The Crime Prevention Group urges and takes actions to solve the problem identified in the 1994 Surgeon General Report: that "illegal sales of tobacco products are common." While TCPG offers Michigan-specific materials below, nationwide solution is best done in conjunction with already existing national groups. TCPG recommends their activism and/or information sites such as the following:
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and its renowned Executive Director, John F. Banzhaf, III, are pioneers in the field. Professor Banzhaf is widely recognized as one of the most vigorous and effective advocates on the subject. He has been active for over thirty (30) years, since the 1960's, and is often interviewed and consulted on smoking and health issues. His list of accomplishments, and those of ASH, are too voluminous to list here. Suffice it to say, that the approach of ASH is to sue to obtain action to protect the health of us all. Lawsuits include suing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to get equal time to rebut tobacco company advertisements on television, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to get protection for airline passengers, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to obtain recognition of nicotine as a drug and to obtain better control of sales to minors, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to obtain smoke-free workplaces, etc. The ASH website has a list of nonsmoker groups and activists nationwide and worldwide.
The Airspace Organization is a Canadian activist group. Its "photo gallery" has examples of pictures that specifically say what tobacco does, it kills.
American Council on Science and Health provides well-researched information and advocacy on multiple issues, including tobacco issues.
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights is a California based group that advocates for action including workplace safety and billboard controls. It maintains a number of links to other useful websites.
The Jack Cannon Website provides a voluminous mass of data on the subject, and periodic notices by e-mail, on topics of immediate concern
The Mid-Coast Maine Promotion for Clean Indoor Air advocates for a smoke-free Maine.
The Philip Morris documents site contains many formerly secret tobacco company documents, ordered revealed by court action based on Attorney General litigation.
The Smokescreen Action Network provides some educational data. But its major function is providing sample letters for sending to officials and others, requesting action to control the smoking hazard.
The State Tobacco Information Center provides voluminous litgation data by the various Attorney General offices of the many states that sued tobacco companies to recover portions of the money taxpayers had paid for smokers' health care costs.
The Tobacco Industry Information website maintained by Gene Borio provides a voluminous mass of data on the subject, often including excellent and pertinent quotations.
Federal Supreme and
Circuit Court Case
Indexes of Cases
Containing the Word
Cigarette, Smoking, or Tobacco
The DOJ Racketeering Case
Against Tobacco Companies
One decades-old local group that TCPG has dealt with, is useful in terms of passing on information to other activists, the Mid-Coast Maine Promotion for Clean Air. It is also listed at the ASH website--an invaluable guide to finding your local activist organization; that is how we came in contact.
Workers' rights to safe job sites were sought in a court case by a worker, Victor Eskenazi, in the State of Washington. Public assistance was solicited at his website, in his effort to set a precedent to protect all workers.
As it is Michigan-based, TCPG calls attention to Michigan's cigarette control law as an example for the nation and the world. That law, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, bans deleterious and adulterated cigarettes. In contrast, others' proposals, such as H.R. 1130, only require fire-safe cigarettes. Michigan leadership since 1909 requires cigarettes to be ingredients-safe, comprehensively safe, the same requirement as for all other products.
Michigan Governor John Engler was one of the first governors to issue an Executive Order against smoking in state buildings, back in March 1992. The Director of Michigan's Department of Community Health, James K. Haveman, Jr., has verified the Michigan safe cigarettes law twice, in a July 1997 letter and in a follow-up September 1997 letter. The law was one of the four model laws cited by the website author, in the American Journal of Public Health.
Cigarette companies, for legal reasons, dare not admit that their product is deleterious, hence, they do not on the record oppose the Michigan type of careful wording. This wording cannot be denounced as prohibitionist, as it officially allows safe cigarettes, if any. In this way, the law is like any product safety law, safe items are allowed, dangerous ones are not.
TCPG urges you to write to Governor Engler urging him to have the State Police enforce the Michigan law. For a sample letter, click here.
TCPG also urges you to write to Michigan Attorney General Jennifer M. Granholm urging her to take "cease and desist" action to enforce the Michigan law as done in other cases. For a sample letter, click here.
If you prefer shorter versions, here are some short sample letters also.
TCPG's writer of this site was the first to identify the high cost to society of cigarettes as above $130 billion. Prior estimates were far lower, or even claiming that cigarettes were a cost benefit to society. Also available is his paper supporting the cost recovery lawsuit seeking recovery of taxpayer money spent on tobacco-caused health care.
While the Attorney General cigarette costs reimbursement lawsuit under former Attorney General Frank J. Kelley (1961-1998) was in process, there was a petition to the judge to enforce the Michigan safe cigarettes law via a "cease and desist" order.
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Copyright © 1999 Leroy J. Pletten
by The Crime Prevention Group.