November 28, 2001

‘ The WHO anti-tobacco campaign isn’t about health. It’s about pushing junk science, expanding the role of public health beyond appropriate boundaries, and opening markets for pharmaceutical multinationals through the back door rather than through normal market channels, ‘ said FORCES International CEO Gian Turci.

‘ The use of international treaties to require sovereign nations to control their adult citizens’ legal behaviours through excessive taxation and social engineering sets a dangerous precedent,’ Turci warned.

Enoch Ludlow, president of FORCES, also spoke out against the FCTC and WHO’s tobacco control policies. ‘ The anti-tobacco agenda is very much about the policing of individual lifestyles and adult choice. Anyone who says this is merely an attack on the tobacco companies just hasn't been paying attention. In Montgomery County, Maryland in the U.S., a law has just been passed that will allow people to be fined for smoking in their own homes if any neighbor complains about it. Today it’s tobacco smoke. What will it be tomorrow? ‘

‘At the very least, individual nations should be making their own policies on tobacco issues. An international treaty will curtail their ability to do this, even if the electorate demands it,’ Ludlow added.

A forthcoming FORCES position paper entitled, The ‘Public Health’ Antismoking Scam: A Paper of Dissent, describes how the antismoking movement has abused science on the health effects of both primary smoking and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) to create an ostensible public health emergency which requires huge funding. The position paper challenges many fundamental assumptions of the tobacco control movement and suggests concrete measures to curtail future political and scientific abuses. It also exposes the WHO’s intimate ties to the multinational pharmaceuticals.

# # #