What's the racket, financially, behind these anti-tobacco / 'truth' ads?

[usedtobe]

Last I heard, trying to defeat something the size and nature of the US tobacco industry requires being as nasty as they are - but having a moral center they lack.

I once heard the statement that (he whose name is verboten) won WWII because, in order to defeat Germany, the Allies became as nasty as the Nazis.

I didn’t accept that argument, either.

As for the expenses of the group(s):
If they are organized as a non-profit, it is my understanding that they are required to document their expenses.
How/when/where/who? no idea.

[Terminus_Est]

@Rigamarole

Well, I asked the question because I genuinely wanted to know what their financial/profit motive was for running these ads. I don’t know how it got so off-track.

You poisoned the well by assuming that it was a ‘racket’ in your OP. What did you expect?

[Czarcasm]

@Turble

You are indeed missing the point. Big tobacco is a lying, conniving, corrupt industry willing to lie, bribe, and corrupt otherwise honest researchers to make money … and tobacco control has become the same. The McCarthyism comment was not from me but from a professor at Boston University who worked for 25 years inside the tobacco control industry, fighting big tobacco.

The fact that you keep using the term “tobacco control”, a label devised by the pro-tobacco sites, leads me to suspect your sources might not be neutral on the subject.

[Turble]

@Czarcasm

The fact that you keep using the term “tobacco control”, a label devised by the pro-tobacco sites, leads me to suspect your sources might not be neutral on the subject.

You attack my credibility for using a phrase used by such sources such as the British Medical Journal and the World Health Organization? And for quoting from a long time tobacco control insider like Dr. Siegel?

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/

http://www.who.int/gho/tobacco/en/

The antics and disgusting tactics of the Tobacco Control Industry have been so widely known for so long that South Park did an episode on it in 2003 called “Butt Out” … well worth watching but it is no longer on their list of episodes free to watch online.

[engineer_comp_geek]

Moderator Action

This has strayed well out of the bounds of GQ. There seems to be enough of a debate going on here that I’ll give GD a shot.

Moving thread from General Questions to Great Debates.

[Ravenman]

@Turble

The McCarthyism comment was not from me but from a professor at Boston University who worked for 25 years inside the tobacco control industry, fighting big tobacco.

I know nothing about this field, but the McCarthyism comment is in relation to this professor being kicked off one listserv under specific circumstances. It doesn’t appear to be a comment about all anti-smoking groups.

Let’s use an analogy:

1. I write an op-ed in my local paper that my Democratic city councilman misrepresented some facts in a speech.

2. My neighborhood listserv takes exception to my comments, and kicks me off.

3. I call the administrators a bunch of dirty names.

You don’t then get to say that I called the Democratic Party and all its members a bunch of dirty names.