Enron and WorldCom executives are petty crooks compared to hypocritical state governments (like New York and California) who are lapping up billions of dollars in tobacco settlement money (paid by smokers, not the tobacco industry), raising cigarette taxes and using it for everything but tobacco related healthcare costs and prevention.

Indeed, corporate criminals are saints compared to tyrannical anti-tobacco activists, opportunistic politicians and celebrities (like Rob Reiner) and greedy, bottom-feeding litigators.

Alas, the entire movement is nothing but a scam based on demonizing 50 million smokers as social outcasts, holding them up to public hatred and ridicule, and unfairly attacking them with punishing taxes.

The question is, where are all the so-called defenders of the defenseless, like the ACLU and others who don't blink when they come under fire for filing lawsuits for stupid little things and outrageous big things (like removing "under God" from the pledge of allegiance)?

Here is a grave unconstitutional injustice against the civil liberties of a giant class of people, most of whom can least afford it, and the ACLU and other lawyer groups won't touch it simply because it's unpopular.

No one complained when the majority of Americans used tobacco. Only when they became a minority were they vulnerable to assault and abuse. Now a new dimension of overweight people have been added to the equation and the anti-fat zealots are out in force against them. Maybe it's time for smokers and plump people to unite and fight back.

Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
The Direct Democracy Center