Reproduced from his website with his permission, a guest post by regular Californian commenter Smokervoter on Proposition 29, which goes to the ballot in California on 5 June (next Tuesday). From ballotpedia:
If Proposition 29 is approved by California’s voters, the tax on cigarettes in the state will increase by $1.00 per pack. California’s current cigarette tax is 87 cents per pack. The total tax per pack of cigarettes, if Proposition 29 passes, will be $1.87/pack. The additional tax revenue will be used to fund cancer research, smoking reduction programs, and tobacco law enforcement.
Proposition 29 would generate about $735 million a year in new tax revenues, according to a 2012 report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.[2]
This is how the predatory Tobacco Control Industry lives – by state-sponsored theft from a targeted, demonised minority.
…
Vote No on California Proposition 29.
If you came here by way of the Cut to the Chase button and skipped the introduction you might have missed the we LOVE rational non-smokers part right at the git-go. We cater to not just smokers here at smokervoter.com. Indeed all people who fancy their own free will hopefully might find something to read here. Non-smokers who wouldn’t touch a cigarette with a ten foot pole have frequently shown their more tolerant side by joining in to vote down unfair tax proposals. They’re to be commended for their courage and wisdom.
We specifically need the help of Californian non-smokers to defeat an insidious attempt by a particularly malicious college prof and his parasitic, minority-thrashing cohorts to rob four million of your fellow Californianos in broad daylight. The modus operandi is grand theft by ballot initiative. Prop 29 is advertised as a cancer research funding gesture to be paid for by levying a one dollar per pack tax on cigarettes. You should know that by cancer research they really mean endless Tobacco Prohibition research studies. If you’ve got a functional moral compass please read on. If you’re weary of those mood-killing antismoking public service announcements produced by the tax-supported TobaccoFreeCA ruining your television viewing time, do read on.
You need not smoke, nor turn in your progressive badge to vote against this wrongheaded ballot measure. It is an abuse of the citizens referendum process at best and mob rule at its worst. Tobacco taxes are inherently regressive, with the burden falling heavily on those least able to afford to pay. Please don’t go for the misnomer that the poorest smokers will all magically quit, it just doesn’t work that way. Besides that, the initiative’s authors are counting on people to continue to buy tobacco products. After all the State of California now becomes the lead smoking profiteer if this passes.
We’ve got to ask ourselves as a society whether we want to design our tax system to operate on a majority gang basis, with singled out disfavored minority cliques paying for everything. It may seem to be a veritable free lunch nirvana, but it’s ultimately no way to run a railroad. It’s the old game of “Tax not you, tax not me, tax that man behind the tree.”
It’s a game fraught with all sorts of mischievous possibilities. Pick your pet program, figure out which minority slice of the demographic pie is the most vulnerable, make some kind of altruistic argument, place it on the ballot and send them the bill. This is precisely what happened to smokers in California back in 1998 when Rob Reiner decided they alone should fund pre-school education despite there being no existent 
correlation whatsoever. His Prop 10 barely succeeded by less than one-percent. It was so close that the final result wasn’t known for a week after the vote.
Seeing as smokers represented about a quarter of the population at the time, it’s clear that quite a few honest non-smokers saw through the unfairness of the scheme. They were to be commended then as now, if we manage to defeat Prop 29.
Let’s suppose group A with an agenda decides to target Latino voters who comprise 30% of the electorate. Using the health and safety argument that tortillas contain loads of fat and cause diabetes, a 5-cent per unit tax might then be proposed. The funds could be dedicated to obesity research, which is a convenient current hot button issue. With 70-30 odds going into the fray, it’s certainly worth the signature gathering effort. A nickel each has that nice affordable, no-big-deal shine to it, but it constitutes $1.50 extra on a typical pack of 30. That doubles the price of this popular staple. We’re talking some big money here.
Cancer research benefits a wide spectrum of the population and a more equitable way of funding it would be to spread the contribution base as universally as possible, rather than isolating a demonized few to pick up the entire tab.
Do the right thing on June 5th, vote down Proposition 29.
Frank Davis 
One aspect of this that I haven’t seen anyone note yet is that “Smoking Reduction programs” and “Tobacco Prevention programs” can include campaigning for increasing cigarette taxes in the future.
So we have a tax voted onto a minority group by a majority, which has the specific intended use built into it of campaigning to promote MORE taxes on that minority?
Has such a thing EVER been done, anywhere in the entire world, outside of smoker taxes?
:?
MJM
[retrieved from spam folder]
Ya Mike its called PUNITIVE TAXATION and its quite illegal. Taxes are to be fair and equitable or they are unconstitutional……..But hey,when they own the courts,judges,politicians,media,the medical associations ,all the non-profits ya can do what ya want!
In Brazil the cigarette tax is 72%.
A pack of cigarette cost +/- R$ 4,00=USD 2,00.
Fee paid to the government =R$ 2,88 = USD 1,44.
So we have a tax increase of 120% voted upon a relatively lower income minority group by a relatively higher income majority group. The tax increase will be used for some good things, however part of that tax increase will have a special purpose (as part of smoking reduction and tobacco prevention): that purpose will be to campaign for even HIGHER tax increases on that minority group in the future!
Smokers will be forced to pay taxes to promote taxing themselves more! And the beauty of this is that it can be done over and over again until they’ve all starved to death!
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I don’t think that there has ever in the history of a the world been a tax levied that specifically and openly admitted it was to be used for the purpose of raising taxes EXCEPT in this special case of Smokers Tax.
– MJM
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The intended consequence is massive bootlegging like calif doesnt have enuf already. Youd almost think Glantz and the rest of them are making money off bootlegging or something.
Bootlegging and shares in the tobacco industry…
Thank you kindly Frank, I really appreciate this.
The additional tax revenue will be used to fund cancer research, smoking reduction programs, and tobacco law enforcement. Read: Creates a billion dollar per year war chest for Stanton Glantz and his klan to tap into so he can carry on his crusade to terminate smokers. He still gets 25 cents/pack from his first shakedown (Prop 99) Read: Chantix suicides and re-wired brains. Read: Smokerphobic snitches informing to the police on people smoking at the beach or at backstreet bars. Or purchasing large amounts in Nevada and Oregon.
He is salivating and dreaming about that new Prius.
Incidentally, one of the most controversial aspects of this measure as written is that the money can go out of state, and country. I have no doubt this will leak out to CRUK and Canada as well, he’s an international viper.
If 29 passes it will be the third time around soaking us at the ballot. Prop 99 in 1988 (Glantz orchestrated) was the first time I became aware of an antismoking movement. I was furious and it was really the seed corn for smokervoter.com. Along came the internet, Microsoft FrontPage Express and a free Yahoo Geocities webpage and it was off to the races for me.
Prop 10 in 1998 was faded actor/director Rob Reiner hitting us up for 50 cents/pack to pay for his early childhood education pet project. I was livid and my very first website post was a rant about it in early 1999 (and the motorcycle helmet law, too). I utterly despise busybodies, nannies and control freaks.
I’ve been at this forever and a day it seems like.
And here‘s the ringtone you were asking about.
I could swear I’ve heard that ringtone somewhere before. It’s quite good, very Pink Floydish.
I’d like to hear it mixed with “Theme to A Summer Place”
Here’s a smoking version of “Theme to A Summer Place” It’s kind of Jeff Beckish.
The 29 proposition is a tobacco control slush fund to finance their operations around the world or wherever they choose,thats what phillip morris has been saying forever about it.
Yes – that Prop 29 money is to a new unelected, unaccountable bureacracy in Sacramento that creates jobs for anti-smokers – then it can be shuffled anywhere around the world – meaning that raising taxes on California smokers can be then remitted to ASH, CRUK or anyone else over in UK and used to finance anti-smoking campaigns in other cities, states and parts of the world. It will be an absolute disgrace if Californians vote in majority to pass this proposition, a total disgrace.
SV, I know what you mean, but it seems more like “Forever and a CENTURY”!
:/
MJM
And in SF city/county, the sales tax rate is an additional 10.5% on top of tobacco tax – that is, if you can even find a licensed tobacco retailer in the city anymore, since retail licenses are on the chopping block in SF and being grandfathered out of existence and banned entirely for retail pharmacies, maybe grocery stores next. I mailed in my mail-in ballot tonight, voting No on Prop 29. When they add up the SF city/county votes, I always like seeing at least .0001% opposition votes on the record in a city where “diversity” means 99.9999% everyone in compliance with “the one party” hegemony. I imagine Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein, both on the ballot this time will likewise show such “diversity” of opinion that they’ll each pick up a 99.9999% approval rating. Oh, I noticed a No on Prop 29 rented storefront in downtown SF on Market near Montgomery, right in the heart of the financial district and a main boulevard and ta-da! – they had a ventilated indoor cigar smoking lounge set up in the front display window – for all passer-by’s on the street to see. For SF, that is shockingly scandalous, it goes against Stanton Glantz, UCSF and all that they stand for. It was great seeing it though.
Any Californians (or anyone else for that matter) reading this might want to go to a posting I put up at Livejournal’s Pro-Smokers Community. I crunch the numbers and realistically handicap the election.
What it will take to defeat Stanton Glantz
FWIW, I just emailed a couple of Californians urging them to vote on this even tho neither smokes, one being an ex, one a never. BTW, while “fighting cancer” seems oh so noble, WTF is a bankrupt state doing mixing into this at all? It’s not like there’s no other research going on or nothing else for CA to worry about and five’ll get you ten that none of it goes to that anyway. Last I heard, tho, while the polls showed a decline in the tax ’em votes, they were still in the majority.
Californias where the new prohibition began……….thru their courts and legislature. Even CalEPA. California is the Federal government or at least they think they are. Its time to give california back to Mexico. Wouldnt that piss Glantz off!
My idea is to give the southern half back to Mexico, Glantz and company can keep the northern half. Their electoral college clout would sink like a stone.
Mexicans are libertarians at heart and produce some very tasty and affordable cigarettes as well. My personal faves are Montana Lights. Great beer too, and women with eyes so intrinsically alluring they require no makeup.
When California bars went smokefree everybody, and I do mean everybody, would flock to the cantinas in Tijuana (right across from San Diego) to enjoy themselves unfettered by the Nicotine Nazis. It was an amazing sight to behold. A swarming mass of partying people that looked like a huge Mardi Gras scene, except every weekend. It drew more people than Disneyland.
The cherry on top of the sundae was buying ten cartons at the super mercado on the way out of town and saving $135, thus paying for your night out on the town and then some. US Customs weren’t tasked with collecting California taxes, only the duty which was about $26 vs $87.
You’d cross back into California and it was like going back to kindergarten.
Smokervoter,
Not sure if you are aware of the following highlighting the influence of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in manipulating public policy.
http://forces.org/News_Portal/news_viewer.php?id=2303#_edn22
Click to access Robert%20Woods%20Johnson%20Foundation%20%20-%20RICO%20Act%20Violation%202.pdf
http://boycottjohnsonandjohnson.blogspot.com.au/2005/09/here-are-some-rwjf-nicoderm-grants-to.html
Concerning the corruption of the University of Califraudia
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf?utm_source=March+26+Press+Release+-+A+Crisis+of+Competence+2&utm_campaign=CAS+report+press+release&utm_medium=email
Although, as far as I’m aware, the report does not mention anti-tobacco specifically, anti-tobacco, e.g., UCSF, fits the corruption framework beautifully, beginning with how a mechanical engineer – Stantonitis Glands – was given a professorship in cardiology to lend “medical” weight to his anti-tobacco ranting and raving. Also his involvement in economic studies where Glands was the lead investigator, yet he has no advanced economic qualifications. Or his Helena “heart attack miracles” study. Glands’ studies invariably produce anti-tobacco conclusions that lend support to the “next logical step” in draconian anti-tobacco policy.
And it’s not the first time that Califraudia has been at the forefront of derangement. In the eugenics insanity of earlier last century, Califraudia lead the way. The academic administration was given over to the dangerous delusion. California eugenicists also had strong ties with German eugenicists. Post-WWII, Califraudia has been the leader in an obsession with what is the behavioral dimension of eugenics, now referred to as healthism.
Some insight into the connection between American eugenics – California in particular – and Nazi eugenics.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL
California has only recently formally and publicly apologized for its sterilization past.
Click to access davis_release.pdf
Click to access lockyer_letter.pdf
Click to access senate_resolution_20.pdf
However, the California elites still have a strong eugenics proclivity. The emphasis has been shifted from physical sterilization to social sterilization along the behavioral dimension of eugenics, e.g., antismoking.
Very interesting that Eugenics and the Nazis — the California connection thing.
Excellent choice of links Magnetic. I’ve been looking for these for weeks on end, I seem to be internet search challenged.
I used the term ‘particularly malicious college prof’ but these links will fill in the gaps and better explain the true meaning of ‘cancer research’ I am hinting at. Thank you.
I doubt that Stanton Glantz is a household name outside of San Francisco. True progressives need to look into this guy’s underlying fanatical animus towards humans that like to smoke.
My hope is that California progressives stumbling upon this blog will avail themselves of these revealing links.
This is even more “Glantz specific”
http://www.plosmedicine.org/annotation/listThread.action?inReplyTo=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fannotation%2F3a22438c-206d-4e3a-8019-f362a1b23203&root=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fannotation%2F3a22438c-206d-4e3a-8019-f362a1b23203
“I doubt that Stanton Glantz is a household name outside of San Francisco.”
The buffoon does travel. In early 2000s The Mechanic made an appearance in London to spread the “smoking bans are good for the hospitality industry” message.
http://85.18.251.150/10e/roadshow.htm
Some background on RWJF:
Johnson died in 1968. He left the bulk of his $400,000,000 estate to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.[12] His children already had been provided for in a series of trusts. Johnson was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in New Brunswick.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wood_Johnson_II
Robert Wood Johnson II built the family firm of Johnson & Johnson into the world’s largest health products maker. He died in 1968. He established the foundation at his death with 10,204,377 shares of the company’s stock.[4][5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wood_Johnson_Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the United States’ largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care; it is based in Princeton, New Jersey.[1] The foundation’s mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. The foundation has $7.5 billion in assets, generating grants approaching $400 million a year[2] to “address the nation’s most complex health and health care issues. The Foundation aims to use these private resources in the service of the public, and in a way that prompts new public policy, inspires action from the private sector, and changes systems for delivering the best health care to the most people.”[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wood_Johnson_Foundation
In the antismoking fanaticism that RWJF has significantly helped to create that promotes discrimination against smokers in a variety of forms, we know that these statements are not true:
“The foundation’s mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans.”
“The Foundation aims to use these private resources in the service of the public, and in a way that prompts new public policy……..for delivering the best health care to the most people.”
When he died in January 1968, his bequest to the foundation totaled some $300 million in Johnson & Johnson stock. (By the time Johnson’s will was probated in 1971, those shares were worth $1.2 billion.) Johnson did not make any formal stipulations about the Foundation’s mission in his will, but he had made his wishes known to the men who would become its trustees. Johnson chose these men to serve on the Foundation’s board based on their business acumen and their sense of ethics. All of them were Johnson & Johnson executives–a move that had caused conflict in similar foundations. The General, however, was obviously as good a judge of character as he was a businessman.
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Robert-Wood-Johnson-Foundation-Company-History.html
Forces Info:
http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/pharma.htm
Marcus Aurelius blogspot
http://boycottjohnsonandjohnson.blogspot.com.au/
Since 1992, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been one of the anti-smoking movement’s largest sources of funding. Richard Daynard and his Tobacco Control Resource Center, intended to incite litigation against the tobacco industry, received over a half million dollars between 1994 and 1997. They massively fund Joseph Califano’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. The Public Broadcasting Service, WGBH-Boston, and the schools of journalism at Columbia and Northwestern University are also recipients of RWJF money. See the detailed listing compiled by Wanda Hamilton at FORCES website:
FORCES Pharmaceutical Multinationals: Buying Governments, Selling Antismoking
Download Adobe Acrobat (free)
FORCES Pharmaceutical Multinationals: Buying Governments, Selling Antismoking (PDF)
Frank I think we have a European wide smoker rebellion brewing all over Europe
Bulgarians Set to Protest against Full Smoking Ban
An initiative committee has been formed that is set to organize a protest against the country’s freshly imposed full smoking ban in closed public spaces.
The protest has been scheduled for June 10 and is expected to take place in front of Sofia’s National Palaca of Culture, the Blitz news agency reports.
The protest’s organizers want to amend the ban so that it would only affect public places in which children are located, such as schools and kindergartens.
The organizers have pointed out that the business would suffer losses exceeding BGN 30 M (approximately EUR 15 M) and that businesses would go bankrupt.
They also believe that the ban violates civil rights.
The full smoking ban in Bulgaria became effective on Friday, June 1, at midnight.
The changes in the Law on Public Health mandate that smoking is fully banned in all work places, restaurants, bars, public transportation, cinemas, movie theaters, all hotels, near administrative buildings, in the yards or nearby daycare centers and schools, on playgrounds, at outdoors children events, open air performance venues, and sports facilities, while airports can be furnished with completely closed smoking chambers.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=139868
I think we have a European wide smoker rebellion brewing all over Europe
I hope so!
Frank speaking of pack covers you will love this,skate boards with brand name designs on them!
5boro NYC “Surgeon General” Skateboard Decks
47 minutes ago ⋅ Lifestyle ⋅ by Gwyneth Goh ⋅ 136 Views
5Boro releases a series of tongue-in-cheek decks and cruisers this season. While smokers may find the 4 looks familiar, straight edge skaters will probably appreciate the irony. Part of the NYC label’s Spring collection, these Surgeon General decks Blue Nights, Flavor City, Get Lucky and Fire It Up! imitate the cigarette boxes of Parliament, Marlboro, Lucky Strike and Newport. Available in two sizes, 7.75″ X 31.5″ and 7.6″ X 29.5″, these are now available at 5boro and select retailers for $50 USD.
http://hypebeast.com/2012/06/5boro-nyc-surgeon-general-skateboard-decks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hypebeast%2Ffeed+%28Hypebeast%29
Wonderful picture of a shadowy, lone freedom fighter tearing away the red “prohibited” circle from a no smoking sign on Taking Liberties
.
Tobacco Control throws a tantrum
http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2012/6/1/tobacco-control-throws-a-tantrum.html
It just needs a slight amendment to the wording.
INTIMIDATION
Stop Tobacco Control Industry Interference
“…tobacco control must be exposed and resisted”
Much better.
Frank,
You seem to have made some antismoking fanatics “cry”.
http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2012/6/1/report-tobacco-control-intimidated-by-pro-smoking-campaigner.html
How interesting! I must be getting to the bastards far more than I imagined I was.
I didn’t see the word “cry” anywhere though.
OT
Frank, you had a webcam chat with Winston S. a while back.
Did you guys use SKYPE?
I installed a webcam yesterday, signed onto SKYPE today, and would like to try sharing a smoke with you over the internet, if you have time.
Gary K.
No, we used Facebook. I’ve just downloaded Skype, though.
Yeah, I’m sure we can have another transatlantic smoke.
If you would care to, we could email SKYPE names to each other and gossip some.
Gary K.
Ooooh, look! I’m in the Guardian. Along with F2C, and DP.
Linda Bauld called the police to complain about your ‘letter’ to her?!? I wonder what they said to her…. (assuming you never heard anything from the police yourself?)
No, I heard nothing. I wouldn’t have expected to. Police’ve got better things to do.
“Davis said, “xxxxxxx”. Bauld called the police.”
Two separate sentences strung together. Implication? The two ideas are connected. Legally? Two separate things.
I hypothetically asked the question at the BSC about precisely the question of what the police did as regards talking to you, Frank. I surmised that they had not. Of course not – the whole thing is a propaganda exercise.
Folks are going to want your autograph!!!!!
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Please catch “If You’re Not Buying Cigarettes, then… WHAT KIND OF CITIZEN ARE YOU?” song. Share it out there!
Smokers are indispensible citizens !
Strikes me that this is the sort of money politicians dream of. Certainly Ralph Nader has used his ill gotten gains to stand for public office http://www.votenader.org/about/ and I suspect Glantz will as well.
But it goes deeper than that; social division has worked in their favour for several years and I see no good reason why it cannot be applied elsewhere.
I suspect that within a year they’ll be able to openly finance their own politicians, or use their financial clout to “convince” waivers starting with laggard American States. The concept of a product tax to finance a pressure group will of course snowball; with NY probably drafting something like that right now.
In time they’ll be able to finance and control the political makeup of every country on earth.
It’s an ingenious plan and it depends entirely on the gullibility of the average Californian, yet the impact will be worldwide.
It’s a truly terrifying prospect because this is not about smoking, it’s not about health, this is about the end of the free market, capitalism, rights and liberties.
It’s now June 16th. Since June 6th (when we were told there were about 700,000 absentee votes outstanding) there have now been over ONE MILLION new votes added to the original totals, (new total: 4,892,000 votes) and they are STILL counting and discovering them. The newest batch of 100,000 were counted as showing ALMOST SEVENTY PERCENT of the new voters as being in favor of taxing smokers, reducing the NO lead down to 20,000. Is this the way the presidential race is going to be run in California too?
If this tax passes no smoker should EVER buy another legal cigarette in California.
– MJM
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