Who Really Profits From Smoking Bans?
I found this on Tony Phyrillas' site. Tony is from PENNSYLVANIA.
Opponents of Ohio Bans say "Just follow the money."
COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- "Smoking bans in the U.S. have been funded by those who directly profit from the sales of Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT)," said Debi Kistner with Opponents of OhioBans. Robert Wood Johnson, the late CEO of Johnson & Johnson, establishedthe Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) tax exempt non-profit 501(c)(3)in the early 1970s. According to their November 2005 publication, "Takingon tobacco: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Assault on Smoking", from1991 to 2005 the foundation paid $446,398,054 in tobacco-control grants.Grantees that did not move from tobacco education to tobacco control became ineligible for further grants.
As of March 31, 2008 the foundation owns 35,435,189 shares of Johnson &Johnson (JNJ) common stock (valued at nearly 2.3 billion dollars) and is one of the company's largest institutional holders. As a tax exemptfoundation RWJF pays 1 percent tax on realized capital gains and dividendsfrom its investments, while other investors pay 15 percent. Johnson &Johnson profits from the sales of Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette products. Thefoundation therefore directly profits from cigarette tax and smoking banlaws they've provided grants to create. In January 2008, 1,000,000 boxes ofthe company's nicotine replacement products were reportedly sold andNicoderm CQ is touted as the "best selling smoking cessation patch inhistory". April 15, 2008, Forbes reported that Johnson & Johnson profitjumped 40% during the first quarter of 2008.
I wondered who was making the huge profits from screwing so many people's individual rights.
Ohio's smoking ban was a big win for the anti-smokers, but the really big winners are big intrusive government and those pushing the ban to make huge profits.
The big loser is the people of Ohio who thought they were doing good when they not only voted away their rights, but also set precedent for other rights to be taken away.
