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  !! ALERT !!On October 11, 1998 the Minnesota Medical Assoication (MMA) House of Delegates approved a resolution patterned after the controversial California law known as Proposition 10 to prohibit smoking in any workplace in the state, particularly bars, restaurants and taverns. Naturally the purpse is to protect workers and patrons from the alleged dangers of second hand smoke. It isn't even working in California, but they want to institute it here.But that isn't all. The good doctors (as uninformed as they are) also support the 1966 FDA regulations to reduce use by adolescents and children with a tax increase on cigarettes!Apparently it isn't enough to make smokers go outside to light up, even in 30 below Minnesota winters. They also want to prohibit smoking within 75 feet of any entrance to a facility which is designated smoke-free!! Next thing you know they'll want us to go outside the city limits.These physicians -- the same ones who are so spooked about addiction they won't even control pain in terminal cases -- naturally support Tobacco Free Kids and other anti-smoking subterfuges. Makes you wonder if their science is as bad as that behind the anti-tobacco war.So far this proposal hasn't reached the floor but when it does we'll keep you posted. These people bear watching. The Tobacco portion of their website is at |
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| It reported that Ventura appeared in antismoking TV ads back in the 1980s, has called for nicotine to be regulated as a drug and is credited with reigniting a movement to restrict in-store tobacco advertising years before the federal government cracked down. Answering a medical industry group's routine questionnaire for candidates.a couple of months ago Ventura, who sometimes smokes cigars himself,said money from the state's $6.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry should be "used to develop and promote antismoking campaigns and to help pay for the illnesses and disabilities related to tobacco usage. His responses were recently made public by the Minnesota Hospital and Health Care Partnership. Ventura says he may support Humphrey's plan to give 11 percent of the money -- about $650 million dollars -- to antismoking groups to educate Minnesotans "so they know what it [tobacco] does." He first got involved in public antismoking efforts as a professional wrestler in 1985. At that time he was tapped as one of several youth role models to appear in statewide TV ads purchased by the Minnesota Department of Health. In the ad, wearing sunglasses, a tattered muscle shirt, a tie-dyed handkerchief around his head and a gaudy professional wrestling belt, Ventura proclaimed, "I'm Jesse the Body, and I've been smoke-free all of my life." (He says he first began smoking a daily "stogie" during the gubernatorial campaign.) Ventura said in an interview that he doesn't begrudge any adult the right to smoke but "would love to see some day nobody use tobacco." He said he believes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should regulate nicotine as a drug. According to Antismoking groups Ventura's most noteworthy stand against tobacco stemmed from his personal struggle to combat a 15-to 20-year attachment to Copenhagen Snuff, a chewing tobacco -- a struggle that led to pioneering restrictions against tobacco advertising. In 1992, Ventura proposed that his suburb ban tobacco ads in retail food outlets and require that merchants keep tobacco products under the counter, available upon request. He said his office suddenly was "loaded up with [tobacco] lobbyists. They were ready to string me up and hang me. They were putting out misinformation that Jesse Ventura wanted to take away your right to use tobacco. . . . Even my political opponents felt bad for me." So... which way are you going to go, Jesse?
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