How do you boycott the American Cancer Society? Lace your home with asbestos and put UV lamps in all your light fixtures?
Many of us have already started a boycott against them last month, by stopping all of our donations.
Posted on 05/12/2005 5:03:38 AM EDT by SheLion
ALBANY, N.Y. - Smoking rights' groups, tavern owners and libertarian political parties in nine states are calling for a boycott of donations to major charities, saying their support of smoking bans is a threat to small businesses and civil rights.
"No more," says Audrey Silk, founder of NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, which is leading what appears to be the first-ever boycott of the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Association.
"We will stop contributing to Big Nanny," she said. "Why do we want to donate to groups that are out to ruin our businesses and demean us as human beings?"
Smokers' and libertarian groups from Minnesota to Massachusetts are targeting the nonprofits for their political activities. The smokers' rights groups complain that the charities don't just support research and people afflicted with disease, but use their considerable lobbying power to help write smoking bans in states and municipalities.
Silk says her group gets no money from tobacco interests.
Silk targeted the American Cancer Society's radio and print advertising campaign in New Jersey, which calls on residents to urge their elected officials to pass an indoor smoking ban. Such bans hurt "mom-and-pop businesses and are intended to make pariahs out of adults engaging in a legal behavior," she said.
American Cancer Society national spokeswoman Colleen Wilber said she hasn't heard of such a boycott before. But she said the organization's lobbying efforts to support smoking bans to protect workers from secondhand smoke draw local opposition.
"We know people lose their lives to secondhand smoke and we see it as our obligation to protect those people from getting sick or dying," said Karen Becker, spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society of New York and New Jersey, which supports New Jersey's proposed indoor smoking ban.
The boycott effort is supported by Silk's CLASH, the national Smokers Club Inc., Illinois Smokers' Rights group, Indiana Amusement & Music Operators Association, the Kentucky Licensed Beverage Association, the Metro Louisville Hospitality Coalition, the Cambridge Citizens For Smokers' Rights in Massachusetts, the Smoke Out Gary group based in Minneapolis, Minnesotans Against Smoking Bans, the Fight City Hall group of Minnesota, Taverners United for Fairness New York, the American Arborist of New York, the Madison County Chapter of the Independence Party Ohio, the Lakewood Hospitality Association of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Smokers Action Network and Tennessee's Yes S.I.R. group.
The groups are urging members and sympathizers to continue to donate to charities with similar goals including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Mary Crowley Medical Research Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Shriners Hospital for Children as well as local medical charities.
don't donate to the united way for one