November 11,1996

Local contact:

Gian Turci
FORCES Canada

A coalition of 13 Smokers' Rights Organizations has announced that a general boycott of the U.S. and Canadian economies will take place the week of 11/17/96 through 11/23/96 when smokers will express their displeasure at smoking restrictions by boycotting all No Smoking establishments for the entire week.

FORCES Canada is urging its members and all sympathetic smokers and nonsmokers to join in the boycott. "This is one way to send out the message that smokers will not allow themselves to become socially marginalized," said FORCES spokesperson Gian Turci.

Joel Beatty, principal spokesperson for the coalition notes that, "Emergency items, like tobacco, are exempt as are smoker friendly locations."

Actually, smokers have been boycotting, all along. How many of us fly unless it is an emergency? How many of us buy Reeboks, or Wrigley's Gum, or patronize malls that have banned smoking? All we are doing is formalizing an action most of us quietly participate in every day."

"The anti-smoker madness has gone too far when it permits judges and agencies to take away our children simply because someone in the home smokes", said Emily Benson, coordinator. "The EPA lied when it classified Environmental Tobacco Smoke a known human carcinogen".

"In its study on Electromagnetic Fields it found a relative risk ratio of 3.0. Whole milk, according to EPA, has a risk of 2.0. They consider these risks to be statistically insignificant, and refused to classify either of those agents but after Cherry-picking the available data, and changing the confidence interval to suit their agenda, they could find only a risk of 1.19 for ETS. This creates a whole new definition for the term 'political science'".

While the Coalition doesn't expect to "reverse 30 years of unrelenting anti-smoke propaganda through this single action" it intends to begin targeting specific industries.

"We are planning to call for a one year moratorium on automobile purchases, exempting dealerships that provide clean, comfortable, well ventilated indoor smoking areas. We believe that non-smokers, and even antismokers, might join us if only to bring prices down", said Beatty.