Journey – Day 20

They say that success is the not end result but the JOURNEY is the success. I’d like to meet this person and let him/her know they are full of it.  The journey is not only exhausting, but also overwhelming and frustrating to say the least.  The conflicts, the resolutions, the end of the journey never seems to come to fruititon.  Here is where we are at this point of the journey.

Having been involved in the “tobacco field” for over half of my life in one way or another, I find myself to be a self appointed expert ( in theory only ) as the only initials after my name is “b” for bimbo, but my mind is so full of the same crap that every expert experiences, that I include myself in this poll.  What is an expert?  “Having or showing special skill or knowledge because of what you have been taught or what you have experienced”.  “Experts have a prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field”.   Sometimes I think “we are so smart, we become somewhat stupid”, as common sense and logic leaves the self appointed expert.  Not to mention, funding and grants and lots of money and lifetime careers.    I am at odds with alot of the other “so-called experts”, and I’m at the crappy end of the stick at this point, since I don’t have all “that book learnin stuff”.  Not enough starch in my collar. It reminds me of the question, “what to you call the medical student who graduates at the bottom of the class?   DOCTOR”,  yuk yuk. There seems to be so many experts with differing opinions that its scary to say the least.  Some Doctors and Scientists say 2nd hand smoke kills, yet others say its just an “annoyance”.  Some Research and Clinical trial people talk about all the poisons, gases, irritants, vapors, toxins, carcinogens, and poluttants in tobacco and tobacco smoke , yet no one can tell whether there are 4600 chemicals, gases and poisons etc. or 10,000.   See, the FDA wanted to regulate tobacco in 2009 and with the legislation of the Tobacco Control Act, they also wanted federally generated tax revenues for life, thus, the FDA was BARRED  from ever banning tobacco outright. What a coup. This was all strategised as early as 1994 and 1995 and the documents prove this.  This is not just a conspiracy theory, but well documented in the tobacco files that was being compiled with Peter jennings of ABC NEWS.   Sadly, he died of lung cancer before he could get to the right “experts” for validation, verification, fact and proof checking and then mysteriously disappeared.   Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in how the the Anti-Smoking tobacco controllers and the feds, partnered with Big Tobacco and became the ultimate “Strange Bedfellows”?    After the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, people will say that “prohibition”, does not work, yet the FDA has done NOTHING to make tobacco safer, so why regulate it?  All they are regulating is the amount of money going into the cash register.  When questions are asked, the only answer you get from the Government, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the American Lung association and their ilk is that it all takes time.  I’ve given it over half my life and we are back where we started.   All the lies about the data and research coming from tobacco  control is going to be exposed and these folks will dance and lie around the truth, using the spin they have become “experts” in.  Remember, experts need to practice and the Anti-Smoking movement has had plenty of practice, plenty of money, and even lies about it  when they don’t have to.  Yes, they lie…..the proof is there…..and I’m just saying what alot of people are “thinking”.  With the knowledge I have, the experiences I have lived, the research and due dilligence necessary to sound intelligent, and remain passionate rather than exhausted, frustrated, angry and vehemently opposed to liars and bullies, especially when the difference really is life and death, I can’t let the Anti Smoking and Tobacco Controllers get away with “pretending” to care about  smokers and tobacco users when, what I believe can be the best alternative to smokers (electronic cigarette) far beyond anything they have been able to offer in the last 50 years.  Instead of embracing Tobacco Harm Reduction products that have been proven to benefit the Adults who are willing to make a choice “all on their own”, they (anti-smoking zealots and politicians funded by pharmacutical companies) continue their fear-mongering, false media hype, lies, mis-information, falsified bias slanted and tainted purchased clinical data that can’t stand the scrutiny of other experts.  They really do need to stop this now.  How can that be done?  How do you stop a run-away train?  Well, first, you tell the truth, back it up with facts, facts, and more facts.  The Tobacco Harm Reduction experts have the facts and science.  It needs to get out to the public in spite of the efforts of those who are contradicting legitimate clinical information that is being disseminated slowly.  Actually, much too slowly to suit me.  The media won’t do it either.  They are incapable of gathering legitimate facts or just too dam lazy, or don’t give a rats ass.  Probably all 3 rolled into one HUGE  3 Stooges Movie.  (Moe being played by the politicians, the BULLY…….Larry being played by Big Pharma, the KNOW IT ALL……. and Curley played by Tobacco Control, the BUFFOON, ZEALOTS, WACKOS, AND NUTJOBS.)      By the way, for the most part, it’s being directed by the  s0-called MEDIA, (with the exception of Greg Gutfeld of “The Five”, my new hero who has a “pair”),  who is making this horror film, being paid for by the smokers who are also paying for the hatred and discrimination being piled on them.

I have taken an advisory position with a leading electronic cigarette manufacturer called American Heritage International, Inc.  I am also their spokesperson, and glad to have finally made the choice to put my expertise to work, rather than always be a computer (keyboard) wizard and express myself with words and not actions.  It’s time to take ACTION.   In my humble opinion, I have read almost every “experts” opinion on the device that potentially has the greatest chance to save lives and I am only one of the passionate people who cares enough to work toward correcting the lies and disseminate proven evidence and who can hopefully help raise the level of awareness, proportionate to the havoc that is being wreaked on tobacco users once and for all by all the naysayers, and media creating this fearmongering for their own financial gains and/or stupidity.  The means in which to do this will take huge leaps of faith by not only the organization who has entrusted me to fulfill my obligation, but also a fearless, no nonsense calling out of those responsible for the nightmare being caused under the “guise of public health”.

My goal is to help make sense of this and hopefully get some of our alleged leaders who feel the need to control others (rather than assist), de-normalize (rather than assist), criminalize (rather than assist), socially engineer to their requirements (rather than assist) to change their approach which if it does not change, can only serve to create Civil Disobedience which is where this is heading.  Sometimes your the windshield and sometime you’re the bug…….

Journey – Day 19

After much soul searching and reflection I’ve decided to finally get to the point of this narrative.  I could drone on and on about what use to be or I can get serious and let you know what will be.   First of all, I never expected to change one persons mind on either side of the tobacco issue, either for or against.  I never expected my narrative to influence anyone to change their views or opinions for that matter.  I say this as no postings that I have read were able to influence me to switch sides on any issue whether it be political, environmental, religion, or abortion, or any other controversial matter that shows up in so many ways on the social and/or informational pages of the “social network”.  That being said, I can now move forward with my life and know that I have shared my experiences with those who might care so in the future there will b e no mistake that I covered my ass.

My experiences and views lead me to a new beginning in my “Golden Years”.  I am above the opinions that other people have of me and I really don’t care.  I recently went to my 45th High School Reunion and had a great time.  I saw probably 30% of those I graduated with so many years ago. Some aged better than others, some had miserable lives, some had fantastic opportunities, and others looked genuinely content and happy with the outcomes of their lives up to this point.  I was shocked when I read down the list of those who had passed away in the program that was printed and I knew that the circle of life is indeed real.  You are born, you live, you die.

Right now, the Anti-tobacco movement  and lawmakers are creating  more hate, denormalization, fearmongering and malicious lies that are preventing an opportunity to enhance the quality of smokers  lives and pushing so many people who chose to smoke as young teens, young adults, and mature adults into a state of confusion and dispair.  I saw this happen before and I can’t let it happen again with out a Fair Fight.

I strongly believe the new innovative product(not so new) that was brought here from China in 2005 or 2006 is probably the best thing that could happen to an individual who is looking for an alternative to their smoking addiction.  If they choose to cut down or quit altogether, it should be their perogative and not that of a bunch of bullies trying to advance their fiscal futures by using the electronic cigarette as their scapegoat and excuse for their miserable failures in tobacco control and at the same time using fearmongering and scare tactics, lies, misinformation and paid for research that will guarantee the legislators, lawmakers, medical cronies, and tobacco controllers a life time tenure in their positions.  Their failures cannot be repeated as this really has become a matter of life and death for millions of people who simply wish to make a decision for themselves and what best suits their lives.  THEIR DECISION BASED ON TRUE HONEST TO GOODNESS SCIENCE THAT HAS PROVEN THE VIABILITY OF THIS INNOVATIVE PRODUCT.   The decision should be based on that along with reasonable answers to questions, concerns and longevity of this option.

I will spend every day lobbying for this choice for millions of Americans and human beings all over the world.  I have done my homework for 5 years and I am convinced more than ever of its place in our society as a Tobacco Harm Reduction device and will appeal to my past colleagues and employers to open up their mind, seek the obvious truth, and not let the huge egoes confuse this issue any longer.   High taxation, regulation, bans, lies, junk science and any other methods you use to disparage the “life saver” this product has the potential to become will be fought with millions of other people who are smarter, younger, sharper, quicker and wealthier but never MORE passionate than I.

I have accepted a Board Advisory position and have become the spokesperson for American Heritage International that manufactures and distributes American Heritage Electronic Cigarettes.  I am thrilled to be able to do this with my tobacco history and am excited to see where this challenge will take me in helping to imporve the quality of peoples lives as well as help the e-cigarette industry stay planted firmly in the marketplace before more and more irresponsible legislation, de-normalizing and social engineering of 52 million Americans can be dumped on this society and all around the world….stay tuned as their is a “hurricaine a’comin”.  Tobacco control is going to be pissed.!!!!! Oh well…..Sometimes you just have to do, what you have to do.  The wheels of the bus go round and round and I don’t want smokers thrown under the bus anymore.

Journey – Day 18 Republished from yesterday (some glitch?)

Yes indeed the tobacco issue is a huge machine and should be treated with care as you would any monster or dangerous piece of equipment.  It has the ability to suck you up, rip you to smithereens,chew you up, spit you out and leave you left to die and wither away.   There are so many blogs, writings and opinions that create this “so-called” controversy  that continues to perpetuate all the myths and controversies and keeps giving this incredible legs  to keep it in the forefront in the media with little regard to what it is doing to the smokers and tobacco users who keep paying for this discrimination in societies now all over the world.  The power behind the massvie destructive machine sadly is driven from the top down.  Now, this really is nothing new and you can’t totally blame Obama.  I just blame him for the stupid and ridiculous Tobacco Contro Act of 2009 giving FDA regulatory powers over tobacco.  This war on tobacco has been strategized starting over 50 years ago. Yup, 50 years in the making folks.  He is just as confused as the rest of the schnooks in Government, Public Health sector, and Medical/Scientific Community.  I said, “schnooks”. Certainly the tobacco controversy that somebody started created  such hate from our lawmakers, public health, and medical/science communities and how they got to this point, should be exposed.  Just sayin……..The media won’t/can’t do it, so let me share my knowledge, insights and first hand experiences I have lived and witnessed.  Do with this information “what you will”. Some people tell me its cathartic.

The following questions I asked in my infancy in tobacco control ranged from:    Q. If tobacco kills so many people in the US every year consistently and we know it…..WHY NOT BAN IT?       A.  Because prohibition does not work……”okayyy”?.     Q.  How come we can ban asbestos ( it  stopped being manufactured in 1978, but used until 1986 in buildings and construction as the law said it could use up the supply in stock).   The EPA banned it totally in 1989.   A. ? (not sure, but we can look into it).     Q.  If Asbestos Carcinogens are only 2nd to Tobacco Carcinogens, I don’t understand why $$ is more important and you know this is the # 1 question kids ask me at the schools I talk to.      A. It all takes time.  “OH… OK ????  wtf..     Q. How much time?     A. When the money runs out ! ” oh, now I get it.”      Q. If 2nd hand smoke is so harmful, why are many scientists arguing with the findings, research, and data?       A. Because our scientists are better and the Tobacco Industry scientists and independent scientists are all “shills”and are “EVIL”.  Our science is better !  Now “shut up and go out report these findings to the tens of thousands of kids we are paying you to “EDUCATE”.Now “go away” your bothering me”.    Q.  “How come we don’t enforce the laws we currently have to stop illegally selling to minors”.  The teenagers are telling me that 14, 15, 16, and 17 year olds have NO PROBLEM getting stores to sell them cigs.”.      A.  Because alot of cops smoke and don’t take it seriously…..go out and get them to believe you……that’l be your job….that’s what we are paying you for.  Educate and entertain and while your at it, slip in the gory details.   Those details were/are ” 434,000 Americans slaughtered by tobacco.each and every year……65 billion Debt for lost productivity in the workplace, Parents who smoke around kids are abusive, Pregnant women are having babies born premature and stillborn, 3000-4000 kids start smoking everyday.   Teeth are yellow, Stink, Smell, Loser,  Loser, Infidel.  They should be ashamed of themselves.”  I told kids from all cultures, economic status, race, religion, public school, private school that tobacco addiction does not discriminate.  All of this education,  daily from the time they were in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade on up to H/S.  I began to questions tobacco control methods when I was expected to rip cigarettes out of the mouths of teens, pregnant women, waft my hand in fron of my nose, and make a gesture of animosity toward anyone using the vile weed. Shame them if you have to.     I found myself not wanting to go along to get along….I saw the tobacco controllers regressing…….it’s o.k. to tell someone they are fat….they stink and its being sanctioned by Public Health.  You start to beleive what you’re taught.   Tobacco Control started to use the Tobacco Indrustry’s playbook….If you think the enemy has a great idea….steal it and use it. Certainly, the tobacco industry sold alot of doubt over the years.  Tobacco Control started peddling doubt.    I was finding out that figures were flawed and not just by a little bit.  I told you earlier that I used humor to get my (their) message out and I was funny as hell, getting them to laugh and then slip in the Magical Gory Details and Information that they would need to retain.  The kids remembered me and we will find out very soon, how many remember me since 1989 when I started to go out  preaching the propaganda.  I was using propaganda that was being recommended by the FDA, CDC,ASH, CFTFK, ALF and all of this propaganda puts a smell on your shoe that won’t go away.  Tobacco Control was a huge business and I found out that studies they were using was extremely flawed and paid for with bias.   I was in way over my head now, and seemed my involvement was to be their puppet and voice.  I was told by Dr. Ron Davis, Office on Smoking and Health, “that by controlling the present….you can control the past”.  By bending science, tobacco control can purchase the science which will sell the political position they are aiming for.   I learned that Science  was/is …”the art of assembling an expert group to advance a favored outcome”.  I now firmly believe that for all science findings, there is an equal and opposite science finding.   I became very aware of the sound of “one-hand clapping”.   the silence is deafening.

I started to get thrown under the bus when I asked too many questions…..I was beginning to look like I was going “rogue” and could no longer be counted on to behave.   I had no fear of recrimmination….just unemployment……Tobacco Control was failing at every turn but still billions of dollars in funding was coming in, now worldwide and not just in the US.   The forcast was becoming grim.   Time to go big or shut up and go home.   The fight leaves you exhausted after so many failed efforts.  Kids were listening, but the tobacco industry was smater, and was looking for allies that could be counted on to further their cause.  I was rogue, but tobacco control wasn’t going to stand for it…..  I went home..”for a bit”! I wanted to find out just who I was working for.  It wasn’t long before I figured out where I went wrong in my programs.  I was trying to get the middle and high school kids to think for themselves and not be swayed by peer pressure.  Wasn’t I doing exactly what I was telling THEM not to do?

Of course, I did all this by being funny.  Funny is what kids respond to, since a graphic image of black lungs or clogged arteries, or open heart surgery, and gum disease, or leukoplakia, tongue cancer, throat cancer, and other various tobacco caused illnesses and diseases don’t concern teens as these things “only happen to old people….who are going to die anyway”.  The attitudes were different by all the “older people”, if you were unlucky enough to be the ones with those inflictions (self-inflicted or not).   My efforts were never to become a zealot, wacko or nutjob like so many others in T/C.   My efforts were to hopefully get kids to Never Start, and encourage those who were looking to quit or cutdown.  You think about dying alot more at 50 then at 15 years of age.   I couldn’t get the muckety mucks in T/C to understand kids and why they do things that every behavioral study proves that “you tell kids not to do something….they’ll do it”.  You make it available without punishing illegal sales by convenience stores, you don’t punish the manufacturers of tobacco who intentionally targeted and marketed kids, you make up flawed and ridiculous regulations, that make no sense at all other than to fatten the wallets or further the agendas of those regulators.   Create the illusion that you are doing SOMETHING… and  all the while very few changes occur while Tobacco Control applauds their efforts they made while spending year after year and millions and millions of dollars of other peoples money (primarily the smokers money) on programs that were sure to fail and of course they did.   As I said, I put my tail between my legs and went home scratching my head.  If other organizations had these miserable results with the billions of dollars that were made available to fight the good fight, heads certainly would roll.

The achievements of a well publicized “Tobacco Free Society” by Surgeon General Koop in 1984 never happened……..The “Smokefree Class of 2000”, by Tobacco Control never happened and even today the Anti-Smoking zealots are still telling me that they are making “progress”.  It does NOT WORK……….Kids are still going to smoke, dip, spit or chew tobacco.  Adults are still going to continue to smoke, dip spit or chew,  stores will still sell tobacco illegally evey day.   Cities will still ban the use of the “legal product” in public because they can.   Smokers will still be forced further and further away with the vile weed that continues to fill the coffers of tobacco control.  The amount of employed people in tobacco control is astounding and they may claim no one gets rich in tobacco control, I must beg to differ. States will still continue to raise taxes for any revenue deficiences they find and burden the smoker………….Keep discriminating against the user of tobacco…………THEN BAM !   Something comes along that just might have the potential to help motivate the smoker who,  in many cases would like to quit or maybe just have an alternative when they can’t smoke. What a brilliant concept….Come up with a product for the smoker or tobacco user that will give them the nicotine, just like all the other Nicotine Replacement Products that work only 8-10% of the time, mimic the habit you’ve had since you were most likely 14 or 15.  Use this product with the knowledge it only has 4-5 ingredients instead of 4675-8000 toxic poisons, gases, irritants, vapors, tars, pesticides and 60 known cancer causing carcinogens.And to top it off, its much cheaper and now you don’t have to smoke traditional cigarettes anymore, just like tobacco control wanted you to for all those years you were being scolded, chastised, taxed, ridiculed, made to feel terrible about yourself with low self esteem.  You are no longer going to expose your loved ones to cancer causing secondary and harmful, deadly foul smoke.  WIN WIN Right ???????????? WRONG.  I think the “Hitler strategy” applies here.  the bigger the lie, the more the people will believe it.

The Electronic Cigarette was introduced and it had every possibility of becoming the greatest life saving device for the nations (# 1 cause of preventable death) , and still tobacco control isn’t satisfied……Now they want IT banned.