Anti-smoking movement funded by Big Pharma?

[moriverrat]

Hello,

http://www.forces.org/evidence/money/introph.htm

Any opinions? I do not recall hearing this in the corporate media.

[Loonman]

1. Ludicrous

The Pharm industry makes a lot of smoking cessation products, and there's always cancer medication, asthma puffers, emphysema treatments.

The drug biz would lose money if smoking declined.

[moriverrat]

5. I have friends who are HOOKED on the patches and gum

That stuff is not cheap. Some of them are in a vicious cycle,
going from cigs to the replacements and back again.

[Loonman]

7. So do I

Some for a year. What's the bloody point, if you ask me.

[moriverrat]

8. You said that they do not make money.

Hello

Do they sell the replacement products at a loss?

Would we hear so much anti-smoking PR if there
was no corporate money behind the movement?

[Loonman]

9. I said they would lose money if smoking ended

The pharm industry is going to own everybody's ass, anyway, eventually.

[Cleita]

12. The only way you really can cure an addictive habit like

smoking is cold turkey. All those patches and gum do is really keep you hooked on the nicotine longer. They are only useful in breaking the oral habit of reaching for a cigarette and lighting it, which is only one step in quitting. It's not a pleasant withdrawal from the nicotine for about three months, but if you can, the results will be more permanent. I am a non-smoker going on fifteen years and I did it cold turkey.

[merwin]

2. They also say that smoking and second hand smoke are't bad for you.

Sounds like loonies to me.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

3. Um, just looking at the site...

..is proof enough that this is complete bullshit.

And I'm astonished -- astonished, I tell ya -- that someone with such a low post count would come on here to spread misinformation. The purpose of which, I really don't understand.. but misinfo nonetheless.

[MrModerate]

4. I hear a very loud crinkling of tinfoil when I visit this site . . .

(and it's the sound of someone unwrapping a pack of smokes)

Which is not to say that big pharma doesn't loooooove the anti-smoking movement (which allows it to sell lots of expensive products) as much as it looooooves smoking (which also allows it to sell lost of expensive products).

Big pharma profits on every imaginable human misfortune; of course they're going to promote programs for AND against smoking, for and against eating at McDonalds, for and against giant SUVs etc., etc., etc.

[whoretaculture]

10. Smokers die too early

The real money is in oooold age drugs.

[mondo joe]

6. LOL! Because of course the TOBACCO industry isn't behind

anything.

[applegrove]

11. Think how many pills they don't sell when people die at 62 from smoking

related illness? I mean - what about all the pills they could sell people from ages 62 to 89?

That's alot of pills & money the tabacco companies have taken out of big Pharma's pockets.

[progressivebydesign]

13. VOTERS and local State and local health boards are behind bans.

It's not a corporate conspiracy. The tobacco companies.. which for some reason some liberals have no problem enriching, and the alcohol industry (another health conscious group) are against bans.

You know a product is bad when the companies that produce it have to produce PSAs to tell you how dangerous their product is and how to quit using it.

The pharmaceutical companies make a shit load of money on smoking related heart disease and lung disease. Trust me. The patches are chump change to them. The real money is in the smokers. Of course it costs the state, fed, and county, governments billions in health care for underinsured smokers, and also businesses in lost productivity. But.. don't really see a corporate consipiracy to ban smoking.. quite the opposite.

[troubleinwinter]

14. A tobacco promotion site

It is a PRO-TOBACCO site. They deny nicotine is addictive, risks of second-hand smoke.

They are using 'big pharma' as a boogie-man, because they sell cessation products.

They advocate the availability of tobacco to children:

Q: Are you favourable to the prohibition of tobacco sales to minors?

A: No, and this for two main reasons:

What is forbidden attracts. Keeping minors from obtaining alcoholics (sic) and cigarettes increases their desire to have them, and antitobacco "education" enhances that desire, more so in kids with bright minds who don't get easily brainwashed by propaganda....

<snip>

The prohibition of sales to minors carries the implicit, false message that tobacco and alcohol are highly dangerous substances, thus adult maturity is needed to handle them.

http://www.forces.org