It is typical for college kids to smoke only on weekends at bars and concerts. They smoke less than a pack a week, don't consider themselves to be smokers and don't believe their health is in serious danger. Raising the price of cigarettes to $10 per pack would not deter such social smoking among young people.
Can anyone find anything wrong with this letter I just sent to a Michigan senator:
Senator Patterson,
Many Michigan bars have a 90% smoking patronage. How could a smoking ban not devastate such businesses? This sad list shows that smoking bans have hurt bars, restaurants, bingo halls, bowling alleys and casinos everywhere they have been imposed.
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/ba.../
badforbiz.html
Please be fair! Affordable ventilation/filtration machines are readily available which effectively target workplace smoke. These are the same machines which currently protect workers such as welders from much more toxic fumes than tobacco smoke. If these machines currently protect welders from the deadly smoke produced by the indoor welding of galvanized steel that can kill in less than a hour, these same machines can protect a bartender from stray cigarette smoke. Please continue to allow the bar and restaurant industry to solve its workplace problems through the same recourse to protective technology that the state of Michigan allows other industries. Please exempt from any smoking ban a bar, restaurant or other venue that protects its workers with readily available, affordable ventilation/filtration technology to OSHA indoor air quality standards.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/
http://www.smokeeaters.org/
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...uments/
f62b.pdf
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...ments/cm-
12.pdf
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Bill Hannegan
It is possible that previous tax increases have "skimmed off" the less addicted smokers who were more motivated to quit smoking and thus left a population of smokers which is more addicted and less interested in quitting -- and thus much less price sensitive.
Dr. Siegel, why must the qualifying term "addicted" precede "smokers"?
Is it your position that but for "addiction" there'd be no one smoking?
Then, more in line with your post, how is it that a mere raise in cost causes ANY decline in smoking? Magic perhaps?
All other personal (i.e. not everyone) deep addictions to illegal drugs (crack, heroin, etc.) causes those who don't have the money to rob, steal and cheat in order to get it. But "addicted" smokers -- none -- have never.
So again I ask, why must the qualifying term "addicted" precede "smokers"?
" First, the research suggests that cigarette tax increases may no longer be effective in stimulating adult smoking cessation. It is possible that previous tax increases have "skimmed off" the less addicted smokers who were more motivated to quit smoking and thus left a population of smokers which is more addicted and less interested in quitting -- and thus much less price sensitive."
If researchers took a little more notice of communities, as opposed to population views they would have known this from the outset.
At the time prior to the MSA settlement it simply played in concert with their campaign CASH GRAB now after getting what they want the truth is finally allowed to surface.
As I suggested in the last thread there are more than one level of smoking want or need and every person in the research would have a distinct and unique lifestyle with many more variations than research could possibly predict and express in a single numeric value a range of numbers would be difficult enough a single answer is entirely reflective of personal conceit.
The gratuitous conclusions evident in this type of research in attempts to predict human behaviors or to confound human nature, can only be as accurate as predicting the habits of the one person in the mid point of the group.
The majority will be closer to the extremes and are basically ignored when the spin doctors go to work.
In the research defining addictions similar observations become much more obvious when they determine a person who smokes a single cigarette a day can be classed as addicted, which by extension denotes how can any not be addicted?
When common sense and observation of the data demonstrates most of the group does not fall into traditional addiction descriptions how valid is the research and why was it done to begin with, knowing it's limitations?
If someone who smokes one cigarette a day is addicted, how then would you justify those opinions which predict if you make a smoker's life as difficult as possible they will quit? Which clearly is not the case with other addictions.
What you accomplish is a torturing and belittling of innocent people with nothing accomplished. Nothing if you can discount promotions of the joy of punishing others becoming acceptable sport, encouraged among our young, or the allowing of many distinct and otherwise detestable personalities to join the fray in concert with professional opinions.
This of course would have an effect as well, in social engineering originating from government agencies and medical charities contributing to the depreciated standards in a hardened less caring society.
There are two important limitations to this study. First, it pertains only to smoking participation, not to cigarette consumption. Thus, it is still possible that smokers cut down on the amount they smoke in response to price increases.
Nonetheless, AT has always touted the "cutting down" (at the business end of a gun) to be an achievement all of its own, which always struck me as inconsistent. I thought there was "no safe level" of any smoke. That 2 smokes as day is a deadly as 2 packs. Especially when it;s known that 30 minutes of others' smoke can cause cancer and AMI's.
AT, by pushing the myth that rising prices create quitting, gave the government rationalizations for disguising its pure greed. Which was ducky with AT, since the government scratched its back, giving it bans and funding its tills.
Will the government now accept the results of this (obvious) study?
I'm not taking the bet.
BTW Bill;
Great letter.
Cheers
It does seem logical that smoking will never be reduced to below 20% of the population.
Heres the confounders that I see for either study:
-all the present smoking rates are based on taxes collected; never considers contraband. How can we even know who's right in the beginning? I know people who have never quit getting contraband (even after the tax rate cut in 1992). How many people have been rolling their own since then as well?
- tobacco co. are still making profits, and giving out good dividends every year. It is viewed as lesser income generator if you don't have tobacco in your investments.
- in less the 2 months the most expensive cruise line operator claims to have lost more them $3 Million in sales,(1) due to a smoking ban on balconies and staterooms (highest cost option on boat). Yet you try and say that the majority of smokers now are low income. How can it be there are so many smoking customers who can afford these expensive cruises (when there's cheaper options)? Did you know that many cruising customers go on more then 1 time a year, and co. rely on that fact?
-Is the reason we saw so many "quit" isn't really that they quit, but instead had 10 cigarettes instead of 15 a day? Now with extreme smoking bans people are just saying forget about changing my lifestyle, I'll stay/ do things where I can smoke? (outdoor sports, beaches, etc) In other words they have reached their line in the sand for accommodation and compromise?; and are now saying no more! I personally think so.
(1) http://www.venturacountystar.com...smell-of-smoke/
Sorry, related to a previous post.
Announced this morning on the BBC news,
As predicted
Scotland- heart attacks down by 17% due to the smoking ban.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotl...ast/
6986554.stm
Usual spin.
GreatScot
There has been concern by some that by funding various gov't programs with cigarette tax money, the gov't must count on people to continue smoking, or even an increase in smokers will be needed, since higher taxes will cut down on the total number of smokers.
Studies like this will throw water on those claims & concerns, won't they?
This is an important study because it challenges the popular wisdom in tobacco control that increasing cigarette excise taxes is an effective strategy to promote smoking cessation.
Wrong doc. This is NOT an important study for it says nothing that we didn't already know.
What IS important in this study, which you seem to also choose to ignore, is the fact that this study proves that you can NOT control what people do. That people do NOT take kindly to your sticking your nose into their private life choices. That people WILL continue to do as they want, regardless of your "health" issues.
In other words, this proves that there are still plenty of people out there who prefer liberty over "safety".
It also proves that you've managed to turn normal law-abiding citizens into criminals because they shop for the best deal (cheaper cigs). You should be really proud of yourself.
Kevin J;
"There has been concern by some that by funding various gov't programs with cigarette tax money, the gov't must count on people to continue smoking, or even an increase in smokers will be needed, since higher taxes will cut down on the total number of smokers.
Studies like this will throw water on those claims & concerns, won't they? "
The study shows higher tax does not force smokers to quit it simply adjusts the numbers of who is most affected by the cash grab, leaving the poor affected the most.
We see a similar lack of foundation of most other TC claims as well. In respect to pictures on the cigarette packages for instance, the pictures have been used for years in Canada and if asked today, few smokers could describe the picture on the package currently in their pocket. Kids who used to collect and trade them, have similarly lost interest. There is no evidence other than a huge expenditure anything was accomplished. Smokers were not even embarrassed by the pictures which was the primary goal of the promotion. They instead found them amusing in respect to a consideration of the source.
Taxing a medical condition known as a "chemical dependency", which advocates swear is the case in respect to all smoking, puts politicians in an embarrassing situation, which would leave them tongue tied and without a defense if the moral perspective seen in such acts is questioned.
The same TC groups who will advise smokers they all suffer an addiction more powerful than Crack, solidifying among those who smoke an avoidance of quiting, also support the reprehensible taxation of that dependency if it truly exists. That would make taxation the sin in so called "sin taxes" not the dependency. All of this does not reflect well upon those politicians who support the higher tax route in the hateful mindset supporting a punishing of smokers in order to force them to quit.
Linking a tax to a beneficial service, in place of the tax simply flowing into general revenues, is a political ploy or sales pitch which allows a politician to make unfounded accusations of personal a nature against any politician who opposes the measure.
Just another cheap trick in the linkage of children's health services, to force agreement, when in reality we see the many taxes sold in such a way rarely bind the funds to the cause which sold them. Tobacco taxes are used in many ways, few of which actually benefit only smokers, who are the sole victims of those payments.
What will other selected and determined to be demonic groups, be forced to pay for? Will church groups soon be paying for road construction or the space program? Will gun owners soon be paying for school lunch programs or daycare services? We could force a lot of extra cash to flow anywhere we need it, simply by playing the emotional card which apparently undermines the thought process in politics.
"Prior to the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), there was a strong association between increasing cigarette price and reduced smoking participation," Stating the Martians have landed,has about as much credability as the studies that show this to be fact in the first place.Did it make the rantis happy to think this instead of the damage they were doing to lower income families ? Any excuse will do,won't it ? Setting the record a little straighter will not lesson the rest of the lies and deceit used to actively discriminate against a proportion of society who have no wish to be controlled and dominated by a few modern day nazi-styled control freaks.
Bill H,further to your letter above and the numerous references you have made to air filtration systems,i would be interested to note if Dr Siegel has made ANY comment or reference to the suggestion that these systems can and do remove such a large percentage of pollution and impurities.Or do we remain firmly locked on the necessity of 100 % in order to remove the 220 bodies we've lost.You never know ,perhaps they didn't theoretically die of SHS ,PERHAPS DIESEL EXHAUST FUMES PLAYED A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR OR A MYRIAD OF OTHER UNHEALTHY AIRBORNE CONTAMINANTS ?
Si;
Just as McCarthyism inspired the term Neo-con, the fanatical paternalisms sold through TC will soon also have a single word descriptor as well. The process of fads in a historical sense eventually leaves the promoters permanently linked to a descriptive word.
I would predict due to their hateful nature and the more than obvious love for propaganda in support of that hatred, the word which will eventually rise to the top, will not be a complimentary term. Certainly not a term they would find comfort in use, while trying to describe the current era in future discussions with their grandchildren while attempting to form their excuses.
Something to consider in a moment of outrage against vicious and cruel acts in history, we can simply do a Google search or go to the libraries and medical journals to identify the names of those who supported impunity.
Who will be the permanent victims of tobacco; it's users? or those who seek to punish them? From a historical standpoint, what is published today will have to be defended for all time, else those who made mistakes in their assessments today, will be the target of renormalization which will happen without promotions in the years to come.
JustTheFacts-
I don't mean to imply anything sinister by using the term addicted. I am just trying to point out that the more someone is committed to smoking, the less likely they are to be affected by a tax increase. If a smoker is already thinking of quitting, then a big price increase might actually get them to do just that. But if a smoker has no intentions whatsoever of quitting, then it is unlikely that they will give it up just because of a tax increase.
Everyone-
This is new information. The previous research demonstrated a significant decline in smoking participation with increasing cigarette price. This research truly challenges the old wisdom.
What I think will be interesting is to see whether anti-smoking groups are willing to accept the new research or not.
Remember that the economist John Maynard Keynes once said: "Sir, when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
I certainly am willing to change my opinion based on new information. Will the anti-smoking groups do the same?
Lynda F - In other words, this proves that there are still plenty of people out there who prefer liberty over "safety".
......
Lynda F,
I agree.
Imposed "safety" is far more deadly to an individual and/or a society than the perceived dangers of Liberty.
In effect, the Social Engineers want to tax and impose fines on all "manifestations of Liberty." The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Socialism requires coercion, requires employing the police power of the state. That is why Socialism always devolves into dictatorships, mass suffering, Gulags and mass exterminations.
In any entity (government, corporations, etc.) rot begins at the top, not the bottom. Because the corruptible are drawn to power, they rise to the top, increasing the corruption.
Socialism is the perfect medium for the growth of the corruption virus.
'I certainly am willing to change my opinion based on new information. Will the anti-smoking groups do the same?'~doc
The answer would be NO. The hardened and less caring society "do-gooders" continue their misguided ways:
Senator Tom Harkin, School Nutritionist
http://www.americanthinker.com/ 2...chool_nutr.html
Toby Cosgrove CEO of the Cleveland Clinic - history will judge you too.
JustTheFacts thank you for being with me in spirit Sept. 1, so grateful for all of you that GET IT!!
utopia | 09.10.07 - 10:27 am | #
Doc siad; "First, the research suggests that cigarette tax increases may no longer be effective in stimulating adult smoking cessation. It is possible that previous tax increases have "skimmed off" the less addicted smokers who were more motivated to quit smoking and thus left a population of smokers which is more addicted and less interested in quitting -- and thus much less price sensitive"
As JTF already pointed out, you continue to associate smoking with addiction rather than compulsion, or any other psychological, or physiological reason for engaging in the activity.
You continue to use verbiage with the most negative connotations you can muster into text.
Your allegiance to the Dark Side shines oh so brightly everytime you do this.
You also continue to take every opportunity to make the grand canyon like leap, that all smokers would quit if only the right combination of coercive measures could be found to provide the receipe that would "adequately inform" those citizens of YOUR personal belief that they are simply not smart enough to realize the consequences of the CHOICE they have made. Stop it.
Since this study seems to indicate that simply continuing to raise the cost of tobacco will no longer be sufficient, and is now a much less effective weapon to brow-beat smokers with, does this mean that other, even more stringent measures will now be applied (for our own good of course) in an effort to "adequately inform" us that YOU believe we are making a bad decision for ourselve and that only TC can save us from ourselves?
Doc Said
"Everyone-
This is new information. The previous research demonstrated a significant decline in smoking participation with increasing cigarette price. This research truly challenges the old wisdom."
Dr, Siegel, that statement hurts, and insults me.
For the unpteenth time on this blog, i will post my research that price hikes do not affect adult smoking rates
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/e.../
excisetax.html
For the unpteenth time, I will post my research on teen smoking and price hikes
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/
t...taxandteen.html
Doc, I can understand you are a busy man, but you are well aware of the reports that teen smoking has not declined since 2000, and you are keenly aware of recent adult smoking rate trends, and you are keenly aware that cig prices have skyrocketed since 2000.
And now you are suprised by this new study?????
UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dave K
NY hails Scot a hero. Bloomberg will be rescinding his honour pronto.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/
0910...as_got_guts.htm
Excerpt
"Smeaton lights a cigarette and smiles: "I'm just here to pay my respects, then go back to Glasgow to be a baggage handler, which I love, and among the best guys you could ever work with."
GreatScot
Just as McCarthyism inspired the term Neo-con, the fanatical paternalisms sold through TC will soon also have a single word descriptor as well. The process of fads in a historical sense eventually leaves the promoters permanently linked to a descriptive word.
Taht says it all Kevin.
Many backed Senator McCarthy on false data. The same is true of TC. TC is the "Neo McCarthies"
Now about
Neo-Liprecons???
Or is it Neo-Libricons?
Dr. Siegel: The previous research [before MSA] demonstrated a significant decline in smoking participation with increasing cigarette price. This research truly challenges the old wisdom.
Would be interesting to know why two studies on the same subject come to different results. What is the relation with the MSA, did the MSA cause the change in behavior or is one junk piece replacing another junk piece?
... or is wisdom replacing wisdom?
It's probably just that since 1953, smoking rates have been declining, and prices ahve been increasing.
I remember my dad paid about $4 a carton in the 1950's
so, if prices are increasing, and smoking rates falling, they must be related
right?
Kinda like Helena,
Or every time joe cuts the wind while drinking beer, the global temp increases,
must be joe's drinking beer causes global warming.
Benpal-
A good question. In the paper, the authors provide a possible explanation. They suggest that earlier price increases have already led anyone who was going to quit to do so. Further price increases therefore aren't going to lead more people to quit - those who were going to already have.
This is just a hypothesis, but it certainly seems plausible.
Another possibility is that once the price gets up to a certain amount, further increases just don't result in further effects on smoking participation. In other words, the elasticity curve is not linear with respect to the absolute price level.
Dave;
" so, if prices are increasing, and smoking rates falling, they must be related
right? "
You might be onto something there Dave. I remember clearly in the 70s people said frequently "if the price gets to a dollar a pack I'm quitting."
Now that the price is ten dollars a pack their certainly couldn't possibly be any smokers left in Canada.
Could there?
Further price increases therefore aren't going to lead more people to quit - those who were going to already have.
Not very plausible. This hypothesis suggests a learning or saturation effect. But since the price increases over longer periods of time are targeting different populations/generations, this can't possibly be.
I'd rather guess that it is the absolute cost of the product compared to other consumer goods or the relative cost compared to the cost of living in general.
Michael Siegel, you need to read some decent national economy. There is no such thing as 'price elasticity'.
50 years ago, products were not taxed heavily. Cigarettes took up far more of the average citizens income, yet relatively more people smoked. Clearly those people that use tobacco products today, are those who benefit most from using them. I doubt that heaping more health hype or taxes upon them is going to make much difference. All that is going to happen is that smoking will be driven underground and cigarettes will go black market.
"I certainly am willing to change my opinion based on new information."
Unless the "new" information shows that ventilation works.
Perhaps that doesn't count, since that is "old" information.
I wonder how many more, would change their opinions in light of more "new" adjusted numbers?
Seems like a week for scientific discovery, when was the last full moon? another association?
http://www.canadafreepress.com/
2...essen091007.htm
" By Paul Driessen
Monday, September 10, 2007
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority," Marcus Aurelius opined, "but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
An even worse fate would be to end up in minority status and an asylum. Recent developments suggest that this might be the destiny of climate change alarmists.
Now that NASA has corrected its US temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934. Five of the ten hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 -- and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades. This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend.
Plant and insect remains found at the base of Greenland's ice sheet indicate that, just 400,000 years ago, the island was blanketed in forests and basking in temperatures perhaps 27 degrees F warmer than today. "
OT, but i thought you all might be interested in the most recent news blurb about nicotine vaccine (NicVax). for what it's worth, i don't consider smoking 24 cigarettes a day to be considered heavy smoking. meh.
http://www.boston.com/business/h...vax_study_data/
Here is an article which Michael may be interested in.
I would say a new blog discussing this one would be a record setter.
http://www.timesleader.com/
opini...torial_ART.html
Gasp has their priorities set unfortunately they wont be jumping in line to alter their opinions regardless of the facts.
This one is just too ridiculous for words.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/arti...0/
10152592.html
"London: Undercover police officers have been ordered to put up no-smoking signs in their unmarked cars.
Detectives on stake-outs are also banned from having a cigarette in their vehicle under new anti-smoking laws.
Ministers say officers carrying out surveillance are not exempt from the new smoking legislation which came into force on July 1.
However, MPs raised concerns that covert operations could be blown by criminals spotting no smoking signs.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "Whilst everyone understands the need for a smoke-free environment, it seems to me that this legislation has gone beyond common sense."
IMO
Its time to stop robbing and raping the children of smokers and individuals who smoke by using excessive taxes on tobacco to fund political feel good agendas.
Government with the aid of anti-smoking groups basically have taken the food right out of the mouths of children and adults alike. (That’s right “the children” ). While completely ignoring the fact that over 99.999 percent of the population will see no ill effect what so ever from tobacco use, and with the remaining percentile of the population left to the mercy of best guess scenario science, it has become increasingly alarming to say the least; that a very small group of trained exaggeration experts continue to seek to cause harm to both children and adults. That is, financial harms and others related to the same.
Purposely manufacturing finical “burdens” (taxes being just one of many) and foisting the same on families and individuals. Burdens, some that very likely would not exist if not for the many fraudulent misrepresentation used by anti-smoking groups while at time using tobacco monies to promote propaganda tied to the same. Monies that in many cases have been lifted from individual households not because of smoking but because of the continued misrepresentations regarding tobacco use.
There is no reason in the world that smokers in general, through taxes, should be forced to fund one single fraudulent utterance regarding tobacco use. Yet they do everyday. Sin taxes are not exempt from the real and devastating affects of fraud. Such as the result of taxes directly affecting low income individuals. As a result such taxes are as much part of the fraud as the false misrepresentations used at least in part to generated the tax.
Here, it seems we’re asked to believe that it couldn’t be that the poor were not harmed by excessive cigarette taxes prior to this study. That these massive taxes just “skim off” some smokers. Truth is these massive taxes have hammered low income individuals long before any study. I don’t believe any one specific study was needed to prove this.
I find it laughable to read considerations regarding tobacco tax funded government programs. It most certainly appears that smokers as well as their family members, if that is the case, are owed a heck of a lot of money extorted by way of fraudulent taxes. That is unless one is willing to believe that lawmakers just woke up one day and decided to raise taxes on tobacco all by themselves/ that anti-smoking groups and others are not intertwined with tobacco tax decisions.
I have no problem with paying a tobacco tax. But if that tax is tied in anyway to false statements it then becomes something other than a tax and therefore not part of what elected officials voted upon. Higher cigarette taxes and those who support the same are subject to attack in nuclear proportions. Its simply just a matter of time and gathering of information before this happens. I don’t believe for one second that those who support or have supported in the past, excessive cigarette taxes had not the ability or information to conclude the harm posed by such taxes. I believe most if not all promoters of such taxes had some duty to speak in regards to harm. Only an ignorant fool could possibly conclude that no harm will come by excessively (at times incrementally, but substantially over time) increasing cigarette taxes. The entire idea was/is about as reckless as it gets.
It certainly will be interesting to see if those who pound their chest and demand excessive taxes, have the guts to come forward and take responsibility for what THEY have helped create and what type of monetary compensation is offered to those individuals most harmed. It is all about the money, is it not?
Doctor, what if anything is the anti- smoking movement accountable for? Is it just okay to leave millions of people in a finical dilemma and hope to get it right next time around. While at the same time covering the butts of morons who get their kicks out of robbing little kids and their parents by saying; hey maybe those poor people are just smoking less.
Maybe anti-T just got it incredibly wrong. Again.
As someone who has organized against smoking bans on the grassroots level, I have no doubt that the smoking ban movement is a form of class warfare. Upper-middle-class professionals are trying at once to reform the lower orders by making social smoking outside the home impossible and also to redo working-class bars and restaurants according to their own superior, upper-middle-class smoke-free preferences. As I passed out fliers against the St. Louis smoking ban in a smoky dive two years ago, a fellow smoking a cigar said to me, "Smoking bans are about yuppie guys wanting to score in working class places without their leather coats stinking at the end of the night. Smoking bans are about yuppie dry cleaning bills and not public health." Indeed, I found that the more working-class a place was, the more likely it was to be hostile to a smoking ban. Has anyone written about the smoking ban juggernaut as worldwide class aggression?
" Doctor, what if anything is the anti- smoking movement accountable for? Is it just okay to leave millions of people in a finical dilemma and hope to get it right next time around. While at the same time covering the butts of morons who get their kicks out of robbing little kids and their parents by saying; hey maybe those poor people are just smoking less.
Maybe anti-T just got it incredibly wrong. Again."
The real tragedy has yet to be seen; as many other replicated campaigns point at the TC bait and switch routine, as an example of a successful health intervention and enshrine a model for future activities.
The Health scare community will no doubt promote and profit from larger scams yet to come.
In a study published in the journal Pediatrics as long ago as March 1996 (per the Washington Post)::
“The researchers noted that the high cost of cigarettes had a direct correlation to the amount of money spent on children’s food and constitute a significant expenditure in a low income household.”
In the particular sample used (515 children from low income homes) 46% had smoking parents.
So this is an OLD story.
"For the children" my a. And so's fining their parents several thousand $ for smoking in the car. So's putting them into foster care if mommy or daddy smokes. So's denying them foster care by anybody who smokes--and no matter how capable, welcoming, loving.
But doc's said he'd still have fought for his Noble Cause, even knowing where it's led. And if you forced him to choose between All or Nothing, he'd still go for All.
:
An even more outrageous example of scientific fraud via press release was done by the American Association for Cancer Research last month when it issued a press release entitled "Smokeless tobacco more effective than cigarettes for delivering dangerous carcinogens into the body" http://www.aacr.org/home/about-u...news.aspx?
d=808
that intentionally misrepresented the findings of a study by Stephen Hecht
"Similar Exposure to a Tobacco-Specific Carcinogen in Smokeless Tobacco Users and Cigarette Smokers"
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi...tract/16/8/
1567 and that contained intentionally misleading quotes by Hecht.
The day the AACR issued the press release, I contacted the AACR staffer who wrote the press release and told him that his press release (which was written in collaboration with Hecht) would generate totally inaccurate news headlines, and I pointed out that AACR and Hecht had committed scientific fraud by inaccurately implying that cigarettes pose fewer cancer risks than do smokeless tobacco products.
Just as I predicted, the next day FoxNews ran a story entitled "Study: Smokeless Tobacco More Carcinogenic than Cigarettes"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2...,292838,00.html
And a week later the NY Times published a similar article entitled
"Hazards: Smokeless Tobacco on Par With Cigarettes"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/2...EYPEs3CDwnA/
6Zg
The NY Times article prompted Jacob Sullum to write an excellent article
entitled "Does the Times Understand the Difference Between Safer and Safe?"
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/...how/
122131.html
For objective information about the comparable health risks of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, please read "Tobacco harm reduction: an alternative cessation strategy for inveterate smokers"
http://www.harmreductionjournal....7-7517-3-
37.pdf
and/or "Systematic review of the health effects of modified smokeless tobacco products"
http://nzhta.chmeds.ac.nz/
public...ions.htm#review
I don't why you are so surprised Bill. This is just the same tactic that is used with cigarettes.
I love how defensive and outraged you get about smokeless tobacco being claimed as dangerous.....BUT don't apply the same indignation over the outright fraud and lies YOU spread about cigarettes.
Hypocrite.
What gets me is how smokeless tobacco is all lies put out by the man, but he believes every word of TC like gospel.
Sorry Bill, the studies speak. Smokeless tobacco is just as dangerous as cigarettes. It really needs regulated.
Sorry Bill, the studies speak
I agree. IF the studies (full of holes even) regarding cigarettes are good enough to condone the discrimination and harassment and over-taxation of smokers; then the same studies are surely good enough to start on the smokeless tobacco crowd.
Really Bill, where is your consistency? Tobacco is tobacco.......nicotine is nicotine. IF tobacco is bad, then ALL tobacco is bad. IF nicotine is so addictive then ALL nicotine is addictive.
So what is it? The product itself or just the delivery system you oppose? And all delivery systems are legal so who are you to dictate which one I can choose?
Following is an ABC NEWS segment on this study, indicating many deficiencies in the research methods.
Do Cigarette Taxes Help or Hurt Poor Smokers?
New Research Suggests Taxes Don't Dissuade Low-Income Smokers; Many Experts Disagree
By DAN CHILDS
ABC News Medical Unit
August 31, 2007
A new study suggesting that tax hikes on cigarettes may be ineffective in reducing smoking among poor people is drawing fire from tobacco control and public health experts who call the research flawed.
The contentious report comes at a critical time, as Democrats in Congress strive to garner support for expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $50 billion over five years. The plan would be funded largely by raising taxes on tobacco products.
In the study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health, lead author Dr. Peter Franks and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine examined smoking among people in various socioeconomic classes over a 20-year period.
The study, funded by the university, found that while price increases historically were met with a concurrent decline in smoking across the board, more recent tax hikes — those occurring after the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with tobacco companies and the states in 1998 — corresponded with a trend in which the relatively wealthy quit smoking at a greater rate than their poorer counterparts.
Franks concluded that while tax increases may have helped in the past, that effect has pretty much disappeared. Moreover, he said, further tax hikes would place an undue burden on the poor — those hit the hardest by increased costs.
"There is essentially no effect associated with the increased price of smoking," he said. "Using pricing as a public policy is probably going to be less effective than it has been in the past."
But many tobacco control researchers disagreed with the conclusions of the study.
"I don't quibble with the data, but do with the conclusions," said Kenneth Perkins, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. "It is likely that lower-income smokers decreased their daily amount of smoking, as the authors concede they couldn't assess, thereby showing price sensitivity."
Some in the field pointed to other research that appears to contradict the conclusions of the new study.
"We've been tracking cohorts of smokers for the past 17 years and we see strong price effects," said Michael Cummings, chair of the Department of Health Behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.
"There is a large literature on the inverse relationship between price and tobacco consumption," said David Lee, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "A call for additional research on this relationship in the post-MSA era is appropriate. However, the findings of this study should not be used to justify changes in tobacco control policy."
And some physicians in practice said the findings ran counter to the trends they have seen in their patients.
"The key limitation of this study is that it concerns only the number of smokers, not the number of cigarettes smoked," said Dr. Joseph DiFranza, professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
The study's authors defend using total numbers of smokers as the key measure.
"[A]lthough smokers may reduce cigarette consumption in response to cigarette pack price, they may make offsetting health-threatening behavior changes, such as switching to higher tar and nicotine cigarettes. Thus, smoking participation is the key smoking behavior to address," the study concludes.
Here's the second half of the ABC NEWS segment on the cig price elasticity study. Since the weblink no longer works for the article, I'm posting the full article here.
Counterbalancing Sin Taxes
Rebates and promotions that make up for some of this price increase may also have caused tax hikes to be less effective in encouraging smokers to quit in recent years.
Such rebates lower the impact of tax hikes on the final price of cigarettes, which means that poor smokers may not be hit as hard by price increases as they would be otherwise.
"The author's failure to take into account the price promotion dollars spent by the tobacco industry and alternative low or untaxed cigarette options is a major weakness," said Andrew Hyland, associate member of the Department of Health Behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. "The only conclusion that I can come to from this paper is exactly opposite of the authors — that price has a huge effect and the industry has brilliantly exploited the MSA to minimize the effect of higher prices on smokers."
Lee agreed. "The tobacco industry has responded to the MSA by increasing point of sale marketing and price promotions such as two packs for the price of one," he said. "Industry-reported cigarette cost data has become an increasingly less accurate measure of what smokers are actually paying for cigarettes once price promotions are considered."
Moreover, Perkins noted that many poor smokers may have shifted to less expensive brands or rolled heir own cigarettes, which would have mitigated the financial impact of tax hikes on their habit.
Franks conceded that the study reflected only the average pack prices of cigarettes and did not necessarily take into account rebates and promotions — a factor that could have explained the slowdown in the decreasing number people reporting that they had kicked the habit.
But he added, "I know of no sytemic evidence that the price that was paid was less than the price reported in the study."
Fair for Smokers to Pay for SCHIP?
Regardless of discounts offered by cigarette companies, the fact remains that smokers will be paying extra taxes that go into SCHIP — an arrangement that Franks said burdens the poorer members of a population that is struggling with addiction.
"The only people left smoking are those who are addicted," he said. "What do they do if the price of the drugs they are addicted to increase? Do they stop? No. They cut other things out or find other ways to fund their habit."
He added that using such taxes to pay for a social program such as SCHIP is patently unfair.
"If we think about expanding SCHIP, really shouldn't everyone pay for it?" he said. "Why pick on smokers, who are more and more becoming a poorer segment of society?"
But DiFranza said smokers, too, put a heavy burden on social programs through adherence to their habit.
"Even at current prices, nonsmokers are heavily subsidizing the health-care costs for poor smokers," he said. "If anything is unfair, it is to expect nonsmoking taxpayers to subsidize smoking-related cancer treatments for poor smokers on Medicaid and Medicare."
Franks countered by noting that poor smokers tend to take advantage of health services less often than non-smokers -- and that the decreased life expectancy of smokers usually meant that any medical costs they incurred upon taxpayers would be outweighed by social security taxes they had paid and died too early to collect benefits on.
"I'm not saying that we shouldn't expand SCHIP," Franks said. "I'm just saying that we need to find a better way to do this."
Other Strategies to Stub Out Smoking
If there was any ground on which all researchers agreed, it was that federal, state and local governments should ramp up efforts on several fronts to help decrease smoking rates.
Franks said other measures — such as smoking bans adopted by cities for many public areas — could be a more effective step to curb smoking among the poor. And Cummings added that product bans could also go a long way in stubbing out the problem.
"If the government wanted to get serious about smoking, they would ban the sale of combustion nicotine tobacco products — cigarettes, cigars, bidis, etc.," Cummings said. "There are plenty of noncombustion nicotine substitutes available to satisfy nicotine addicts."
Bill, sorry, if the science is right for cigarettes then it's also right for smokeless tobacco. The science can't ONLY apply when you like it, it applies across the board. Why shouldn't we believe them about smokeless tobacco? According to you and Doc, they are right about cigarettes and we should listen to them. Then they HAVE to be right about smokeless tobacco. Hey, sorry Bill, but yours will go out with ours. You helped convinced the folks that science was right no matter what anyone said about cigarettes. It's a real shame when you pull crap like that that you kind of bite yourself in the butt.
It's a real shame when you pull crap like that that you kind of bite yourself in the butt.
Ewwwwww............I've nothing against kinky, BUT, I really could have done without that visual......hehehehehe 
I find it amusing how the discussion changes using the word "addicted" to support one statement and the obviously equivalent word "habit" when it suits abusive attitudes to force smokers to quit.
The ignorance of human rights in deliberate torturing a medical "dependency", and the absence of "do no harm", is obviously not a significant concern either.
It always comes back to the smoking patch and the constant drip method of solidifying a chemical dependency, to invent more permanent customers for the drug dealers.
They should all be ashamed to look in the mirror. Someone should at minimum be arrested here, for hate crimes.
Kevin - I find it amusing how the discussion changes using the word "addicted" to support one statement and the obviously equivalent word "habit" when it suits abusive attitudes to force smokers to quit.
....
Kevin,
Your take on this is excellent. Smokers have been excluded from discussions regarding legislation to tax and/or enact a ban on tobacco products because smokers' "addiction" interferes with their thinking processes.
The issue should be pressed:
Habit or addiction?
Cause or correlation?
"Contributed to..." or "attributed to...?"
Evidence or proof?
Commenting by HaloScan
