IMC Ontario

Gov't Officials Part of Cigarette RICO Plot

U.S. Prosecutors Hope the Public Believes that the Gov't Never Knew What Was Going On...and hope that the public never catches on.

This is laughable, in a way. The hypocrisy is enormous. It's the prime racketeers calling their fellow racketeers, "racketeers".

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news

Cigarette Makers Lose in U.S. Racketeering Lawsuit Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A federal judge ruled that Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA and other U.S. cigarette makers violated anti-racketeering laws by marketing low-tar cigarettes as healthier alternatives than full-flavored brands. .....

[in same article...] .....Cigarette company shares rose $1.89, or 2.3 percent, to $82.64 in trading after the close of U.S. exchanges. The stock climbed as high as $83 after the ruling...... [Later news reports that Altria/Philip Morris stock went up Four Percent. Can't go far wrong investing in racketeering that's supported by omnipotent USA.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ouch!

Pretty funny, no? Supposedly-public NPR news also reported this judge's decision as a hit on the cigarette industry. Why this was good for Big Cig's stocks was that the judge didn't make the industry pay gazillions for "smoking cessation" programs...programs that incidentally would be to promote the products of the competition, Big Pharma's various synthetic nicotine delivery products.

An unreported part of this story...regarding Big Cig's supposedly selling "lo tar" and "lite" cigs as safer, is that it was the U.S. gov't itself that, long ago, ASKED cigarette makers to come up with a lower tar, lower nicotine cigarette...and the industry happily complied to the level of breeding tobacco plants with lower nicotine and tar. What we have is a version of U.S. Ambassador, April Glaspie, informing Saddam that the U.S. had no problem w/ Iraq's planned incursions into Kuwait to address Kuwaiti thefts of Iraqi oil. When Saddam moved...whammo...the bombs rained down. Same thing here. The U.S., which promoted low tar and nicotine, now says How DARE big cig make lo tar and lite cigs that anyone might think are safer than, say, HIGH tar and High Nicotine? Now the U.S. prosecutors rain down their legal bombs. As ol' U.S. ally, Saddam, wasn't bombed in Iraq, neither will Big Cig CEOs be hit here. As we see from the stock reports, the CEOS and shareholders will do just fine. It's the people, consumers and the public in general who'll bear 100% of the burdens. That's how a Corporatocracy works. We pay them to take advantage of us.

The lo-tar and lite cigs did, of course, suggest to many that they were safer because it was gov't agencies themselves that publicized the harms of tar and nicotine. But the reverse is true, as is usually the case in this government system. Lite cigarettes, with the lower nicotine, led people to smoke more, to get that "satisfaction". Therefore, more smoking, more cig sales and more tax revenues. Lo-tar and Lite brands also needed lots more additives to replace flavor lost by the lower nicotine. Therefore people seeking a safer smoke, understandably, got viciously hit with not only more smoking and more expenses but more dangerous and addiction-enhancing additives. And this was/is all legal as pie.

This gets to the RICO angle...about racketeering and conspiracy and all. It was officials and agencies of the U.S. gov't that, all along, aided and abetted every damn thing Big Cig did.

The Corporate Corrupted U.S. Gov't... ...refused to require listing of non-tobacco ingredients, even the ones most notorious for causing fires, and the ones causing diseases colloquially called "smoking related" diseases; ...created Federal Law to prohibit gov't officials from revealing the secret ingredients of cigarettes - again, no matter how untested or known dangerous; ...refused to prohibit added burn accelerants in cigarettes, despite the numbers of fires, injuries, deaths, orphanings and property losses; ...refused to require specific warnings about burn accelerants, pesticide residues, radiation from phosphate tobacco fertilizers, or anything; ...permitted some of the most deadly pesticides on earth (including DDT) to contaminate tobacco and tobacco products; ...until the 70s, permitted asbestos filters on Kent cigarettes. Patients with resultant mesothelioma are still dying, uncompensated, decades later; ...permitted dioxin in cigarette smoke via the still legal use of chlorine pesticides and chlorine-bleached cigarette paper - this, despite the US declaring dioxin a known human carcinogen and the U.S. signing the Stockholm Treaty to phase deadly dioxin off the earth. Google up "POPs Treaty"; ...permitted cigarettes to be made and sold as if they were tobacco but which may contain absolutely no tobacco. The fraud of industrial waste cellulose camouflaged to convince consumers it was tobacco is a fraud participated in by this gov't; ...shut down Customs and Department of Agriculture testing programs for DDT and other pesticides in imported tobacco; ...ignored EPA and other information about chlorine in tobacco products and therefore dioxin in the smoke; ...removed previously available info about HIGH levels of dioxin in (chlorine-contaminated) cigarette smoke from Centers for Disease Control; (see that info at: www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Dioxins-Cigarette-Smoke.htm ) ...allowed (and still allows) all sorts of Kid Attracting ingredients (sugars, artificial sweeteners, flavorings, aromas, sootheners, etc) in cigarettes; ...refused to warn mothers about, or protect mothers from, the chlorine cigarette adulterants that are so harmful to pregnancies, fetuses, and children; ...has refused to demand any safety testing for ANY non-tobacco cigarette ingredient; ...has refused to test for actual or expected effects of smoking plain tobacco. Results would inevitably be a devastating indictment of typical cigarettes and the regulation thereof; ...has created law to forbid challenges to the official "warnings" on grounds of insufficiency. That is...if a mini-nuclear bomb is put into a Marlboro, a victim can't sue because he/she was duly "warned" that the products "may be dangerous to your health"; ...has, almost across the board, accepted campaign funding from various parts of the cigarette industry, namely pesticides, chlorine, paper, pulp, ag products, sugar, pharmaceutical products, adhesives, etc., AND all of their insurers and investors. That is...the very industries that most want to keep their complicity out of the smoking discussion; ...allowed the cigarette industry to pass costs of the "settlements" onto consumers via price hikes; ...has allowed members of the cigarette cartel to actually collect windfall profits by participating in programs funded by that "settlement". That is, an insurer that owns major cig manufacturing holdings can profit by being in a state's "tobacco settlement" program for elderly insurance coverage. A Cig advertiser can profit in "anti smoking" campaigns. A tobacco pesticide maker Ofen a pharmaceutical firm) can benefit via drug programs. And so forth. (The minor gangsters, in the Mafia etc, must look on with awe and envy.) ...and this government allows the cigarette industry to evade the truly enormous liabilities that WOULD be due if even a fraction of proper compensation was paid to the victims. Big Cig saves trillions, no exaggeration. Do a little math based on what you think is proper penalty/compensation for secretly poisoining and/or killing someone - vague, meaningless, routinely ignored "warnings" nothwithstanding.

The cigarette makers did not work under the cover of darkness, out of view of the now-"shocked" gov't regulators. Every damn lie, omission, deception, and other crime was "legal", authorized and known. This corporate-corrupted gov't is the Dr. Frankenstein that created this devastating health monster, that, since the 30s and 40s, tolerated the contamination of tobacco as no other product ever has been, and now it is feigning concern about the consequences because, of course, it's costing insurers too much money in health care, and because it's diverting tax money to people's health care instead of to wars or corporate handouts and so forth.

The "tobacco" trials and hearings are all complete charades, equivalent to Pro Wrestling matches. We got Captain Clean Air America vs The Evil Baron of Dirty Death...and we are encouraged to take sides, to battle amongst ourselves regarding yes or no to "smoking", neither side being legitimate. The idea of yes or no to vicious, secret, mass homicidal product contamination isn't permitted into the arena.

Big Cig can't/won't defend itself by saying that it had gov't approval to put deadly substances in cigs, in secret from consumers, in violation of basic rights to know and rights to informed consent. That would be a liability, and criminal, and PR, disaster for Big Cig and all the ingredients/adulterants suppliers (and, always, their insurers and investors). Gov't officials, for their part, can't admit that they allowed and knew about everything. That would be the end of the corporate-corrupted "regulatory" system as we, unfortunately, know it. Government officials, violating at every turn their sworn and paid duties to serve the public, are integral parts and parcels of the racket and the conspiracy.

Both "sides" conspire to allow the blame to fall on a) the public domain natural tobacco plant, and b) the uninformed, deceived, unprotected, experimented upon, poisoned, demonized, dehunanized, sickened and often killed victims, the smokers.