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Tobacco is considered one of the most addictive products on earth, 9 out of 10 smokers start as children or teenagers, and tobacco companies are known to spike nicotine levels in cigarettes to make them more addictive so kids get hooked faster. In what sense, then, does this represent a “choice”?

I hope someone finally does take a serious look at these Big Tobacco shills. You see this all over the internet now and occasionally in letters to the editor - which is to say, places where their BS won’t be subject to immediate and direct scrutiny by people who are able to refute it. This has become a sort of cottage industry: set up a website where you advance all the usual tobacco industry arguments and rhetoric, include a link to a PayPal account, and wait for those anonymous “donations” to roll in.

If you really want to get to the heart of the problem, I say tobacco companies' activities should be carefully monitored; we should know where every dime they spend goes. I predict we would then see a lot fewer smokers' advocacy organizations and so-called "citizens groups" which promote the tobacco industry's agenda thinly veiled as issues of "freedom," "choice” and “government encroachment.” And perhaps at least one less “tobacco control advocate” supporting those shills on his tobacco analysis blog. Though I suppose I can’t include a link to the most obvious offenders because PRwatch doesn’t enjoy being threatened with frivolous lawsuits, understandably.