FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 3, 2001
FORCES INTERNATIONAL RELEASES NEW POSITION PAPER
SAN FRANCISCO, USA – On the heels of the recent third World Health Organisation (WHO) conference on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Geneva, FORCES International is releasing a position paper entitled, The ‘Public Health’ Antismoking Scam: A Paper of Dissent. The paper can be viewed and downloaded at www.forces.org internet website.
(direct address: www.forces.org/evidence/papers/paper1/forces_international_1201.htm).
The paper is a call to action against an important instance of one of the most flagrant yet largely ignored political abuses of our times: the use of “health” rationalisations to distort science for the purpose of taxation, social engineering and marketing agendas.
It 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.
- 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 local council recently attempted to fine people for smoking in their own homes if any neighbour complained 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 like the one proposed by the WHO will curtail their ability to do this even if the electorate demands it,’ Ludlow added.
FORCES is an independent, international organization supporting civil liberties and scientific and political integrity with particular reference to the tobacco control and other movements threatening individual choice. The organization’s main website at contains an extensive library of scientific studies, research papers, news stories and other information on tobacco-related issues.
