Forces Canada

Brunswick, GA., Nov. 21 -- A class action lawsuit of behalf of the nation's 50 million smokers was filed today in U.S. District Court.

The suit charges that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has no legal or scientific grounds for classifying tobacco smoke as a Group A carcinogen. It alleges that the EPA "cherry-picked" and manipulated data to fit a predetermined conclusion and did not follow its own standards of risk determination.

Backed by smokers' rights activists internationally, Joel Beatty of Waverly, Ga. initiated the lawsuit. Though the tobacco industry filed a similar lawsuit in 1993, this is believed to be the first filed by tobacco consumers as a class.

According to Beatty, "The result of the EPA's falsification of data on second-hand smoke has been a rash of anti- smoker restrictions by private entities and all levels of government. It has become apparent that the anti-smoker crusade has little to do with our collective health, but a lot to do with money and power. The EPA lied about ETS. We will prove this beyond not only a reasonable doubt, but beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Other smokers' rights activists have cheered Beatty's action.

"It's about time we started fighting back," says Wanda Hamilton, Vice-President of Florida Smokers' Rights. "Government publications call us 'second-class citizens,' and we're being discriminated against in ways inconceivable in a free country. We're fired from our jobs, we're losing child custody cases, we're forced to stand out in the rain and in sub-zero temperatures, and many of us have lost friendships and familial relations. Increasingly we have no rights -- not even the right of privacy -- and it's all being done to us with our own tax dollars. It just isn't right."

"In Canada, we have been tolerant enough of the lies and propaganda disseminated by government, politicians, and medical associations ready to jump on the bandwagon," adds Gian Turci, President of Forces Canada. "It is high time to put an end to this misinformation campaign, and to put these individuals back in their place."

Contact: Joel Beatty: Fax: