Obama taps anti-tobacco activist

Just stop this cigarette stuff. Tobacco products are legal. Democracy is about choices. I choose to use tobacco products. Get about your business with something important and leave me alone with all these rediculous taxes and laws inhibiting my choices.

Captain Bob

Robert Scott -

The ANTI Tobacco effort is a public GOOD - it counters the 100 years of harmful SPIN that BIG TOBACCO has sold the citizens of the United States.

If you smoke, then YOU are a victim of that spin. You can "test" this by buying your own all natural tobacco and rolling your own. If you truly enjoy smoking you will enjoy smoking this way. If you are addicted to the chemical additives then you will NOT enjoy smoking this way.

I think you can see the need to COUNTER 1000 years of Tobacco Companyy lies.

sorry bob but your cigarettes arent limited to yourself. when you light up and exhale we all have to breathe it. when your cigarette burns we have to inhale it. when you throw your butts out the window and they end up in our rivers and streams then it becomes our problem as well. there is not one good thing about tobacco, i mean it doesn't even give you a buzz. it's just a money pit addiction that stinks.

I agree cigarettes are a threat to health, and also that not many folks even smoke anymore, but there are a lot of pressing health issues out there, and this should not be the primary one. This is to get people off the track of the real health issues, such as what pollution is doing to people's lungs, but trust me, it will not be discussed, and more and more people die each year because of it, because the majority of people are not willing to give up autos or public transportation. This should be our next cause for the future of our children. What about heart diseases, all cancers? What about all the cures that are out there in pill form now, but they will not be released to the general public because it is not profitable. Let's try doing something about these issues.

The "Democracy is about choices" and "laws inhibiting my choices" arguments do not hold water. Yes, tobacco products are legal. But because the use of these products causes well-docoumented harm to non-smokers, it is well within the rights of gov't to intervene through regulations. More importantly, smokers' use of this "legal" product causes millions of cases of childhood asthma and other chronic diseases, which impact the cost of healthcare for all citizens -- smokers and non-smokers, alike. Finally, the effect of smoking-related illnesses and disease on the health care system is astonishing from a financial perspective. Everyone pays higher health premiums and/or taxes (to fund Medicaid and Medicare) because a few people choose to use this "legal" product and become sick from emphysema, lung cancer, etc.

Bill Corr is a brilliant choice. He has been a long time health care advocate and will be a critical asset to achieving meaningful health care improvements nationally!

Robert Scott is correct. This is a free country, and people are free to choose to smoke or not. Second-hand smoke is largely hysteria, invented to persecute smokers.

Plus, Obama himself smokes. He has smoked for years.

I guess Obama doesn't respect our liberty...

Tough for you guys. It almost makes it desirable to start smoking just to make all these moralists upset. Deal with the smoke, as people have for years. These jerks don't realize that no matter how expensive you make cigarettes people are still going to buy just as much, forever. Get over it. Its all about the individuals choice. Ever.

"...Obama himself smokes. He has smoked for years.
I guess Obama doesn't respect our liberty..." [(Obama=Butthead) = Butthead.]
Instead of viewing everything as assaults on your delusions of liberty, view Obama's selection of Corr as evidence that he will put the concerns of the country above his own addictions.

Foon nice job on the biased, F-grade reporting we expect from the Globe. Given the headline of your article it is of course relevent to remind readers that the hypocrite Obama himself is a smoker. Or have we just elected to the most powerful position in the world a helpless "victim" of big bad tobacco?

wow. You health nazis make me sick. You now own the the airplanes, restaurants, and even the bars. The fact that it IS still legal is what you're trying to take next. shame on you. We all know how well prohibition worked. You take away our transfats and you make thinking about cigarettes a crime. Great, let's follow NY's example and push for banning soda... except diet soda because that's "good" for you. I've got some news for you, health nazis... we don't all sit around spending 5 at Yoga before doing 5 hours at the gym, every day, while drinking protein shakes and examining our feces.
I quit smoking in April of last year, but reading the anti-smoker's comments makes me want to light up again more than any (now non-existant) craving.

I smoke,but do not around my wife or people who dosen't smoke,I try to respect other's.BUT,if i choose to smoke ,it is no consern to anyone,but ME.it is just another way for someone to line their pocket's with a law suit.There has been tobacco on this planet,for years.All of a sudden ,there are a few people find something wrong with it.LIKE I SAID just a legal way for some greedy people to line their pocket's.

Obama needs to light up and lighten up.

Kay - please direct us to that 'documentation' you mentioned.

I just hope you're not teaching abstinence in schools (like sex) because that didn't work either way, another issue you should look at. I'm a smoker, I was taught the dogmatic ways of thinking how horrible it was for you and I didn't care. The teaching program also looked at sex in the same light, these are a few things that should be looked at.

Putting aside how one feels about the wisdom of smoking, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has been a science-distorting group with a radical prohibitionist agenda. CTFK's intellectual dishonesty hurts all of us in the scientific community who wish to present our research in an honest, agenda-free light. Given the anti-science attitudes of the Bush administration, this is an unfortunate appointment by Obama that continued a tradition of agenda-driven science in politics.

Response to Robert Scott a.k.a "Captain Bob"
You want to talk about Democracy. True, you do have the right to smoke--and I really don't care if you smoke until your lungs turn purple. However, It is also my right to live in a smoke free environment and not have to hold my breath or have to move away from a bloody smoker. I have a solution. Every time you need to smoke, go crawl in a hole and smoke your cigarette.

good, attack tobacco, BUT....
also attack alcohol...don't be hypocrites.
"your habit is BAD, But mine isn't"
bull!
your child has a hundred fold bigger chance of dying from alcohol than from cigarettes.
your child could be killed by decades of smoking
OR, they could be killed TONIGHT by a drunk driver.
which is more dangerous???
tobacco or alcohol?
how many wives and kids are beaten by smokers?
how many are beaten by drinkers?
stop being hypocrites...if your aims are REALLY "for the children and for the future health" then protect them by attacking the alcohol industry too..they have told just as many lies as the tobacco industry, it just that it's in your interest to believe those lies.

"GIVE UP TOBACCO FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION'S HEALTH!"
"GIVE UP ALCOHOL FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION'S HEALTH!"
non-smokers only believe in ONE of those statements....HY-PO-CRITES

Well now we know. OPbama supports Nazi medicine of the industrial socialist variety.

The selection of Corr confirms that Obama's alleged change is much more of the same: looting "Target Groups" at an accelerated pace. Confirmation of that extremist and fiscally irresponsible selection is provided by the anti-tobacco activists waiting in the wings to laud in the above comments selection of their prohibitionist soul-mate. Change with Obama? Only in the increased level of looting. Be careful of what you wish for, antis. SCHIP and a nationwide smoking ban that Corr will predictably push will raise your taxes and not materially change tobacco use. If everyone quit smoking today where would customers for Tobacco-Free Kids Nicorette and NicoDerm financial sponsors come from?

So much for Obama's promise of no lobbyists in his cabinet. Talk about someone connected...that's William Corr. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids influenced Virginia elections. They've lobbied heavily and they were created and funded by the non-profit foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, founded by Johnson and Johnson. Do you even think Health and Human Services is NOT going to be influenced by the Big pHARMaceutical company, Johnson and Johnson? How could he do this? CTFK is one of the biggest lobbyist firms to date. We are doomed and Obama broke his promise.

Bill Coor

Has experience at spending public grant money to lobby for personal agenda items, More money from non profits whos' ff 990's never see sunlight,
I urge President Obama to take another look at this persons education and experience before he is allowed to help Tom Daschel tamper with the nations health care,

No Luke it is not your right to go and force everybody to give you a "smokefree" environment- not respecting the choices of individual property owners is selfish. I dont smoke but the ilk of people like Bill Corr makes me just want to smoke. His group is about hypocracy and nothing else- Tobacco Free Kids' actions dont concern kids- they chose the name so as to come across as more credible and compassionate when in fact they arent. Quite pathetic.

You guys are hypocrites:

"deal with the smoke"? hows about "deal with the cancer" (and stinking clothes)

Second hand smoke isn't hyseteria, think about it, even if it were not dangerous to others health, would you want someone to FART IN YOUR FACE? Because, realy, a fart is much more healthier to smell then second hand carcinogens. Smokers just think that their exhalations "go away".....not really.....the chemicals hang around the air for quite a long time. And it stinks.

Tobacco Free Kids have worked with Philip Morris on FDA legislation, etc. Dr Michael Siegel, who lives right here in Boston, has documented this well on tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com.

Well, FrankD, I could say the same about cell phoners. They think it ends when their conversation does. But the headache stays. I could claim my right to a relatively quiet environment. And when "chemicals hang around the air," perhaps, but in trace amounts. It's a particularly oppressive sort of perfectionism to inflict on other people. As for farting in someone's face, well, since you are comparing smokers to something so unsanitary, I'll say you're suggesting you be able to walk into a washroom and have it smell minty fresh all the time.

And freedom of speech is not an option here--even if I demanded absolute silence, there is text messaging.

Smoking simply happens to be the most conveniently taxable and easy to deride of habits.