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Friday, July 28, 2006

Be wary of names advocacy groups use

Try this:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — In Arizona, they’re called the Non-Smoker Protection Committee. In Ohio, it’s simply Smoke Less Ohio.
Anti-smoking advocates? Hardly. Both are staunchly pro-tobacco and supported in part by North Carolina-based cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc., which is working hard this year to defeat proposed smoking bans in those states, as well as ballot efforts to raise cigarette taxes in California and Missouri.
The nation’s second-largest cigarette maker plans to spend $40 million to defeat all four measures, enough that company officials have warned investors the campaigns will affect the company’s earnings in the second-half of 2006.

Things like this would make you wonder if the National Ringworm Prevention Alliance (I just made that up; please tell me it does not really exist) is really funded by people who want you to contract the skin problem.

How does "Smoke Less Ohio" become the name of a group that actually doesn't want you to smoke less?