You are right in terms of the tobacco control industry footsoldiers. They are often ideologists who are simple, trusting propaganda victims and cannot understand basic economics.
The people at the top who give the orders are a different breed. They are protecting the trillion dollar a year smoking economy, which makes fortunes for government, States, the pharmaceutical industry and the public health industry. These policymakers and influencers do their utmost to protect cigarette sales as that is the foundation the entire money machine is based on. States get billions from the MSA payments; pharma gets tens of billions from sick smoker drug treatments.
So it depends on who you are talking about: the useful idiots at the bottom who think they are working for public health but are in fact working to protect smoking (as blocking THR stops the only real threat to cigarette sales now), or the people at the top such as the fake charity CEOs who get salaries of $1 million a year to protect smoking from THR.
The people at the top who give the orders are a different breed. They are protecting the trillion dollar a year smoking economy, which makes fortunes for government, States, the pharmaceutical industry and the public health industry. These policymakers and influencers do their utmost to protect cigarette sales as that is the foundation the entire money machine is based on. States get billions from the MSA payments; pharma gets tens of billions from sick smoker drug treatments.
So it depends on who you are talking about: the useful idiots at the bottom who think they are working for public health but are in fact working to protect smoking (as blocking THR stops the only real threat to cigarette sales now), or the people at the top such as the fake charity CEOs who get salaries of $1 million a year to protect smoking from THR.
