The first
time bar & restaurant air quality, regarding secondhand smoke, was ever
tested; or published; anywhere in the country, was right here in 2004 by the
city of St. Louis Park, MN. Environmental Health Department; and the results
prove that secondhand smoke is 150 times below (safer
than) OSHA permissible exposure limits.(link)
Health hazard-none, health risk-zero...unless
you believe that OSHA is in the business of harming people.(link)
Who is upset about this news? All the non-profit
organizations (link) who receive funding
from Robert
Wood Johnson
Foundation.(RWJF)(link)
Who is Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation and why would they fund smoking bans? The founder was
non other than the founder of Johnson & Johnson Company (link), distributor of Nicotrol and licensor to
Pharmacia, manufacturer of Nicotrol, Nicoderm, etc. Phamacia also pays a
licensing fee to the American Cancer society on every Nicoderm product sold.
According to a local newspaper reporter the American Cancer Society, in 2004
alone, spent $600,000 here in MN. to lobby in favor of smoking bans.
The information and "studies" provided to our
lawmakers by any of these organizations should be viewed as highly dubious at
best.
More Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Nicotrol, Nicoderm)
funding to non-profit organizations: (partial list)
2001 MN. Smoke-free
coalition $824,977
2001 University of
MN. $401,182
2001 American Non-Smokers Rights
Foundation
$971,114
2001 American Cancer
Society $14,673,657
2002 American Cancer
Society
$3,294,002
2002 American Medical Association $2,034,859
2002 American Medical Association
Foundation
$7,750,288
2002 American Lung
Association $2,923,061
Full list of grant
recipients 1996-2002 (link), figures
for 2003 & 2004 not yet available.
Mark Wernimont