2008 Anti-Smoking Hypocrisy Award Goes to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is the hands-down winner of the 2008 Anti-Smoking Hypocrisy Award.

Here is an organization which bemoans what it says is the use of menthol flavoring in cigarettes to entice youths but then works to block a Congressional amendment to the FDA legislation which would have added menthol to the list of flavorings banned by that legislation.

Here is an organization that encourages youths to simulate physical violence on tobacco industry executives, but secretly meets with those representatives to negotiate legislation that will be favorable to the nation's leading cigarette company.

Here is an organization that talks about the need to stop the tobacco companies from deceiving the public, but runs a campaign of deception so convincing that even a renowned history professor at Harvard re-writes history due to the Campaign's deception.

Here is an organization that blasts tobacco companies for putting pink on their packs, but lobbies to protect the companies' ability to put menthol in their cigarettes.

Here is an organization that attacks the tobacco companies for not respecting the law but tries to elicit billions of dollars from those companies without any legal basis.

Here is an organization that criticizes tobacco companies for using public relations to skew public opinion, but uses its own public relations propaganda strategy to skew opinion within the tobacco control community about the FDA tobacco legislation.

Here is an organization which proposes regulating the tobacco industry because it cannot be trusted to tell the truth, but which is itself incapable of telling the truth to the public or to its constituents.

Here is an organization whose executive director violates President-Elect Obama's ethics rules for his transition team by joining a group to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the FDA) when he lobbied for the FDA tobacco legislation during the past year, a practice which is disallowed by the transition team ethics rules.

In 2008, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' actions started with hypocrisy and ended with hypocrisy. There is no more deserving winner of the 2008 Anti-Smoking Hypocrisy Award.