They want to sell more gums and patches and nicotine inhalers.

The pharmaceutical companies fund both the Republicans and the Democrats parties in this country. Due to the high price of pharmaceuticals in the United States, the pharmaceutical companies can buy out just enough mayors, city council members, state legislators and governors, so passing laws banning smoking is easy.

Here is a pro-smoker's rights website I have found interesting at times:

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

They cover the issue mostly in the USA but also on an international scale (as smoking bans have spread to other countries) and talk about the involvement of the global power of pharmaceutical companies.

For every prison, hospital, restaurant, college dormitory and other public place that has banned smoking there's just more and more gums and patches (and other "nicotine delivery devices") that the pharmaceutical companies hope to sell (even though they don't work for most people to help them stop smoking).

The pharmaceutical companies also set up and fund (there own and other) non-profit organizations that promote non-smoking laws.

For example, Johnson and Johnson (a maker of a nicotine patch) created and funds the non-profit Robert Woods Johnson foundation. The money Johnson and Johnson donates to the non-profit organization gives Johnson and Johnson special tax advantages. The non-profit foundation then takes that money and spends it on promoting anti-smoking laws. The money goes to pay for publications, "public service" commercials and billboards, lobbyists. There's a whole section of the economy that feeds off of the funds available to demonize smoking.

And they are not above lying about the health effects and economic effects (restaurant and bar closures), to get communities to bow to the new laws.

The sound of many voices calling for smoking restrictions is really the voice of the pharmaceutical companies talking through many puppets.

Every time I get a phone call asking for a donation to fund the American Heart Association or the American Lung Association or the Cancer Society, I decline and explain that their organization has promoted anti-smoking laws and so I can no longer support them.

You might remember when tobacco companies sponsored sports events. They are banned from doing that any more. But now the pharmaceutical companies sponsor sports event.

My own personal suspicions go so far as to suspect that the pharmaceutical companies and their non-profit organizations fund both the pro-smoker's-rights and anti-smoking groups in order to control the direction of the debate and the final legislative outcome, but I have no proof of that.