > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32003-2003Apr24.html <
And...at Environmental News Service > > http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2003/2003-04-25-09.asp#anchor2 <
* Pharmaceuticals also make tobacco pesticides. Everything that applies to Big Oil, above, applies here...except that Pharms are supposed to be in the health CARE industry. Pharmaceuticals also supply cigarette additives such as artificial sweeteners, preservatives, humectants, flavorings, scents, extracts and so forth. NONE of these things are tested for safety in this use, nor are there any requirements to list these ingredients... thanks to corrupted government regulators. The pharmaceutical industry in general is a huge user of chlorine technologies and, whether a specific firm is part of the Cigarette Cartel or not, it does not want any problems regarding dioxin to besmirch the industry's reputation or to raise inconvenient liability questions. Big Oil and Big Pharma prefer that we blame the tobacco plant, and "rude" smokers, for any health problems that result from inhaling pesticide/dioxin-etc-contaminated smoke.
* Philip Morris is being rightly condemned for "failing to warn about the harms of its products" but...something's missing here. Virtually every thing that Philip Morris did, including keeping things hidden, was known and approved of by gov't regulators...who happily collected sin taxes and other benefits. Gov't agencies know all about the pesticides and residues...and gov't officials know all about the many hundreds (up to and over 1000) of untested non-tobacco ingredients. Law, still on the books (!), was even created to keep these ingredients secret. Though we know about 800 or so of these things, there's still hundreds that are unknown. Public officials, even those who pretend to be concerned about smoking and health, fail to insist that all cigarette adulterants be listed or tested or removed pending tests.
These officials allowed, and still allow, burn accelerants (to maximize risk of fires), radiation contamination from certain phosphate tobacco fertilizers, addiction enhancing additives (to all the better keep folks hooked), many sweet, flavorful, soothing substances (to make cigs more tasty to kids)...and the dioxin in smoke from all the chlorine adulterants.
Officials still allow artificially low nicotine levels...to maximize smoking levels. Then what do these officials do?...they say "bad smokers!" and create law to punish the victims.
* Big Insurance firms...HEALTH insurance firms at that!...were reported by no less than the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet and elsewhere, to own huge, multi-million dollar investments in top cigarette manufacturers...such as Philip Morris. In other words, a Prudential, Met Life, Travelers or Cigna can be said to be an OWNER of whatever cigarette firms in which they hold investments. Why are these cigarette industry owners not brought to court and hit with liability suits and other charges? And...why on earth would anyone trust them, the cigarette industry after all, to administer their or their children's health care? Such insurers have huge motive to mis-diagnose illnesses and to blame ANYTHING but their economic interests for health problems. So...they blame nature's tobacco, our "behavior", lack of exercise, bad diets, and vague things like "environmental toxins". They will not look for or blame pesticides or dioxin. They will not test for or indict radiation, in cigs or elsewhere. They will absolutely minimize the liability threat to their interests. Casting all the blame on "tobacco" does exactly that.
*As for the "light" cigarettes song-and-dance...it was, again, public officials who allowed and even ASKED for this kind of cigarette...one that increases smoking rates (as consumers have to smoke more to get a decent effect from the lower nicotine), and increases exposures to all the cigarette materials, and which has more additives than other regular cigarettes (in order to replace flavor lost by lowered nicotine and tars). Public Officials told their industry colleagues and patrons, in effect, "go ahead and make them more dangerous". After all, more smoking equals more tax revenues...and more business for all the adulterants suppliers.
This is reminiscent of US Iraq ambassador, April Glaspie, telling Saddam Hussein that the US had no objections to Iraq moving into Kuwait to deal with Kuwait's illegal "slant drilling". As soon as Iraq moved, the US slammed them...or, actually, the Iraqi people.
Check public records for YOUR legislator's funding from oil, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, paper, agricultural conglomerates (source of so many non-tobacco additives), and big insurance/investment firms. These may not be cigarette manufacturers but they are no less part of the business.
By these pretend attacks ONLY on cigarette makers, they all escape scrutiny, liabilities, PR damage, and even criminal prosecution. Not only smokers but the entire public suffers by this charade.
Cigarette makers expose the charade of the entire "anti smoking" crusade by never demanding that the pesticides and fertilizer interests, for two, share the costs and penalties. Though many so-called "smoking related" diseases CAN NOT be caused by tobacco or any natural plant, even burned, cigarette makers accept the unfounded charges that it's tobacco that's the sole problem. Though some brands may not contain any tobacco at all, but, instead, "tobacco substitute material" made from industrial waste cellulose, no cigarette maker questions the use of the word "tobacco" to describe products. This is understandable. Although revelations about this would cause the legal burdens to be shared by ALL complicit parties, such revelations would greatly increase the crime(and penalties) for the cigarette makers...and it would spread the scandal to all the public officials who were also complicit and who were, in fact, necessary components of the whole crime.
( THIS is what they call "tobacco":
( > http://www.rjrt.com/TI/TIcig_ingred_summary.asp <
> http://tobaccodocuments.org/profiles/additives/ < )
As far as court and legislative proceedings go now...it is imperative that all judges, jurors, legislators, expert testifiers, and other officials be scrutinized for their economic links to ALL parts of this Cigarette Cartel...especially those (insurers, investors, chlorine, pesticides, etc.) who are now happily and profitably hiding out behind the "tobacco" curtain. If any such persons would experience financial downturns from honest application of science and medicine to this situation, they have a conflict of interest that would prevent application of justice, and there would be no chance for the necessary Appearance of Justice. |
