More B.S. from Smoke Free Wisconsin their latest blog Are you somber yet. It is ironic that the same day that smoke free posts this blog entry.
Science Daily’s Article “Doctors fear asking mentally ill to quit” might bring attention to a vulnerable population who could also be helped by the increase in price of cigarettes this month. “People with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety are the heaviest smokers in the country, but their doctors are afraid to ask them to quit,” the article states. It continues to say, “They assume that if their patients try to quit smoking, their mental disorders will get worse.”
The irony is that today that Dr Michael Siegel exposes their ties to Big Pharma.
According to the published study:
* Dr Hitsman has consulted for Pinney Associates, subcontracted by GlaxoSmithKline (2006); and
* Dr George has received grant support from Pfizer, Sepracor, Targacept, and Sanofi-aventis, and is a consultant to Pfizer, Prempharm, Glaxo-SmithKline, Eli Lilly, Janssen-Ortho, and Evotec.Pfizer is the manufacturer of Nicotrol and Chantix. GlaxoSmithKline is the manufacturer of Zyban and NiQuitin.
The rest of the story, therefore, is that two of the authors of this study have financial conflicts of interest with Big Pharma, and specifically, with companies that manufacture the very smoking cessation drugs that they are recommending be used with every patient.
Of course Smoke Free Wisconsin loves to paint smokers with the addict brush so that they can push their handlers smoking cessation products.
Nationally as well as in Wisconsin there is progress being made in the area of addressing co-addictions (alcohol and/or other drugs and nicotine) and mental health issues in current smokers.
When will people wake up. Groups like Smoke Free Wisconsin are nothing but front groups for Big Pharma and there is nothing free about them. In a free society an adult is free to make decisions for themselves and property owners are free to decide what legal products can or can’t be used on their own property. Groups Like Smoke Free promote forced behavior modification through draconian taxes and stripping owners of their property rights. Of course if you put Free in your name that is a good thing right? Of course what it means is that they are free to force their will on everyone, everywhere with no regard for anyone else’s rights.
Filed under: Big Pharma, Nannied to Death, Smoke-Free Wisconsin, anti insanity, reality check | Tagged: Big Pharma, Smoke-Free Wisconsin
Marshall, I’m surprised that you missed a very ominous “forest” amongst all those maleficent “trees” in SmokeFreeWisconsin’s (or rather “Erich”’s who seems to be their full time “attack dog” these days) latest post. The “forest” I’m talking about can be found here, in reference to the term “smober”: “….are you clean and sober from drugs and/or alcohol AND tobacco free.” (sic)
Now doing a little research, I discovered that “smober” is evidently a term used by folks in “Nicotine Anonymous” to describe their being “clean and sober” from nicotine/tobacco products. But a little Googling (by no means comprehensive) shows that that term is beginning to be hijacked to mean not merely “clean and sober” from tobacco/nicotine, but “clean and sober” from ALL “substances”, including alcohol.
Of course, anyone even slightly familiar with the “punk” counterculture knows that there has already existed for over 25 years a term for said state of being, “straight edge”. Interestingly, though “SXE” (as it’s commonly known as) started out as very much a “personal choice” statement, there is a sub-movement known as “hardline” that more and more over time has advocated making their form of straight edge “the law of the land”, even part and parcel of the constitution if possible.
Back to my “forest/trees” analogy, I believe that Erich finally is feeling sufficiently emboldened by the anti-tobacco movement’s successes to finally reveal-in a small way at least-the fact that though SFW is a “single-issue organization” (or so they claim), most of it’s members are not “single-issue” activists. Most truly active anti-tobacco activists are also vehemently both anti-drugs and anti-alcohol-it’s just that most of them don’t reveal this fact. And with the successes they’ve had lately, they are starting to feel sufficiently confident enough to start being more open about the goals most of them actually have, namely an escalation on the “war on drugs”, a “war on alcohol”, and ultimately a war on anything seen as “unhealthy”, “addictive”, or “opiative”. IMO, that is the real forest that needs to be seen amongst the “anti-tobacco/big pharma” trees.
Da fishman, thanks for the “smober” info. I had never heard of the term and thought Marshall had just had a typo moment! Sheesh!
Marshall, excellent point on the “Free” thing. I virtually never use their term in any of my writings, preferring to use the correct term, “smoke-banned.”
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
I also had never heard of the ’smober’ term either, so thanks for the explanation da fishman! Very creepy to see how far antis want to go to control people’s lives, beyond just doing any actions possible to unnecessarily discourage tobacco use. If there only was an escape button right now, so I could safely move somewhere very far away from where antis try to stop all things they deem as ‘unhealthy’ for one to do!
This is why I’m always discouraged about the future of our country, with so many places passing unnecessary laws trying to control people’s lives(i.e. smoking bans, bans on trans-fat, etc.). When will this trend stop, and people start fighting back to reverse the damage such health zealots have done to this country? The old system where each business could set their smoking policy as they wish to best accommodate the clientele they wanted to attract was one I was totally fine with, why do health zealots always have to have a ridiculous ‘my way or the highway’ attitude towards smoking?
Boy, I sure do rant a lot….