Here's some useful links for those who, perhaps in good faith, think that this anti-tobacco campaign is legitimate or that it is against the cigarette cartel. It is not. It serves Big Cig right down the line.

To even call this a "tobacco" issue is scientifically and medically incorrect...by miles. Such rhetoric may be criminally fraudulent. Use of such lingo is to use THEIR marketing and liability-dodging terms..and to ignore (as they do) the incredible stew of non-tobacco parts of typical (VERY non-organic) products.

If one sees material that seems to be "grassroots" or "concerned about health" that uses the unqualified word "tobacco" or phrases such as "tobacco smoke" or "cigarette smoke" or any of the like, be assured...they are either grossly uninformed OR parts of the cigarette cartel seeking to minimize liabilities and even criminal charges. And, remember who graciously funds so many gov't officials too. It may not be cigarette manufacturers (too obvious) but the OTHER parts of the industry...the ones who hope dearly to stay out of the discussion.

Plain tobacco may have inherent risk factors...like anything on earth...but it is impossible for the tobacco plant to be cause of the plague of so-called "smoking related" illnesses or deaths. However, what if there were HIGH levels of known carcinogen, dioxin, in the smoke from all the still legal chlorine adulterants? What if there were cell-damaging levels of radiation?...and other non-tobacco toxins and carcinogens? Now..THAT might kill and sicken millions of people the way typical cigs do. Actually, this stuff is inescapably dangerous. Still legal?

Is this to be about tobacco...or about ADULTERATED, spiked, dioxin-delivering, addiction-enhanced, radiation-delivering (it's from certain fertilizers), and in some cases, tobacco-free smoking products? Note the subtle difference. It's the difference between being hit by a pebble or a 100 kilo boulder.

Call the typical concoctions Dioxin Dowels, or Pesticide Pegs or Radiation Rods...not "cigarettes".

Some parts of this industry that many overlook are Big Oil (many tobacco pesticides), big Pharma (more pesticides AND cig ingredients), Big Chlorine (the dioxin connection in pesticides and paper bleach), Paper (and logging and pulp), pesticide-intensive agri-businesses, Sugar (12.3% of a Marlboro according to Wall St. Journal report), Chocolate, adhesives, etcetera, AND Big Insurance which actually owns huge holdings in cigarette manufacturing! (and probably most of the rest of the characters.)

THIS IS NOT TO BE CALLED "the Tobacco Industry"! Science, medicine and law require a lot more.
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** April ('03), the General Accounting Office (GAO) condemned lax government monitoring of tobacco pesticides. See: Wash Post >  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32003-2003Apr24.html >  http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2003/2003-04-25-09.asp#anchor2 <

*** Partial list of non-tobacco cig ingredients from which manufacturers select their secret "recipes":
 http://tobaccodocuments.org/profiles/additives/
The Nation mag, in 91, reported about dangerous additives to "lite" cigs but can't get a copy on line...yet.

*** Bill Drake's invaluable site:
 http://ktc.com/~bdrake

***  http://www.pmdocs.com (Philip Morris had to post this as part of "settlement")

***The Massachusetts Tobacco Ingredients and Nicotine Yield Act is at:
 http://www.state.ma.us/legis/laws/mgl/94-307B.htm
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Decision is at:
 http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=00-2425.01A

***The revised "Ninth Report" that contains all addendum materials is available on the Internet from the National Toxicology Program's web page at  http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov

***Radiation contaminating tobacco...
 http://www.webspawner.com/users/radioactivethreat/

***  http://www.chem.unep.ch/pops/ The 12 initial POPs include eight pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene), two industrial chemicals (PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, which is also a pesticide), and two unwanted by-products of combustion and industrial processes (dioxins and furans). [ But Carbofurans are on lists of tobacco pesticides...so, I don't quite understand this.]

***** From Pesticicide Action Network, re/ 450 still registered tobacco pesticides  http://www.panna.org/resources/documents/tobacco.dv.html :
Tobacco, Farmers and Pesticides: The Other Story
May 1998 By Ellen Hickey and Yenyen Chan

*** RJR's (biased) review of Judge Osteen's rejection of EPA "secondhand smoke" stuff.
 http://www.tobacco.org/resources/documents/osteensummary.html

*** More on EPA/2nd hand smoke; All garbage that avoids all along anything about what's IN "secondhand smoke". Cigs not defined or analyzed...smoke not defined or analyzed. This is SCIENCE??
 http://stic.neu.edu/osteen.htm

**** Re "ETS" Environmental Tobacco Smoke"...except that no one TESTED unadulterated tobacco smoke for ANYTHING. Both sides doing a dance.
 http://www.forces.org/articles/files/appeal.htm

*** And I just re-found this troubling note:
"The best source for information on exemptions is the UNEP website,
 http://irptc.unep.ch/pops/, under "Stockholm Convention on POPs." The
Convention text itself is informative, as is the revised list of requested
exemptions. ...." It indicates that "unintentional" dioxins, like in products (like in typical cigarettes?) may not be covered in the POPs Treaty. Does WHO know this?

**** Fantastic scandal...that never heated up: Health insurers links to Big Cig.
 http://www.pnhp.org/news/2000/march/insurers_are_major_i.php

*** Re/ "fire safe" cigs:  http://www.ameriburn.org/advocacy/fireSafeCig.htm

*** No "link" to this at CDC but....here it is copied:

Dioxins in Cigarette Smoke

Copy of an abstract from US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Ga.

Authors: H. Muto, Y. Takazawa
Title: Dioxins in Cigarette Smoke
From: Archives of Environmental Health, Pg. 44 (3); 171-4
Date: May/June 1989

Abstract:

Dioxins in cigarettes, smoke, and ash were determined using gas
chromatography/mass spectrometry. The total concentration of
polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) in cigarette smoke was
approximately 5.0 micrograms/m3 at the maximum level, whereas various
cogeners from tetra-octa-chlorodibenzo-p-dioxin ( -CDD) were detected.
Particularly, the total concetration of hepta-CDD cogeners was the
highest among these cogeners. Mass fragmentograms of various PCDD
cogeners were similar to those in flue gas samples collected from a
municipal waste incinerator. The PCDD cogeners that were not present in the cigarettes were found in the smoke samples, the 2, 3, 7,8-TCDD toxic equivalent value---an index for effects on humans---for total PCDDs in smoke was 1.81nng/m3 using the toxic factor of the United States
Environmental Protection Agency. Daily intake of PCDDs by smoking 20
cigarettes was estimated to be approximately 4.3 pg. kg body/weight/day.
This value was close to that of the ADIs; 1-5 pg kg body/weight/day
reported in several countries. A heretofore unrecognized health risk was represented by the presence of PCDDs in cigarette smoke.