The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter

*** Hamster For President: Hamster. Whether you are a small beast like me or human, I will trust you completely, and I promise to make no rules to suppress your behavior or to inhibit your independent, creative spirit.

*** The Real Nature of Politics and Politicians: By Michael I. Rothfeld. America's System Works, But Not Why You Think! Simply put, politics is not about the common good, appealing to men's better angels, nor serving our Lord. These may be your motivations. Occasionally, they will be a politician's motivation. Politics is the adjudication of power. It is the process by which people everywhere determine who rules whom.

Make A Difference!

Attend meetings: Smoking Bylaw
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Thursday, January 27, 2000
Monday, January 31, 2000
(Each starting at 9:00 AM)
North Committee Room in the Council Building at 510 Main Street, Winnipeg, Canada
Anyone wishing to speak should contact the city and Gwen Howe at 986-3443

9. From the mailbag:

Philip Morris Cos Inc.'s Argentine subsidiary Massalin Particulares (MP) announced that it will close its Goya plant in the province of Corrientes as a result of an increase in excise tax from seven percent to 21 percent. MP explained that the tax increase would reduce consumption, expand the black market, and impact its margins. In a letter to the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, MP called the increase "the biggest single increase in history, surpassing even an emergency increase applied in 1982 because of the Falkland Islands war" (Reuters 1/5, Wall Street Journal 1/6).

Canada's Health Minister Allan Rock plans to propose a measure that would mandate that tobacco companies display new health warnings including graphic photos of cancer effects. Although Mr. Rock did not comment, Reuters indicated that such a shift from written warnings to more graphic ones is indeed in the offing at the Health Ministry. If Mr. Rock's measure is adopted, Canada will be the world's only country to have graphic photographs of the "health hazards of smoking" on cigarette packages (Ottawa Citizen 1/6).

Effective January 1st, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has adopted the Tobacco Access Act, prohibiting business establishments from selling cigarettes and filling prescriptions in the same store. A grocery chain Sobeys is adjusting to the new law by building a tobacco shop within the store, still allowing one-stop shopping for its customers. Shoppers Drug Mart's spokesman stated that the chain will follow the new legislation despite the financial impact it will face (Halifax Daily News 1/5).

Arthur Andersen consultants have composed the first stage of the feasibility plan for the privatization of the Moroccan State tobacco company, Régie des Tabacs. Expected to be completed by the end of February 2000, the privatization process largely proceed according to its recommendations and conclusions. Among other findings, the firm determined that there is a significant technological gap, as well as differences in integration procedures, among the company's four production sites. The Anderson study also indicates that the number of tobacco growers in the country is quite small compared to the agricultural sector as a whole [L'Economiste 12/28].

"Al Gore has challenged Bill Bradley to a series of debates. That should be exciting. The one who is still awake at the end will be declared the winner."
Jay Leno

MURPHY'S LAWS OF COMBAT: #18. If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in a combat zone.

A man has been arrested for allegedly allowing his 2-year-old son to smoke a cigarette in a restaurant. Andrew Mason, 36, was charged with risk of injury to a minor, a felony. Police said the incident occurred in an unspecified ``family restaurant'' in Norwalk, Conn., last October. The father, however, claims that the boy simply grabbed an unlighted cigarette from his hand and played with it.