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<DIV>Ted writes:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff>"The big tobacco companies have been able to use their
power and influence to continue to avoid the most strenuous governmental efforts
to reduce tobacco addiction, which most often starts before 20 years of age, the
single largest cause of avoidable premature death on the planet.
"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Just as the beverage and hospitality industry continues to oppose very
successfully legal reformation to lower the toll in lives, vehicle ill-fortunes,
dysfunctional individuals, and broken homes wrought by the <FONT
color=#ff0000>immoderate</FONT> use of alcohol.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>W.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=starbliss@gmail.com href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">Ted Moffett</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=deco@moscow.com href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art
Deco</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:38 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] NY Times: Nicotine Manipulation
Confirmed</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Art Deco, et. al.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>A few days ago outside the Moscow Safeway store I saw a group of young
people, who looked decidedly under age, standing around smoking tobacco. I
had to restrain myself from approaching them to offer a little advice, if not to
take the cigarettes out of their hands and crush them under foot. I did
give them a good look over, and their furtive eyes told me they knew they were
engaged in "suspicious activity." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Given how bold they were to stand in front of a supermarket in public and
engage in addictive drug use, this was a statement on how tobacco continues,
despite all the actions taken to reduce or marginalize tobacco use by youth, to
be shrouded in a legal, cultural and law enforcement environment of implicit
acceptance. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I commented on what I just witnessed to another shopper entering the
store... His response was "They'll pay for it later."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Indeed!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I recall when the effort during the Clinton Presidency to regulate tobacco
as a drug by the FDA went to the US Supreme Court. This would have given
the FDA authority to regulate nicotine content, the subject of Art Deco's
informational post. I recall hearing an interview with former FDA
head David Kessler on this effort. The tobacco industry fought
this regulatory action by the FDA, and won. The US Supreme Court at that
time ruled that this regulation was the province of the US Congress.
As Art Deco's post reveals, big tobacco appears to continue to be deliberately
attempting to increase the addictive properties of their death dealing drug
tobacco (nicotine), outside government controls. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Info on the FDA David Kessler led attempts to establish FDA regulation of
tobacco:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.infact.org/fdarept.html">http://www.infact.org/fdarept.html</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/21/scotus.tobacco/index.html">http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/21/scotus.tobacco/index.html</A><BR> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/august96/kessler_8-23.html">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/august96/kessler_8-23.html</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If there is any single issue that exposes the hypocrisy and absurdity of
the approach to drug use dominant in our legal and enforcement system, it is in
the approach to tobacco. The big tobacco companies have been able to use
their power and influence to continue to avoid the most strenuous governmental
efforts to reduce tobacco addiction, which most often starts before 20 years of
age, the single largest cause of avoidable premature death on the
planet. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The continuing easy availability of tobacco to under age youth, with
minimal legal penalties for selling tobacco to this group, compared to the
penalties for other controlled substances, makes a mockery of the "War On
Drugs." The potential impacts of tobacco addiction starting in youth can
convincingly, factually and scientifically, pose as great a threat to
health and life, indeed, more so compared so some other controlled substances,
as other drugs which inspire far more aggressive efforts at prohibition and
legal enforcement. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When I hear that someone who sold tobacco to an under age smoker was
given a multiple year penitentiary sentence, is when consistency between the
dangers of addictive drug use, on a scientific medical basis, and the legal and
law enforcement efforts to stop addictive drug use, are based on a rational and
consistent assessment of the dangers posed by addictive drugs. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ted Moffett</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 1/23/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Art Deco</B>
<<A href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">deco@moscow.com</A>> wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV bgcolor="#ffffff">
<DIV><A onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/" target=_blank><IMG alt="The New York Times"
hspace=0 src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif"
align=left border=0> </A>
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width="80%" border=0>
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<DIV align=right><IMG height=1 alt=""
src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/spacer.gif" width=1 border=0><A
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch2006-emailtools14b-nyt5&ad=LMS_88x31_ACADEMY_static_v2.gif&goto=http://foxsearchlight.com/littlemisssunshine"
target=_blank> <IMG height=24 alt="Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By"
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<HR align=left SIZE=1>
<DIV>January 23, 2007</DIV>
<DIV>Editorial</DIV>
<H1>Nicotine Manipulation Confirmed </H1>
<DIV>
<P>Any doubts that the tobacco industry has surreptitiously raised the
nicotine content of cigarettes should be laid to rest by a study from
researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. They confirmed last year's
discovery of the nicotine increase by the Massachusetts Department of Public
Health and went on to identify how the tobacco companies designed their
cigarettes to accomplish this. </P>
<P>These manipulations were discovered because Massachusetts requires
manufacturers to use a more realistic test to measure how much nicotine is
deliverable to typical smokers and requires companies to report design
features of their cigarettes. When Harvard researchers reanalyzed the data
they found that the nicotine yield per cigarette rose by an average of 11
percent between 1998 and 2005, a conclusion contested by the industry. </P>
<P>Harvard researchers concluded that the companies managed this by using
tobacco containing a higher concentration of nicotine and perhaps also by
slowing the rate at which cigarettes burned — thus increasing the number of
puffs per cigarette. The companies presumably hoped that additional nicotine
would hook more new customers and keep old ones from breaking the habit. </P>
<P>Their continued bad behavior makes it imperative for Congress to grant the
Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products,
including the power to reduce nicotine levels and demand extensive data from
the companies. The Senate overwhelmingly approved such legislation in 2004,
only to have House Republicans block it. With new Democratic majorities in
both houses, it is time to rein in this rogue industry.
</P></DIV></DIV></DIV><BR>=======================================================<BR> List
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