Big Brother to Aid Tobacco Companies

August 27, 2017

By Anna Morris, Co-Editor, FFOA News Network

   In yet another hysterically draconian move to further the UN/WHO goal of controlling people through public-global health via tobacco restrictions, our FDA may have just given a big boost to the tobacco companies.  Now you may not be interested in tobacco issues but the whole story presents a general picture of what happens when everything becomes a "public health" issue to be controlled by government.

     On July 28, 2017 the FDA, using its Obama-given power over tobacco, decided that mandating low nicotine cigarettes will help "vulnerable populations". Please note this act is aimed at a least functioning level of society; millions will be affected in order to minister to special, downtrodden populations. Obama Care and its new healthtocracy works that way. Individual health no longer matters and has been replaced by "population health" which used to be called "public health." Public health used to be concerned with keeping roaches out of restaurants and sewage out of drinking water. Public health as population health allows government agencies to regulate...well...anything that MIGHT affect health and that means EVERYTHING.

     There is some older research that shows smokers of lower nicotine, "light" cigarettes smoke more and inhale deeper to maintain desired nicotine levels. Nevertheless psychiatry professor Stephen Higgins of the Vermont Center of Behavior and Health (UCBH) at University of Vermont (UVM), is quoted thus in an article posted at Science Daily, "Evidence in relatively healthy and socially stable smokers indicates that reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes reduces their addictiveness." [1]

     Note the word "evidence" at the beginning of Professor Higgins' statement.  The FDA seems to have based its call to mandate low nicotine cigarettes on "evidence based" conclusions rather than proven fact. The Obama Care infestation of transformation uses that term a lot and near as I can tell it means circumstantial evidence is all that is needed to re-write medical books, form law and create public policies affecting millions. (Personally I would get laughed off a few true crime forums to which I belong if I presented conclusions based merely on evidence. Nevertheless, "evidence based" works fine for government when it holds all our lives in its wicked talons.)

     Again, you may be thinking, who cares about the nasty cigarette habit and the tobacco companies the public has been taught to hate?  The UN/WHO international War on Tobacco is just a starter. Sugar is next in their global cross-hairs. Have you noticed the itty-bitty soda can six packs at eye level in grocery stores? I call these miniscule cans the Michelle Obama size since her main project as First Lady seemed to be telling us what to eat. The two litre bottles are now usually found on top shelves, sometimes nearly out of a tall man's reach. 

     Have you listened to the sniveling, slurping, backside licking ads put out by major soda producers who practically apologize for ever using ANY sugar in their products, while pushing their bottled waters and tiny cans as the only reasonable choices? Maybe those whining soda companies expect government law suits such as happened to the tobacco industry. After all, evidence says sugar causes diabetes and more evidence says diabetes costs society at large.  Other evidence shows that government has made medical care unaffordable for the average person, thus it becomes more true that most sick people are to some extent, burdens on society. Further evidence indicates government loves it when helpless people scream for more big government to fix the problems big government created in the first place. Sick people are cited as "burdens" whenever more restrictive public health laws are desired by big government.

     Those same sick burdens, especially the "disadvantaged" ones, make wonderful human lab rats when big government needs the evidence based claptrap upon which to base those laws.

     The FDA decision to lower nicotine in cigarettes is based on a study of, "169 daily smokers" from "three vulnerable populations of smokers--individuals with psychiatric disorders (i.e. affective disorders, opioid-use disorder), and socioeconomically disadvantaged women." [1] The study ran at various locations from March 2015 to April 2016. Of the 169 vulnerable participants, 120 were women, 49 male. 56 participants, "were diagnosed with affective disorders," 60 had opioid dependence and 53 were, "socioeconomically disadvantaged women." That's a short study with a very small sample of people but who's counting when government needs to restrict our freedoms? You can bet new drugs would never be approved with such limited research!

     The study, described as, "multi-site, double blind," had three phases. In Phase 1 participants smoked their brand and/or low nicotine, "research cigarettes". While smoking the latter, "Participants were required to use a plastic cigarette holder...to measure smoking topography--number of puffs, length and speed of each puff," according to the Science Daily article. The research cigs had varying doses of nicotine. [1]

     Each smoking session was followed by a Cigarette Purchase Task (CPR), "to measure the effects of cost on the participant's rate of smoking," states the article. [1]

     Phase two had participants choosing what they wanted to smoke from six dose combinations. Data was fed into a computer and on to Phase 3 which was pretty much like Phase 2. (Gosh, don't we wonder who funded this thing and how many millions of dollars it cost?)

     The findings were that smokers preferred the high nicotine cigs which are available commercially. BUT researcher also claim that low dose cigs might be chosen if they cost less! Or as is stated in the article low nicotine cigarettes, "could serve as economic substitutes for higher-dose commercial-level nicotine cigarettes when the cost of the latter was greater." [1] Well, duh! Poor people buy cheaper things. The authors of the research paper say field testing of this theory is underway to determine feasibility under "'naturalistic smoking conditions'". 

     What about that old research that said smokers smoked more and inhaled deeper when cigarettes contained less nicotine? Well, circumstantial evidence...uh...evidence based rewriting of past research now declares this to be untrue! Although that may depend on what source you check. Do we get the idea this evidence based stuff blows with the wind, or the political party, or in favor of furthering private goals? What if that old research is correct after all? Left-wing Progressives love the word "SAFE" and they plan to keep us safe through tyrannical legislation. Is it SAFE to throw out older research based on a new, one year study of 169 mental patients, addicts and poverty stricken women?

     Lite and low-tar cigarettes of old had tiny vents in the filter that cut the amount of tar and thus nicotine, available per puff. There may be problems with the engineering of these smokes that make them more dangerous than regular but we need not explore that here. 

     What is of interest is the old research newly reported as late as July 6 of this year in a publication by Roswell Park Cancer Institute, "because vented cigarettes deliver less nicotine, smokers may take deeper or more frequent puffs to satisfy their nicotine cravings. [2] The same article goes on to say, "evidence strongly suggests" vented cigarettes which now include most cigarettes sold in the U.S., "may actually increase a smoker's risk," of developing a certain type of lung cancer. (Emphasis mine.)

     A cancernetwork.com article from 2002 quotes David M. Burns, MD, professor of medicine, UC San Diego, citing "new" findings  from the National Cancer Institute, "Smokers smoke for nicotine, and if a cigarette delivers less nicotine, smokers compensate by taking larger puffs, more puffs per cigarette and smoking more cigarettes per day to get the same nicotine." (Emphasis mine.) [3]

     No less an expert than Harvard Medical School published a short article covering the same subject, from 2004 but updated January 23, 2017. Low-tar, vented, lite cigarettes did not reduce the risk of lung cancer because addicted smokers find ways to compensate to get the full nicotine fix. This article describes the original study as, "six years and involved 900,000 Americans over the age of 30." [4]

     A scholarly paper from 2013, based on a number of small group, short term studies, claims that smokers do not smoke more if nicotine content of cigarettes is decreased! [5]  Low nicotine from vented cigarettes is bad but big government mandates low nicotine tobacco is good? More recent news articles discussing the July 28 FDA proposal for requiring low nicotine cigarettes and other tobacco products, tout this idea and some refer to the small study first mentioned above. The basic idea is that if nicotine levels are low enough, cigarettes will no longer be addictive. Time will tell.

     And so major government policy is based on newly manufactured "evidence" obtained from a small group of mentally ill or poverty wracked human lab rats who would agree to smoke low nicotine cigarettes if they cost less! Want to bet the low nicotine variety will cost less? It sounds like the FDA plans to lower nicotine content in all tobacco products to the point where they are not addictive, to save the children, other vulnerable populations as well as pander to the UN/WHO globalist hysteria on tobacco which, according to more evidence based claptrap, causes almost all illness and death in the world. (Never smoke and live forever, is that what they are saying?)

     Heaven knows how those poor human lab rats were worked on psychologically! It is like the statistics that claim most smokers want to quit. Under pressure in a medical setting, of course smokers who are terrorized, shamed and belittled by their doctors and nurses, say they want to quit. Those doctors, nurses and researchers ought to listen to what dedicated smokers who have no desire to quit, say about the medical profession behind closed doors. The smart ones lie about tobacco use and avoid the intimidation!

     Considering tossing the old evidence that was gathered from studying nearly a million smokers for many years, in favor of new evidence based on small samples of short duration, designed to further political goals, may not keep the population SAFE. Put into practice in the draconian ways of government, the unintended consequences may well be increased cigarette sales as smokers across the board and outside of the lab, double or triple their intake of smoke in search of the nicotine fix! 

     Should this crazy idea work for cigarettes, expect alcohol-less alcoholic drinks next, like near beer and mostly-water lite vodka. Alcoholics Anonymous has always claimed an alcoholic cannot have even one drink, watered down or otherwise. One drink is never enough for the alcoholic, so the saying goes. Apparently this principle does not apply to cigarette addiction? Perhaps with FDA regulation, one cigarette will never be enough, so smoke three or four! 

     Expect cigarette sales to go up as the public perceives the new, FDA approved cigarettes as safe and as smokers exponentially increase their intake to get the same effect. The anti-tobacco hysteria comes from the left and in their participation trophy world, they love to say WIN/WIN. It does appear that Big Brother plans to help out the tobacco companies but it is all a WIN/WIN thing. You can bet the low nicotine cigarettes would never be cheaper in the real world, as was suggested in the pitiful study cited above. In the tax hungry, government laden REAL WORLD, tobacco taxes will probably go up, low nicotine content will drive smokers to smoke more and buy more, and that's a WIN/WIN for tobacco companies AND government! Thank you, Big Brother!

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SOURCES:

[1]  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170823184400.htm "Cite this page: Larner college of medicine at the University of Vermont. 'Could nicotine reduction 

      help curb addiction? Study examines impact on vulnerable smokers.' Science Daily, 23 August, 2017

[2] https://www.roswellpark.org/cancertalk/201707/marketed-healthier-choice-light-cigarettes-now-linked-rise-lung-cancer ; Marketed as a "Healthier" Choice, "Light"

     Cigarettes Now Linked to Rise in Lung Cancer; Richard O'Connor, PhD, July 6, 2017

[3]  www.cancernetwork.com ; Switching to Low-Tar Cigarettes Fails to Reduce Risk of Tobacco-Related Diseases, January 1, 2002

[4]  https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/low-tar-cigarettes-are-not-a-safer-choice ; Lower Tar Cigarettes Are Not a Safer Choice, Published 8/2004, Updated 1/23/2017.

     

[5]  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ; Reducing the nicotine content to make cigarettes less addictive,  Neal L. Benowitz and Jack E. Henningfield, May, 2013.

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