The anti-smoking movement is exposed for what it really is in Michael J. McFadden's new book, TobakkoNacht - The Antismoking Endgame. McFadden, who graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Manhattan College with degrees in both Peace Studies and Psychology, studied both statistics and propaganda analysis under a doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton program in Peace Research. In TobakkoNacht - The Antismoking Endgame, he examines and discusses both the misuse of science, and the language which is used, to promote smoking bans and tobacco taxes in the United States and elsewhere.
According to McFadden, "Smokers and smoking are under a level of attack unprecedented in modern society. All the tools of sophisticated propaganda and social engineering have been focused on eradicating what is seen as an unhealthy, undesirable, and politically incorrect behavior."
As Jason Little points out in his review of TobakkoNacht in Spinfuel Magazine, this is an important book, "not because it reveals the truth about the antismoking zealots, though that is a big part of it, but because it reveals an even bigger truth, a truth that will surely lead to a world you and me, in short order, no longer recognize. A world where personal choice, personal responsibility, and personal freedoms no longer exist."
There was a time when smoking was socially acceptable and a "cultural norm" in American Society. In a relatively short amount of time, smoking and smokers have been stigmatized. When lighting up a cigarette in any of the very few public places where smoking is still allowed, smokers are made to feel like social deviants out to harm those in the vicinity. This very same social stigma is now being projected onto electronic cigarettes and vaping.
Although most of what McFadden writes is focused on tobacco, in a chapter titled "Of Vapors and Vapers" he discusses how the same techniques used to create an anti-smoking society are now being used an an attempt to kill off the electronic cigarette and vapor industries. Almost everyone has heard that e-cigarettes contain anti-freeze, right? It's been in the air for several years now.
McFadden refers to an FDA study conducted in 2009 as the most damning electronic cigarette study carried out. He explains that the FDA examined two of the most popular e-cigarettes at the time, NJoy and Smoking Everywhere, and 18 e-liquids. They found that one of the 18 varieties of e-liquid contained very small amounts of diethylene glycol, a chemical that is not toxic in the quantities measured, but is used, just as water or salt is, in antifreeze. McFadden explains that even if ingested at toxic levels, it would be excreted faster than absorbed, so it is not really possible to build up toxic levels in the body even if it was present in toxic quanities in the e-liquid, which it wasn't.
McFadden goes on to question why, if researchers found this substance in one sample, didn't they obtain further samples in order to find out if the presence of this chemical is normally found in e-liquids or if this was a fluke. Instead of carrying out further research, they published the results of their study which were twisted into reports that e-cigarettes are made with the same chemical found in antifreeze. The public bought into it, hook, line and sinker. Vapors should pick up a copy of the book for this chapter alone.
The overall theme of this book has much more to do with social control through propaganda and the misuse of science and statistics, than it does with smoking and vaping alone. The book's title is a play on an event in Nazi Germany, in 1938, known as Kristalinach, which is often referred to as "The Night of Broken Glass." A series of coordinated attacks on Jewish people living in Germany and Austria were carried out by SA paramilitary forces on November 9th and 10th, 1938, while non-Jewish citizens and German authorities looked on without intervening.
While smokers are not being rounded up and killed as Jewish people in Nazi Germany were, the same type of hatred that drove the Nazi's to attempt to eradicate the world of Jewish people is the driving force behind the anti-smoking movement and their desire to rid the world of smokers. Their weapons of choice are bans and "sin" taxes.
In his book, McFadden shows the reader how statistics have been used as a social engineering technique by those whose goal it is to create a smoke free world. In his review of the book, Alan Caruba states that, "The anti-smoking campaign is about controlling people and, as far as Big Pharma is concerned, making a ton of money selling nicotine patches and gum. The 'scientists' in universities will make their money generating false studies."
In "Facing Up to the Fear Pedlars," John Brignell writes, "The subtitle "The anti-smoking endgame" tells you much more about it: for this is the boastful claim being made by the proponents for the stage they have reached in their campaign. They have lied, lied and lied again to achieve their ends and have had the audacity to call their lies “science”. Along with their friends in the global warming campaign they have effectively brought the age of science to an end. They have achieved virtual control over the media and extra-governmental authorities (such as CDC and EPA) who have made blatantly fraudulent statistics deemed acceptable to the political class." He goes on adding , "This is where the book carries a powerful message. There are full accounts of various pieces of “research” and propaganda with detailed analysis of the logical errors, most of them deliberate. The lengthy examples quoted of venomous hatred spewed out by semi-literate activists against enjoyers of tobacco are truly shocking. " Yes, hatred and divisiveness being perpetuated in the name of science.
After reading several reviews of McFadden's book I decided to go straight to the source and read his original material as well. Images of Nazi's and thoughts about smoking bans, propaganda, hatred and divisiveness filled my head. It's all about power, corruption, greed and a desire to control others. I asked myself if this is really a free country anymore.
VB - My blog is obviously about vaping - the smoking alternative. I have been using e-cigarettes in their many forms since 2008 when they first appeared. I love them. I had no intention of quitting smoking, but e-cigs made me quit without even trying. Everything was good until about a year or so ago when the e-cig industry bloomed into a big money making business. As soon as that happened the anti-smoking movement moved in. The FDA is about to take over and regulate the industry. We are all waiting to see what happens but suspect no good. I was wondering what you think? Can you make some comments about how easily people have been conditioned against e-cigarettes and "vaping" by the anti-smoking movement and how irrational it is?
MM - You're correct about the government moving in on e-cigs once they started to make a difference in the smoking population out there. The last thing they want is to lose the gold mine of cigarette taxes. No matter how much they have to lie, cheat, and steal to do it, they'll find some way to tax e-cigs to some rate very close to regular cigarettes, probably through strict regulation of e-liquids and taxation of them by nicotine concentrations (which they'll probably maximize at the 6mg level "for safety" and "to reduce addiction.")
They'll be supported in that by the lunatic fringe of the antismoking movement: Stanton Glantz and the others like him who can't stand the idea of anyone LOOKING like they're smoking and enjoying it. Unfortunately the movement has largely been ruled by that lunatic fringe for a good number of years at this point, and you even have the Director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Friedan, coming out with statements like, "many kids are starting out with e-cigarettes and then going on to smoke conventional cigarettes," and the Tobacco Free folks in Ohio saying, "The truth is, we don’t have the research to tell us these e-cigarettes are helping people stop smoking or that they aren’t as dangerous as regular cigarettes. We just don’t know."
Pretty amazing, eh? These are the medical and informational experts that the general population is looking to for guidance. But those perceptions are important if widespread switch-over happens because it's on such perceptions that they'll base the justification for criminal taxation levels.
I wrote the opening dystopian science-fiction story that forms the title-piece of TobakkoNacht back in the 1990s -- long before e-cigs were even a puff of vapor -- but in one element of the plot I spoke about the criminalization of nicotine cigarettes and about the black market supplying folks with highly concentrated nicotine oil to beef up the "USA No-Nic" brand the government was peddling. It looks like we may be finally coming to that: black market e-liquids will be far more concentrated than anything on the market today and finally, for the first time in history, we may see real cases of widespread deaths due to nicotine poisoning in homes ... just another one of the "unintended consequences" that flood antismoking fanaticism.
As Jason Little points out in his review of TobakkoNacht in Spinfuel Magazine, this is an important book, "not because it reveals the truth about the antismoking zealots, though that is a big part of it, but because it reveals an even bigger truth, a truth that will surely lead to a world you and me, in short order, no longer recognize. A world where personal choice, personal responsibility, and personal freedoms no longer exist."
"Social stigma is the extreme disapproval of (or discontent with) a person or group on socially characteristic grounds that are perceived, and serve to distinguish them, from other members of a society. Stigma may then be affixed to such a person, by the greater society, who differs from their cultural norms. " - Wikipedia
There was a time when smoking was socially acceptable and a "cultural norm" in American Society. In a relatively short amount of time, smoking and smokers have been stigmatized. When lighting up a cigarette in any of the very few public places where smoking is still allowed, smokers are made to feel like social deviants out to harm those in the vicinity. This very same social stigma is now being projected onto electronic cigarettes and vaping.
Of Vapors and Vapers
Although most of what McFadden writes is focused on tobacco, in a chapter titled "Of Vapors and Vapers" he discusses how the same techniques used to create an anti-smoking society are now being used an an attempt to kill off the electronic cigarette and vapor industries. Almost everyone has heard that e-cigarettes contain anti-freeze, right? It's been in the air for several years now.
McFadden refers to an FDA study conducted in 2009 as the most damning electronic cigarette study carried out. He explains that the FDA examined two of the most popular e-cigarettes at the time, NJoy and Smoking Everywhere, and 18 e-liquids. They found that one of the 18 varieties of e-liquid contained very small amounts of diethylene glycol, a chemical that is not toxic in the quantities measured, but is used, just as water or salt is, in antifreeze. McFadden explains that even if ingested at toxic levels, it would be excreted faster than absorbed, so it is not really possible to build up toxic levels in the body even if it was present in toxic quanities in the e-liquid, which it wasn't.
McFadden goes on to question why, if researchers found this substance in one sample, didn't they obtain further samples in order to find out if the presence of this chemical is normally found in e-liquids or if this was a fluke. Instead of carrying out further research, they published the results of their study which were twisted into reports that e-cigarettes are made with the same chemical found in antifreeze. The public bought into it, hook, line and sinker. Vapors should pick up a copy of the book for this chapter alone.
Social Control
The overall theme of this book has much more to do with social control through propaganda and the misuse of science and statistics, than it does with smoking and vaping alone. The book's title is a play on an event in Nazi Germany, in 1938, known as Kristalinach, which is often referred to as "The Night of Broken Glass." A series of coordinated attacks on Jewish people living in Germany and Austria were carried out by SA paramilitary forces on November 9th and 10th, 1938, while non-Jewish citizens and German authorities looked on without intervening.
While smokers are not being rounded up and killed as Jewish people in Nazi Germany were, the same type of hatred that drove the Nazi's to attempt to eradicate the world of Jewish people is the driving force behind the anti-smoking movement and their desire to rid the world of smokers. Their weapons of choice are bans and "sin" taxes.
Fear Pedlars
In his book, McFadden shows the reader how statistics have been used as a social engineering technique by those whose goal it is to create a smoke free world. In his review of the book, Alan Caruba states that, "The anti-smoking campaign is about controlling people and, as far as Big Pharma is concerned, making a ton of money selling nicotine patches and gum. The 'scientists' in universities will make their money generating false studies."
In "Facing Up to the Fear Pedlars," John Brignell writes, "The subtitle "The anti-smoking endgame" tells you much more about it: for this is the boastful claim being made by the proponents for the stage they have reached in their campaign. They have lied, lied and lied again to achieve their ends and have had the audacity to call their lies “science”. Along with their friends in the global warming campaign they have effectively brought the age of science to an end. They have achieved virtual control over the media and extra-governmental authorities (such as CDC and EPA) who have made blatantly fraudulent statistics deemed acceptable to the political class." He goes on adding , "This is where the book carries a powerful message. There are full accounts of various pieces of “research” and propaganda with detailed analysis of the logical errors, most of them deliberate. The lengthy examples quoted of venomous hatred spewed out by semi-literate activists against enjoyers of tobacco are truly shocking. " Yes, hatred and divisiveness being perpetuated in the name of science.
After reading several reviews of McFadden's book I decided to go straight to the source and read his original material as well. Images of Nazi's and thoughts about smoking bans, propaganda, hatred and divisiveness filled my head. It's all about power, corruption, greed and a desire to control others. I asked myself if this is really a free country anymore.
A Brief Interview With Michael McFadden
VB - My blog is obviously about vaping - the smoking alternative. I have been using e-cigarettes in their many forms since 2008 when they first appeared. I love them. I had no intention of quitting smoking, but e-cigs made me quit without even trying. Everything was good until about a year or so ago when the e-cig industry bloomed into a big money making business. As soon as that happened the anti-smoking movement moved in. The FDA is about to take over and regulate the industry. We are all waiting to see what happens but suspect no good. I was wondering what you think? Can you make some comments about how easily people have been conditioned against e-cigarettes and "vaping" by the anti-smoking movement and how irrational it is?
MM - You're correct about the government moving in on e-cigs once they started to make a difference in the smoking population out there. The last thing they want is to lose the gold mine of cigarette taxes. No matter how much they have to lie, cheat, and steal to do it, they'll find some way to tax e-cigs to some rate very close to regular cigarettes, probably through strict regulation of e-liquids and taxation of them by nicotine concentrations (which they'll probably maximize at the 6mg level "for safety" and "to reduce addiction.")
They'll be supported in that by the lunatic fringe of the antismoking movement: Stanton Glantz and the others like him who can't stand the idea of anyone LOOKING like they're smoking and enjoying it. Unfortunately the movement has largely been ruled by that lunatic fringe for a good number of years at this point, and you even have the Director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Friedan, coming out with statements like, "many kids are starting out with e-cigarettes and then going on to smoke conventional cigarettes," and the Tobacco Free folks in Ohio saying, "The truth is, we don’t have the research to tell us these e-cigarettes are helping people stop smoking or that they aren’t as dangerous as regular cigarettes. We just don’t know."
Pretty amazing, eh? These are the medical and informational experts that the general population is looking to for guidance. But those perceptions are important if widespread switch-over happens because it's on such perceptions that they'll base the justification for criminal taxation levels.
I wrote the opening dystopian science-fiction story that forms the title-piece of TobakkoNacht back in the 1990s -- long before e-cigs were even a puff of vapor -- but in one element of the plot I spoke about the criminalization of nicotine cigarettes and about the black market supplying folks with highly concentrated nicotine oil to beef up the "USA No-Nic" brand the government was peddling. It looks like we may be finally coming to that: black market e-liquids will be far more concentrated than anything on the market today and finally, for the first time in history, we may see real cases of widespread deaths due to nicotine poisoning in homes ... just another one of the "unintended consequences" that flood antismoking fanaticism.
It's totally irrational and based upon exactly the same sort of lies that those of us in the Free Choice movement have been battling for the last twenty years or more. I devoted an entire dissecting slab in TobakkoNacht to looking at distortions being built against the Vapers, but all the chapters on regular smoking are just as relevant to the e-cig community: the same scientific, linguistic, and emotional tricks will be used against you as have been used against smokers. You've even got nuts out there claiming that e-cigs smell like "burning toe cheese." (No, I have no idea what burning toe cheese smells like.) Vapers need to learn from the experience of activist smokers and both communities need to work together and share their various strengths.
VB - You correlate the anti-smoking movement with Nazi Germany. You ask how good German people allowed the evil that the Nazi's perpetuated to happen. All well and good, but do you think this is a good analogy in a day and age when most people on the planet were not even born yet and do not really understand or relate to that period of time? I realize that most people have an awareness of Nazism, but how many really know what it all means? Can you make a comment about how people who were members of the hippie generation, which was all about freedom and doing your own thing, were brain washed or conditioned into becoming some of the most judgemental human beings living on the planet, wanting to impose their personal beliefs and values onto others? How did that happen? Movies, tv, the education system? What?
MM - You ask an excellent question about Nazi Germany and the title-theme of the book. I explain my difficult decision to go with that theme in detail in my "Author's Preface," and I'd strongly recommend that folks take a minute or two to go to there and read it now. How the hippie generation forgot what it knew and slid right into the jackboots they'd been fighting so hard against is a mystery. And how the students of the last twenty years have so placidly given up all the gains in freedom that were fought for so hard by the students of the 1960s and '70s is another mystery. It's very sad: freedom being traded for security ... and they'll end up with neither one.
The part of your question that truly struck me though was the concept that not only does Kristallnacht seem to have been forgotten by most people under 30, but that the entire awareness of the horror of Nazism and the extremes of their authoritarianism have been forgotten. Today's teenagers look at police quietly lined up in riot gear once in a while and think they're seeing Nazis. They then get a bit older and think "Well, it wasn't really THAT bad. Maybe it's worth having some Nazis around to protect us from the evil smokers and vapers. That can't be worse than being poisoned by smoke and vapor!"
Hopefully they'll never find out just how wrong they are.
Author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains and TobakkoNacht -- The Antismoking Endgame. Single copies available through Amazon. Bulk orders at a discount available from the author.
Read and print out FREE copies: The Stiletto!
Next time you're confronting an Antismoker, don't argue with them: hand them a Stiletto and simply ask them to find anything at all in it that they can point to as incorrect or misleading. They won't be able to.
VB - You correlate the anti-smoking movement with Nazi Germany. You ask how good German people allowed the evil that the Nazi's perpetuated to happen. All well and good, but do you think this is a good analogy in a day and age when most people on the planet were not even born yet and do not really understand or relate to that period of time? I realize that most people have an awareness of Nazism, but how many really know what it all means? Can you make a comment about how people who were members of the hippie generation, which was all about freedom and doing your own thing, were brain washed or conditioned into becoming some of the most judgemental human beings living on the planet, wanting to impose their personal beliefs and values onto others? How did that happen? Movies, tv, the education system? What?
MM - You ask an excellent question about Nazi Germany and the title-theme of the book. I explain my difficult decision to go with that theme in detail in my "Author's Preface," and I'd strongly recommend that folks take a minute or two to go to there and read it now. How the hippie generation forgot what it knew and slid right into the jackboots they'd been fighting so hard against is a mystery. And how the students of the last twenty years have so placidly given up all the gains in freedom that were fought for so hard by the students of the 1960s and '70s is another mystery. It's very sad: freedom being traded for security ... and they'll end up with neither one.
The part of your question that truly struck me though was the concept that not only does Kristallnacht seem to have been forgotten by most people under 30, but that the entire awareness of the horror of Nazism and the extremes of their authoritarianism have been forgotten. Today's teenagers look at police quietly lined up in riot gear once in a while and think they're seeing Nazis. They then get a bit older and think "Well, it wasn't really THAT bad. Maybe it's worth having some Nazis around to protect us from the evil smokers and vapers. That can't be worse than being poisoned by smoke and vapor!"
Hopefully they'll never find out just how wrong they are.
Michael McFadden
Author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains and TobakkoNacht -- The Antismoking Endgame. Single copies available through Amazon. Bulk orders at a discount available from the author.
Read and print out FREE copies: The Stiletto!
Next time you're confronting an Antismoker, don't argue with them: hand them a Stiletto and simply ask them to find anything at all in it that they can point to as incorrect or misleading. They won't be able to.
Sorry, but as somebody of the Jewish faith and somebody who knows Holocaust Survivors...making an analogy like this is just plain wrong! Yes, I vape. Yes, I want the right to vape! But, is our struggle the same as those who suffered during the holocaust? Nope!
ReplyDeleteLabooteek, did you read the Author's Preface?
ReplyDelete:?
Michael
One extra note for anyone whose monitors may be adjusted a bit on the soft side for color: there are a number of links from the words and quotes in the above article that are are in a dark blue shade that you may not have noticed. Look near the end at "The Stiletto" for example and put your cursor over it: you will see it links directly to the booklet. Similarly, TobakkoNacht.com is a link.
ReplyDelete:)
Michael, whose monitor is not always the best at showing this sort of thing... :>
I really think that vaporizers are the real substitute for leaving tobacco habit.
ReplyDeleteE Juice