This is Part I.
sorry my friend - it is way late and I have not read the entire article - but the first 6 graphs are proof enough.
You have my word I will read it in its entirety in the morning and comment thusly!!!!
The $223,000 survey was intended to measure Minnesota adults' attitudes toward smoking and establish a baseline by which to measure future progress. It was commissioned, conducted, completed, analyzed, found to be viable -- and never released, or even presented to the board.
Now why do you suppose that is? Is it possible that it actually found that the state was split?
This focus on secondhand smoke de-emphasized the importance of individual cessation efforts, even though they were the focus of the court order establishing MPAAT.
Sounds like the old bait and switch technique to me.
''They have become so pure in ideology that they are arrogant, and they have forgotten their mission,'' Hatch said in an interview. ''Try to get people to stop smoking; don't force people. Zealotry is bad no matter what the issue is.''
This is the anti-smokers' problem. They have forgotten that 25% od adults in the USA smoke. Either that or they just DON'T CARE.
When the board decided to act, it adopted a strategy not championed by its own advisory committees, which were later disbanded.
Hear that, the board didn't like hearing the truth so they ignored it and then killed the messenger. Coming to a town near you.
Judy Knapp is a Wisconsin native who grew up in a house with two smoking parents. Some 20 years later, she still worries about the effects of that secondhand smoke on her health.
Notice that it doesn't say she HAS any health problems, just that she worries about it.
So, in a nutshell the state created a monster, let it loose, and now can't seem to control it.
The great tobacco settlement at work.