***I did NOT creat this article! It is a portion of the article called, "Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition" by Robert N Proctor.*** The cigarette is the deadliest object in the history of human civilisation. Cigarettes kill about 6 million people every year, a number that will grow before it shrinks. Smoking in the twentieth century killed only 100 million people, whereas a billion could perish in our century unless we reverse course.1 Even if present rates of consumption drop steadily to zero by 2100, we will still have about 300 million tobacco deaths this century. The cigarette is also a defective product, meaning not just dangerous but unreasonably dangerous, killing half its long-term users. And addictive by design. It is fully within the power of the Food and Drug Administration in the US, for instance, to require that the nicotine in cigarettes be reduced to subcompensable, subaddictive levels.2 ,3 This is not hard from a manufacturing point of view: the nicotine alkaloid is water soluble, and denicotinised cigarettes were already being made in the 19th century.4 Philip Morris in the 1980s set up an entire factory to make its Next brand cigarettes, using supercritical fluid extraction techniques to achieve a 97% reduction in nicotine content, which is what would be required for a 0.1% nicotine cigarette, down from present values of about 2%.5 Keep in mind that we're talking about nicotine content in the rod as opposed to deliveries measured by the ‘FTC method’, which cannot capture how people actually smoke.5 Cigarettes are also defective because they have been engineered to produce an inhalable smoke. Tobacco smoke was rarely inhaled prior to the nineteenth century; it was too harsh, too alkaline. Smoke first became inhalable with the invention of flue curing, a technique by which the tobacco leaf is heated during fermentation, preserving the sugars naturally present in the unprocessed leaf. Sugars when they burn produce acids, which lower the pH of the resulting smoke, making it less harsh, more inhalable. There is a certain irony here, since these ‘milder’ cigarettes were actually far more deadly, allowing smoke to be drawn deep into the lungs. The world's present epidemic of lung cancer is almost entirely due to the use of low pH flue-cured tobacco in cigarettes, an industry-wide practice that could be reversed at any time. Regulatory agencies should mandate a significant reduction in rod-content nicotine, but they should also require that no cigarette be sold with a smoke pH lower than 8. Those two mandates alone would do more for public health than any previous law in history.5 Death and product defect are two reasons to abolish the sale of cigarettes, but there are others. A third is the financial burden on public and private treasuries, principally from the costs of treating illnesses due to smoking. Cigarette use also results in financial losses from diminished labor productivity, and in many parts of the world makes the poor even poorer.6 A fourth reason is that the cigarette industry is a powerful corrupting force in human civilisation. Big tobacco has corrupted science by sponsoring ‘decoy’ or ‘distraction research’,5 but it has also corrupted popular media, insofar as newspapers and magazines dependent on tobacco advertising for revenues have been reluctant to publish critiques of cigarettes.7 The industry has corrupted even the information environment of its own workforce, as when Philip Morris paid its insurance provider (CIGNA) to censor the health information sent to corporate employees.8Tobacco companies have bullied, corrupted or exploited countless other institutions: the American Medical Association, the American Law Institute, sports organisations, fire-fighting bodies, Hollywood, the US Congress—even the US presidency and US military. President Lyndon Johnson refused to endorse the 1964 Surgeon General's report, for instance, fearing alienation of the tobacco-friendly South. Cigarette makers managed even to thwart the US Navy's efforts to go smoke-free. In 1986, the Navy had announced a goal of creating a smoke-free Navy by the year 2000; tobacco-friendly congressmen were pressured to thwart that plan, and a law was passed requiring that all ships sell cigarettes and allow smoking. The result: American submarines were not smoke-free until 2011.9 Cigarettes are also, though, a significant cause of harm to the natural environment. Cigarette manufacturing consumes scarce resources in growing, curing, rolling, flavouring, packaging, transport, advertising and legal defence, but also causes harms from massive pesticide use and deforestation. Many Manhattans of savannah woodlands are lost every year to obtain the charcoal used for flue curing. Cigarette manufacturing also produces non-trivial greenhouse gas emissions, principally from the fossil fuels used for curing and transport, fires from careless disposal of butts, and increased medical costs from maladies caused by smoking5 (China produces 40 percent of the world's cigarettes, for example, and uses mainly coal to cure its tobacco leaf). And cigarette makers have provided substantial funding and institutional support for global climate change deniers, causing further harm.10 Cigarettes are not sustainable in a world of global warming; indeed they are one of its overlooked and easily preventable causes. But the sixth and most important reason for abolition is the fact that smokers themselves do not like their habit. This is a key point: smoking is not a recreational drug; most smokers do not like the fact they smoke and wish they could quit. This means that cigarettes are very different from alcohol or even marijuana. Only about 10–15% of people who drink liquor ever become alcoholics, versus addiction rates of 80% or 90% for people who smoke.11 As an influential Canadian tobacco executive once confessed: smoking is not like drinking, it is rather like being an alcoholic.12 Sourc...

Jahi McMath was a 13 year old young girl who died back in December of 2013 in California after bleeding post surgically and going into cardiac arrest resulting in complete brain death. She died. A coroner issued a death certificate. Jahi McMath is legally dead. The family, unwilling to bury their daughter, moved her body to New Jersey where the state laws allow you to keep someone on life support regardless of diagnosis based on religion, which does not have to be proven. There are susceptible people in the world who can be tricked or misguided into thinking this girl will wake up at some point by confusing coma with brain death. Donations were and are given to this family, which in the past were proven by internet posts and irrefutable photos, that the family was spending their gofundme money on expensive dinners and designer items. There are countless articles that can be found on patients who woke from a coma after several years. The difference between them and Jahi, is they WERE NOT BRAIN DEAD. Each and every time one of these articles finds its way to a Jahi support page, some gullible person gives this family more money. Dolan, the families attorney, tried unsuccessfully to have the death certificate reversed. I believe he already knew it wouldn't be. The judge had yet another physician declare Jahi still dead at this time. The only time the public hears anything about this little girl is when her mother puts a pair of glasses on the dead girls eyes and posts the photo online. Granted, much of the donations have ceased, but they do continue to slowly trickle in and it absolutely must stop. One of the last photos published was Jahi's eyes smeared with glittery eye shadow with a baby on the bed next to her. Morbid and macabre. The family has publicly and blatantly claimed the public has photoshopped and altered Jahi's photos to make them look the way they do. I believe Ms. Winkfield would want to contact CNN or another news affiliate station that would reach everyone at the same time (not a local station) and show Jahi, her current state on video, without blankets, without glasses, without anyone speaking or prompting from family, video close-ups of limbs including but not limited to fingers, toes, eyes and throat. A respected and revered non-biased physician there to do a full brain death exam on camera in front of the entire country explaining each step as it happens. It should be on live television without editing. This will never happen because Jahi McMath is dead and the family is well aware of that and it has been 15 months since her death certificate was issued. If you have never seen the families way of spending the gofundme dollars, or have never seen Jahi's pitted and decomposed limbs, I encourage you to look at pictures posted by this family before they yanked them off the internet. Videos showing ice cubes making Jahi's feet move supposedly on command are not due to coma or signs of life. The public must research on their own before giving away money. Involuntary muscle movements can happen with brain dead patients. If Jahi's mother stands there long enough and say's "C'mon Jahi, move your hand, move your foot, C'mon move it" and repeats this over and over and over again, eventually, there will be a muscle twitch. This is not a sign of life. Doctors and nurses throughout the world can tell you why this happens with brain death. When the heart is still hooked up to life support, limbs will twitch. It is not, nor will it ever be by command and Jahi cannot hear them speak to her. Decomposition/Necrosis can be clearly seen on a photo of Jahi's fingers from more than a year ago (See above). We do not see any type of updated photo due to blankets pulled up to her neck when any "new" photo is released online.....which are few. The entire story, along with photos from Nailah Winkfield (Jahi's mother) and family can be found and viewed here: http://kesselrunin12parsecs.tumblr.com/ Now, the family is suing the hospital claiming they are responsible for the death of their daughter. From Courthouse News: " The family's attorney Bruce Brusavich, of Torrance, said in an interview that he has not filed a conditional wrongful death claim before, but that case law allows the pleading of "alternative facts or theories." Would one of those theories be she's dead, has been dead and will continue to be dead? This fund needs to stop now! This is the biggest scam to hit the public in a very very long time. Help us stop this family from gaining anymore funds from kind, vulnerable people. *Please take a moment to sign our other petition as well. We intend to send as many signatures to gofundme.com as possible. Thanks! https://www.change.org/p/http-www-gofundme-com-jahi-mcmath-jahi-mc-math-fund-shut-the-fund-down-immediately

GMOs represent a clear and present danger to the health of the public and the security or our nation's food supply and economy. We must push forward on this issue and take the first step towards combating this hidden danger by identifying and raising public awareness through mandatory labeling. Public opinion and good science beat back the lobbies of other dangerous products such as tobacco and leaded gas. It's our time to do the same for GMOs.

Petition Update 9/18: ----- Ben Barnes from The Office of Policy & Managment announced today that DDS will receive more than $7.5 million in rescission cuts. Last Sunday the Hartford Courant released an article identifying $48 million in massive overspending on overtime at DDS. Despite this, once again, the administration has chosen to target cuts in a way that disproportionately affects families in need, while barely addressing waste, mismanagement and overtime at DDS. Here is the article: http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-state-overtime-costs-soar-0913-20150913-story.html Contact Governor Malloy at 1-800-406-1527 today and every day until these cuts are restored. This is not negotiable. Breakdown of DDS Cuts: Employment Opportunities and Day Services - $3,000,000 Community Residential Services - $1,800,000 Voluntary Service - $297,312 Personal Services - $1,500,000 Other Expenses - $206,194 Cooperative Placements Program - $613,621 Supplemental Payments for Medical Services - $150,000 More information to follow. ============================================ My name is Michelle Rivelli and I am the mother of Jessica, who has autism and intellectual disabilities. I am also a pediatrician in Shelton. I ask you to sign this petition about the current state of the DDS budget cuts. I know many of you have written letters and been up to the legislature, but for those of you who have not had the opportunity to do so, I wanted to provide you with the current state of the budget cuts and what your options are at this time. There have been enormous cuts to DDS, this year being the most profound and far reaching. For the first time, day program funding for 2016-2017 grads is totally eliminated, VSP is cut 60% and residential/home supports are drastically cut. The only funding preserved is for personal services (i.e. for DDS employees, which in reality over 90% of this will go to state employees at Southbury Training School and the other DDS regional centers). Unless the three line items highlighted above get added back into the budget, our children will have to stay home after they graduate at age 21 years! Additionally, any other supports families have been receiving will be significantly cut. There will be no hope of any residential services until the death of both parents or other profound crisis. The only hope we have is to contact the legislators on the health subcommittee of appropriations to let them know how this will affect our families before April 30th when they make their recommendations. In addition to this petition, contacting the leadership of appropriations will be helpful once the budget gets to the main appropriations committee in May. Unfortunately the only thing that seems to have influence in this process is the number of individuals who contact legislators about specific issues. I am listing the names and contact information for the subcommittee and leadership in Hartford. Your first contact should be your own state senator and representative. You can find them on the www.cga.ct.gov website. There is additional information on the cga website and on the ARC of CT website about how to contact legislators. Then if you have time, contact the individuals below. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Some of the legislators have to be contacted through their specific websites rather than via regular e-mail. I totally understand that none of us have time to do this when we are trying to keep things together with our kids at home. However, after meeting with numerous legislators and advocacy groups, these contacts are the only way to ensure our children have a safety net going forward. We do have strength in numbers. Sign this petition to have a voice to protect our special needs children! Feel free to send a letter/call/Email: CO-CHAIRPERSONS of health subcommittee of appropriations (note **=members of ID/DD caucus), **Sen. Terry Gerratana (D-S6) Room 3002, LOB (860)240-0584 [email protected] Rep. Patricia Dillon (D-92) Room 4019, LOB (860) 240-8585 [email protected] MEMBERS: for all of the Republicans you need to go on their websites to e-mail, for the democrats use the formula--- [email protected] **Sen. Paul Formica (R-S20) Room 3901, LOB (860) 240-0574 **Rep. Whit Betts (R-78) Room 4200, LOB (860) 240-8700 **Rep. Catherine Abercrombie (D-83) Room 2002, LOB (860) 240-0492 **Rep. Kevin Ryan (D-139) Room 4108, LOB (860) 240-8585 Rep. Andre Baker, Jr. (D-124) Room 5008, LOB (860) 240-8585 **Rep. Peter Tercyak (D-26) Room 3804, LOB (860) 240-8585 Rep. Juan Candelaria (D-95) Room 1804, LOB (860) 240-8585 **Rep. Mitch Bolinsky (R-106) Room 4053, LOB (860) 240-8700 **Rep. Susan Johnson (D-49) Room 5007, LOB (860) 240-8585 **Rep. Jay Case (R-63) Room 2004, LOB (860) 240-8700 Rep. Robyn Porter (D-94) Room 2704, LOB (860) 240-8585 **Rep. Kathleen McCarty (R-38) Room 4046, LOB (860) 240-8700 LEADERSHIP OF APPROPRIATIONS-Co-chairs: **Senator Beth Bye, Deputy Majority Leader(D5)1-800-842-1420, need to e-mail via link on her website Representative Toni Walker, (D-93) , 1-800-842-8267 [email protected] LEADERSHIP OF LEGISLATURE: Senate President Martin Looney, (D-11), (800)-842-1420, must go on website to e-mail Senator Bob Duff, Senate Majority Leader (D-25), (800)-842-1420, [email protected] Rep. Joe Aresimowic, House Majority Leader (D-30), (860) 240-8489 [email protected] Rep. Brendan Sharkey, Speaker of the House (D-88),1-800-842-1902, [email protected] DR. RIVELLI'S LETTER TO STATE LEGISLATORS: The developmental disability community is currently experiencing a crisis due to unprecedented cuts to essential DDS services and slashing of funds to all other critical services. I know this because as a pediatrician I am seeing my patients affected. Closer to home, as the parent of a 20 year old with autism and intellectual...

Our national parks are one of our most valuable resources. For decades, democrats and republicans have worked together to keep them protected but in the face of big money and corporate lobbyists, they may be sold off for development and lost forever.

The Department of Natural Resources in Indiana is proposing the re-model of a landmark building to put in a restaurant and bar. They are leasing this building for $1500.00 a month, plus 2% of the net gross. They are also allowing a building to be built that would be used for weddings, meetings etc., and possibly in the future a Hotel. This park was just named the 7th best state park in the nation. They have been working on this deal for over 3 years, while telling the public they were working just on getting the building renovated. They told the public last week the contracts have been signed. This lease is for 30 years. Who gets to rent an existing two story building on Lake Michigan for 1500.00 a month? The parking lots are there for the people who come to the Dunes and the beach to use, not private enterprise. No alcohol is allowed in any state park, but it will be in this bar. Now the question is who owed who a political payback to reap this sweet deal. Stop the DNR from destroying this beautiful park.

We the people of Stuyvesant Gardens community & the Williams family lost a great person, Ms. Williams lost her life saving children. When Ms. Williams learned children were in the backyard while shots were being fired, she rushed out the lobby to push the children to safety. While doing so, she lost her life. Her killer was never arrested. She was very active in the Stuyvesant community. Seven years ago we were promise by a council member, Darlene Marley, that she would honor Ms. Williams by naming Stuyvesant Gardens playground after Ms. Williams. She never delivered!

Our government is being taken over by Big Money. Yet the vote will cancel out money every time. The low percentage of voters is a disgrace and embarrassing, but more importantly the results of elections these days do not reflect the majority of Americans and the policies that most Americans support. Just the talk of making Election Day a national holiday will start a conversation around voting.

This "school" targeted low income families single parents and veterans. They promised a quality education and job placement and that our credits would transfer to any college. Lies lies lies. The DOE has bailed this company out over and over again. However we are stuck with these worthless degrees. Please show your support. We have over 9 Attorneys General backing us and the consumer financial protection bureau. Thank you!

We the people of Stuyvesant Gardens & the Williams family, were promise that the playground behind 730 gates ave building would be name after Mrs. Williams. She saved children's lives. When Ms. William learned there were children in the backyard during a shoot out, she ran out of the lobby to bring them to safety. After she shoved the last child to safety, was when she got shot.

We are speaking for thousands of people who can not speak...don't know what to write..or can not write. A very vulnerable population. The services they receive now are good for them..they like the services..they grow and prosper with these services. The system is not broken it does not need to be fixed or changed.

My name is SSG. Mike Bryant (retired). I am a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and have been medically retired because of a long list of health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of the medications that are given out for PTSD have some very rough side effects, including suicidal tendencies. I can tell you from experience that marijuana helps with PTSD, but I can not use it for fear of prosecution because it is illegal in Kentucky. Marijuana has been clinically proven to help PTSD but for some reason most law makers choose to ignore this fact. Will you help those who have sacrificed so much in the name of freedom by asking Kentucky to legalize medicinal marijuana?<