cigarettes

Inept Liberal Lobbyists Refute Their Own Claims: the bungling Center for American Progress

by Hans Bader on September 11, 2009 · 1 comment

in Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony

Many falsehoods were uttered by the President in his health care speech, as even liberal newspapers and Obama advisers have made clear. But the inept, George Soros-funded liberal lobbyists at the Center for American Progress (CAP) attempted to demonize ObamaCare’s critics anyway.

CAP recently shot itself in the foot by refuting its own claims in its September 11 “Progress Report.”

For example, it wrote that critics of big government and ObamaCare “include the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, corporate front groups that claim smoking is good for you.”  But if you click on the very link for their false claim that CEI believes that “smoking is good for you,” it takes you to a CEI web page, www.controlabuseofpower.org, in which CEI not only makes no such claims, but does just the opposite, noting “the health risks of smoking” in the course of criticizing the $240 billion tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Indeed, the top post on that page, by CEI’s Ashley Jacobs, starts its last sentence about the tobacco settlement by explicitly “acknowledging the health risks of smoking.”

(The tobacco settlement has been defended in court by big tobacco companies that use it to squelch competition from smaller competitors, by forcing them to make costly escrow deposits on every cigarette they sell, under discriminatory laws states adopted as a condition of the settlement.  If CEI actually were a corporate front group, it would have defended the tobacco settlement, instead of attacking it, since its attack on the settlement dried up the small fraction of CEI’s funding that it once received from big tobacco companies).

There are many blog posts at OpenMarket saying that discriminatory regulation aimed at smokeless tobacco is bad precisely BECAUSE smoking kills, meaning that smokeless tobacco, which has far fewer health risks, should be allowed to trumpet its health-advantage over cigarettes so that smokers will stop smoking and switch to smokeless tobacco.  This public health benefit is, sadly, blocked by legislation backed by Philip Morris, the nation’s largest tobacco company, and, apparently, the Center for American Progress, which collects donations from corporations seeking to obtain corporate welfare and curry favor with the Obama Administration. (“Some open government groups, such as the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Legal Center, criticize the Center’s failure to disclose its contributors, particularly since it is so influential in appointments to the Obama administration,” as Politico has noted).

You can find three of my own blog posts discussing the dangers of smoking here, here, and here.

At the web sites of CEI and the Examiner, I have described cigarettes as “lethal” and “hazardous to your health” and written that “Every year, millions of smokers like my wife try and fail to quit . . . Many later die of smoking-related illnesses, which are caused by the smoke, not the nicotine.”

FDA Poised to Regulate Tobacco, Which May Backfire

by Hans Bader on June 10, 2009 · 1 comment

in Economy, Healthcare, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

Congress is about to enact a bill to subject tobacco to FDA regulation. Mark Berlind notes one anomalous feature of the bill: it would deny companies’ protection against “tort liability — even if they rigorously follow every FDA rule.” We wrote earlier about how FDA regulation might actually undermine public health by making it harder to market to smokers other tobacco products, like snus, that are not as lethal as cigarettes.

As Jacob Sullum notes, the law will require snus “to carry a warning that it ‘is not a safe alternative to cigarettes,’” even though “there’s no question that snus is far less hazardous than cigarettes.” And to even “introduce a ‘modified risk product,’ a manufacturer has to convince the FDA not only that the product will ‘significantly reduce harm and the risk of tobacco-related disease to individual tobacco users’ but also that it will ‘benefit the health of the population as a whole, taking into account both users of tobacco products and persons who do not currently use tobacco products.’”

In the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney wrote earlier about how the bill would reduce competition in the tobacco industry and enrich the biggest cigarette company — Philip Morris — at the expense of consumers and competitors alike. Although the bill is supported by leading anti-smoking groups (which indirectly receive money from Big Tobacco through the $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement), the bill’s “most important ally” is “Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the world”:

“Philip Morris stands to benefit from this regulation in many ways. First, all regulation adds to overhead, and thus falls more heavily on smaller firms. Second, restrictions on advertising help Philip Morris’ Marlboro, a brand everyone already knows, by keeping lesser-known brands in the shadows. (Existing restrictions on advertising have already helped Philip Morris in this regard, with an added benefit spelled out in Altria’s annual report: ‘Marketing and selling expenses were lower, reflecting regulatory restrictions on advertising and promotion activities. … ‘) Finally, if the bill passes and the FDA gets added control over the industry, Philip Morris, more than any of its competitors, will have access to those bureaucrats and agency heads making the decisions.”

Federal regulation often backfires. A classic example is the 2007 child-safety law, the CPSIA, which was based on junk science. It shut down countless thrift stores and entire industries, resulting in children’s books being thrown out and pulled from library shelves by the thousands. It harmed poor people and special-needs kids. It rendered many ordinary bicycles illegal and made motorcycles more dangerous to children.

But it is now being used by Congress as a blueprint for a misguided law, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, that would put small food producers and farmers’ markets out of business in the name of food safety.

Baptist-Bootlegger Alliance on Tobacco

by Hans Bader on April 8, 2009

in Economy, Healthcare, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

In today’s Washington Examiner, Tim Carney has an excellent column on how the bill to place tobacco under FDA regulation would reduce competition in the tobacco industry and enrich the biggest company — Philip Morris — at the expense of consumers and competitors alike. Although the bill is supported by leading anti-smoking groups (which indirectly receive money from Big Tobacco through the $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement), the bill’s “most important ally” is “Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the world.” As Carney notes,

“There’s a metaphor popularized by economist Bruce Yandle that is useful in explaining efforts to regulate anything from energy to toy safety. Call it the Tale of the Baptist and the Bootlegger.

“Picture a small-town Southern politician after Prohibition’s repeal. Call him Jones. Jones’ campaign needs both cash and a winning issue. The state’s most prolific bootlegger comes and offers Jones both. ‘I can bankroll your entire campaign. You just need to outlaw alcohol in the county. If you close down the bars and clear the liquor out of the corner stores, the men will all have to come to me for their fix.’

“Jones, with newly heavy pockets, walks down to the Lady’s Temperance Hall and declares, ‘Ladies, I’m running to end the scourge of alcohol in this town, and I’m asking for your support.’ At his campaign kickoff the next week, Jones has the entire Temperance Union and the local preacher onstage endorsing him, and of course, he’s got the pipeline of alcohol cash from the rumrunner who will get even richer when the county goes dry again.

“Philip Morris is the ‘bootlegger’ today — the undisputed giant of the industry. The company controls more than half of the U.S. cigarette market. . .Parent company Altria has hired three new lobbying firms so far this year, bringing its army to 19 different lobbying firms plus a powerful in-house shop. . .

“Philip Morris stands to benefit from this regulation in many ways. First, all regulation adds to overhead, and thus falls more heavily on smaller firms. Second, restrictions on advertising help Philip Morris’ Marlboro, a brand everyone already knows, by keeping lesser-known brands in the shadows. (Existing restrictions on advertising have already helped Philip Morris in this regard, with an added benefit spelled out in Altria’s annual report: ‘Marketing and selling expenses were lower, reflecting regulatory restrictions on advertising and promotion activities. … ‘) Finally, if the bill passes and the FDA gets added control over the industry, Philip Morris, more than any of its competitors, will have access to those bureaucrats and agency heads making the decisions.”

We wrote earlier about how FDA regulation might actually undermine public health by making it harder to market to smokers other tobacco products, like snus, that are not as lethal as cigarettes.

Federal regulation often backfires. A classic example is the 2007 child-safety law, the CPSIA, which was based on junk science. It shut down countless thrift stores and entire industries, resulting in children’s books being thrown out and pulled from library shelves by the thousands. It harmed poor people and special-needs kids. It rendered many ordinary bicycles illegal and made motorcycles more dangerous to children.

But it is now being used by Congress as a blueprint for a misguided law, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, that would put small food producers and farmers’ markets out of business in the name of food safety.

Speaking of Baptists and bootleggers, a large coalition of religious leaders who know nothing about how regulation works in the real world have endorsed FDA tobacco regulation. Most of them are from liberal religious denominations, like the Unitarian Universalists and Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, but the signatories also include Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I wrote earlier about the Religious Left, including its claims that Sarah Palin is not really a woman (because she’s a Republican), that Ronald Reagan was “Pontius Pilate,” and its rants about the “Taliban-like American male,” who should “shut up for a milennium.” The Religious Left also believes that God hates secret ballots in the workplace, and falsely accused former Interior Secretary James Watt of publicly stating that all trees should be cut down in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.