Global elites think you’re too stupid for soda and beer



The latest wheeze from global public health elites? Jack up taxes on tobacco, alcohol, sugary drinks, and processed food by 50% to raise $3.7 trillion in new revenue. They call it “health policy.” In plain English, it’s government-sanctioned theft.

This isn’t about curing disease. It’s about expanding state power. These so-called health taxes, pushed by academic ideologues and international bureaucrats, are little more than economic punishment disguised as progress. They won’t meaningfully reduce illness, but they’ll absolutely hit working people the hardest.

Sin taxes don’t foster well-being — they weaponize economic pain against the people who can least afford it.

The new push for massive taxes on soda, smokes, beer, and snacks is social engineering with a hefty price tag. The goal isn’t better health so much as behavioral compliance. And who pays for it? Not corporations. Not policymakers. Regular people. Especially those already stretched thin.

The promise of $3.7 trillion in new revenue tells you everything you need to know. This is about cash, not caring. You’re not going to fix the obesity crisis by making a Coke cost $4. You’re just making life worse for the guy who wants a cold drink after work.

These aren’t just products. They’re small pleasures — a beer at dinner, a smoke on break, a soda on a hot afternoon. Legal, affordable, familiar. Stripping them from people’s lives in the name of “health” doesn’t uplift anyone. It makes life more miserable.

And this plan doesn’t educate or empower. It punishes. It uses taxes to bludgeon people into compliance. That’s not public health — that’s moral authoritarianism.

Proponents claim that higher prices discourage consumption, especially among young people. But that’s not smart policy — it’s an admission that the entire strategy relies on pricing people out of their own choices.

That’s not a sign of sound policy; it’s a confession that the aim is to price people out of their own choices. It’s hard not to see this as profoundly elitist. A worldview in which an ignorant public must be nudged, coerced, and taxed into making decisions deemed acceptable by a distant class of arrogant policymakers.

Sin taxes don’t foster well-being — they weaponize economic pain against the people who can least afford it. The more someone spends on a drink or a cigarette, the less they can spend on rent, groceries, or gas. In the U.K., economists found that sin taxes cost low-income families up to 10 times more than they cost the wealthy. That holds true in the United States as well. These are regressive by design.

History offers a warning. Prohibition didn’t end drinking — it empowered criminals. Today, in places like Australia, black markets for vapes and other restricted products are booming. When governments overregulate, people continue to consume. They just go underground, and quality, safety, and accountability go with them.

Public health bureaucrats love to talk about the “commercial determinants of health,” blaming industry for every social ill. But they ignore the personal determinants that matter even more: freedom, dignity, and the right to make informed decisions.

RELATED: Cigarettes and beer: The heady perfume that transports me to my childhood

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People already know the risks of smoking, drinking, and sugar consumption. They’ve seen the labels and heard the warnings for years. They don’t need lectures from bureaucrats, government ministers, or international agencies. What they need is respect — and the freedom to live as they choose.

These new tax schemes don’t offer support or alternatives. They rely on coercion, not persuasion. The state becomes the enforcer, not the helper. It’s a government model that punishes pleasure and equates restriction with virtue.

The sinister core of this health tax agenda lies in its relentless condescension. It assumes people are too stupid, too reckless, or too addicted to choose what’s best for themselves, and so government must intervene forcefully and repeatedly.

This is control, not compassionate governance.

A better path exists — one rooted in harm reduction, not prohibition. Encourage low-sugar drink options. Expand access to safer nicotine alternatives. Support moderate alcohol consumption. Respect the people you’re trying to help.

If public health advocates truly want to improve outcomes, they should abandon these regressive, punitive proposals. They should promote innovation, not punishment. Education, not enforcement.

Because real public health doesn’t treat people like problems to be managed. It treats them like citizens — free to live, choose, and thrive.

Hormonal birth control: As bad for you as smoking



Filmmaker and mother Jessica Solce was frustrated by the difficulty of finding healthy, all-natural products for herself and her family. To make it easier, she created the Solarium, which curates trusted, third-party-tested foods, clothing, beauty products, and more — all free of seed oils, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and other harmful additives.

In this occasional column she shares recommendations and research she's picked up during her ongoing education in health and wellness.

“Changes in gray and white matter in brains of women taking [oral contraceptives] suggest that OCs have an effect on brain architecture.” —Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, volume 67, October 2022.

I tried birth control in college. It lasted less than three months, and then I ran for the hills.

Birth control distorts sexual attraction. Women are literally put off the scent of the hunt for the right partner.

I hated how my body was feeling. It was swelling, and my mind was unsettled and lethargic. Luckily I had an old-world mother who always warned me never to take birth control, so I tiptoed into my college experiment with awareness and wariness, hypervigilant for any side effects.

Before we get into exactly why hormonal birth control is systemically wrecking your body and mind — both on a micro (you) and a macro (societal, generational) level — I'm going to skip ahead to the takeaway. This is easily one of the most important things you'll read all week, and I can't risk you clicking off before you finish reading.

Here it is: Ladies, don't use the pill, the patch, or the ring. Or any method of contraception interfering with your body's delicate balance of hormones.

It doesn’t matter if it has some “positive” side effects. Any pharmaceutical intervention will upend your body's natural balance, and whatever the “positive” side effects, they are absolutely overshadowed by the multitude of negative side effects: migraines, anxiety attacks, loss of libido, brain alterations, thrombosis, personality disorders, depression, and cancer.

Your best option, to quote Nancy Reagan, is to just say no.

Of course, the former first lady was talking about illegal drugs. But if we've learned anything in the past couple of decades, it's that the stuff the pharmaceutical companies peddle can be just as bad.

Maybe you've heard this kind of talk linked to the slogan Make America Healthy Again. Even if MAHA is a little too similar to MAGA for your taste, don't buy into the propaganda that ditching birth control is somehow a partisan issue.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, 29-year-old pop singer Lorde spoke positively about her decision to stop using birth control for the first time since she was fifteen. Still, she felt the need to issue a disclaimer: “I’ve now come to see my decision was maybe some quasi right-wing programming."

RELATED: Lorde and 5 other celebs who broke up with birth control

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Well, if a woman living in tune with her body and not dependent on Big Pharma is right-wing, welcome to the right wing, Lorde. Welcome, all.

Here's what hormonal birth control does in addition to preventing pregnancy.

It changes who you're attracted to

In 2008, 100 women were asked to sniff the shirts of men and rate them by odor, most to least attractive. The results suggested that women on the pill preferred the scent of men with similar MHC genes. MHC genes are crucial to the development of the immune system; offspring of parents with a well-balanced diversity of these genes tend to be more resistant to disease.

By contrast, women not on birth control were drawn to men with dissimilar MHC genes — selecting for offspring with strong immune systems. You're instinctively drawn to a man whose genes fill in what you’re missing — a match that benefits your future children. Incredible, really.

Birth control distorts sexual attraction. Women are literally put off the scent of the hunt for the right partner.

Also, when a woman goes off birth control, she can find herself no longer attracted to her partner’s pheromones.

It messes with our water supply

We in the West love to point out the detrimental environmental effects of automobiles while ignoring the toxic emissions from our own bodies. All of the drugs we consume end up passing through us and right back into the water system.

This pollutes our drinking water as well as the habitats of aquatic animals. Like the herbicide atrazine, estrogen from birth control can wreak havoc on mating cycles, causing intersex conditions, low sperm count, and population collapse.

It increases the risk of cancer

Users of hormonal contraceptives face a 20% to 30% higher risk of breast cancer. And yet most reports tend to dismiss any alarm this figure might raise. This reassuring passage is typical: "Experts say the increased risk is small and the benefits of hormonal contraceptives still outweigh the risks for many people."

Contrast that with the general attitude toward another known cancer risk: smoking cigarettes. Even just five cigarettes a day increases your risk of lung cancer by almost 8%. Once you get up to pack or two a day, that risk rises to something like 25%.

In other words, about the same increased risk as birth control.

When it comes to cigarettes, however, the "experts" sing a different tune: "There’s no 'safe' number of cigarettes you can smoke per day. Any number of cigarettes can increase your risk of developing cancer."

It messes with your brain

A 2019 study found that women who take oral contraception had a significantly smaller hypothalamus than those who don't. The hypothalamus is the region of the brain regulating any number of bodily functions, from sex drive and sleep cycles to appetite and heart rate.

A smaller hypothalamus correlates with depression and decreased emotional regulation.

Vice soon responded with an article "debunking" the study: Yes, birth control alters the structure of the brain, but who's to say that's a bad thing?

Yeah, no thanks.

A 2023 study revealed that women on oral contraceptives did not experience the typical reduction in the stress hormone ACTH after social activities. This suggests that hormonal contraceptives may alter how the body regulates stress and directly causes elevated cortisol levels.

It makes being a teenager exponentially worse

A 2016 Danish study found that females 15 to 19 using oral contraception were likely to be diagnosed with depression at a 70% higher rate than non-users. The patch and vaginal rings had even higher correlation with depression.

Many of those diagnosed go on to take antidepressants, another lifetime prescription keeping them dependent on the pharmaceutical companies.

Still, birth control defenders say there's nothing to see here. In the words of Dr. Cora Breuner, a Seattle pediatrician who chairs the committee on adolescents for the American Academy of Pediatrics, “An unintended and unwanted pregnancy far outweighs all the other side effects that could occur from a contraceptive."

Oh, and taking birth control during adolescence can also disrupt brain development, especially processes related to the fear response.

Could rampant birth control use have anything to do with women's higher rates of anxiety disorders? Seems like a question worth asking.

It gets into breast milk

What we eat goes directly into our breast milk and into our babies. Do we really need a science experiment for this logic? We're advised not to eat too much broccoli because it may give our babies uncomfortable gas.

RELATED: MAHA study unveiled: The truth behind autism

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But don’t worry about those drugs you're taking, and have you considered updating your vaccines?

Do you want to fill your babies' bodies with synthetic estrogen or progestin? Logically these synthetic hormones go downstream and directly into our breast milk. If there is a negative risk to my infant’s growth, that is enough warning for me.

We are already aware that oral contraceptives increase chances of cancer and may cause behavioral and personality disorders.

So why is cancer increasing so drastically in children? We actually know. Leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children, and a Scandinavian study found a direct link to birth control.

It messes with your metabolism

Some birth control pills, especially those with certain hormones like androgenic progestins, can negatively affect glucose metabolism, i.e., make it harder for the body to handle sugar. This means blood sugar and insulin levels may spike after eating, which can lead to problems like insulin resistance, a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

It can cause other life-altering side effects

“I would get these migraines that would shock my body into so much pain that I would then have seizures,” said one woman in a 2018 BBC documentary. Also on the menu are anxiety attacks, weight gain, pulmonary embolisms, and blood clots.

Good luck addressing any of these problems. Most doctors aren't trained to recognize birth control side effects, often leading women to seek additional pharmaceutical solutions.

It's coming for men, too

That's right, guys. Thank to the wonders of science, soon all of this can be yours too. Who knows what interesting new effects we'll see when we start tampering with male hormones?

Health begins with the awareness that our bodies are incredibly complex, elegantly constructed systems. My mission with the Solarium is to help us be better stewards of this natural gift.

Smoke-free surge stalled by feds clinging to old habits



The U.S. nicotine market is undergoing a historic shift — one that should be celebrated as a major public health breakthrough. A new Goldman Sachs report forecasts that smoke-free nicotine products will surpass cigarettes in consumption by 2025 and come close to matching them in revenue and profit by 2035.

This shift isn’t the result of government policy. It’s happening because consumers are making better choices. Yet federal regulators appear determined to stand in the way.

Nicotine may be addictive, but it isn’t what causes cancer, heart disease, or emphysema. The culprit is combustion.

The data couldn’t be clearer. Millions of smokers are abandoning cigarettes for reduced-risk products like vaping devices, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco. Cigarette sales are plummeting — from 12.9 billion packs in 2016 to a projected 2.7 billion by 2035.

This trend should give public health agencies a reason to cheer. Instead, the Food and Drug Administration is dragging its feet, imposing policies that make it harder — not easier — for adult smokers to switch to safer alternatives. The FDA’s obstruction risks slowing one of the most promising developments in decades for reducing smoking-related deaths.

Free market for the win

Despite the flood of misinformation, the market is succeeding where decades of public health campaigns have failed: It’s making cigarettes obsolete. Given the choice, consumers are ditching smoke for safer alternatives that deliver nicotine without combustion’s deadly byproducts. This isn’t just progress — it’s a landmark victory for harm reduction.

The free market deserves credit for this shift. While government anti-smoking efforts have leaned heavily on punitive tactics — higher taxes, grotesque warning labels, and outright bans — real declines in smoking have come where reduced-risk nicotine products are legal and accessible. In the United States, this transformation is unfolding not because of regulators, but in spite of them.

At the heart of the problem lies the FDA’s Pre-Market Tobacco Application process. Supposedly designed to vet new nicotine products, the PMTA system has become a bureaucratic bottleneck. It’s opaque, glacial, and unreasonably strict. The result? A legal market riddled with uncertainty — and an illegal one thriving in its place.

Today, more than 60% of e-vapor sales come from illicit, unregulated products. That’s not because consumers prefer them. It’s because the FDA has made it nearly impossible for legitimate companies to get reduced-risk products approved and onto shelves. The agency has created a regulatory vacuum — and the black market has filled it.

Federal foot-dragging

The dysfunction doesn’t stop with vaping. Heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches — both widely recognized abroad as effective harm reduction tools — face the same bureaucratic purgatory. Meanwhile, traditional cigarettes remain widely available and profitable. If public health were truly the FDA’s goal, it would fast-track reduced-risk alternatives, not prop up the very products causing the most harm.

But the FDA’s foot-dragging has real consequences. More Americans will stay hooked on cigarettes longer than they otherwise would. The data is in: Alternative nicotine products help people quit smoking. Blocking legal access to them doesn’t protect public health — it prolongs addiction and guarantees more smoking-related deaths. By stalling the shift to safer products, the FDA is effectively locking millions into a habit that kills roughly half its users.

Regulatory inertia also risks stifling competition in the industry. Cigarettes still generate 66% of industry revenue and 70% of profits. The companies leading the charge toward a smoke-free future — those that don’t sell cigarettes — face the stiffest regulatory headwinds. In effect, the government is shielding the cigarette market rather than accelerating its collapse.

A better way exists. Federal regulators could champion this shift instead of obstructing it. The FDA should fast-track approvals for products with significantly lower health risks than cigarettes. Doing so would give consumers legal access to safer options while shrinking the black market.

The public also deserves the truth. Nicotine may be addictive, but it isn’t what causes cancer, heart disease, or emphysema. The culprit is combustion. And the longer that confusion persists, the more smokers the FDA leaves behind.

Outcomes or optics?

Federal regulators should stop protecting the tobacco industry and start supporting companies that are moving the U.S. away from combustible cigarettes. That means giving independent vape makers and harm-reduction innovators a fighting chance, instead of letting Big Tobacco tighten its grip through regulatory capture.

Regulation should make cigarettes less appealing — not safer alternatives harder to get. Risk-proportionate rules would prioritize public health by nudging smokers toward lower-risk products, not driving them into the black market or back to Marlboro.

Goldman Sachs’ latest data shows the market is doing what public health campaigns never could: making smoking obsolete. If regulators got out of the way — or better yet, helped — the fall of Big Tobacco could come even faster.

Cigarettes are dying. The FDA can either help bury them or keep dragging out their final act. The question is whether public health officials care more about optics or outcomes. The market has already chosen. It’s time for the government to catch up.

Cigarettes and beer: The heady perfume that transports me to my childhood



I remember the smell of cigarette smoke in the 1990s. It was the last time in America when you might smell cigarettes in a bar or a restaurant. It’s a smell that always reminds me of my childhood.

Nostalgia. Memories. The world that was. The world we saw, heard, and smelled.

Those were the smells of our dads. Cigarettes, beer, liquor, gasoline, sawdust, the garage. They make me smile.

I sound like an old-timer memorializing another era. But it was only yesterday, wasn't it?

Thirty years ago now.

Gas on pump two

My dad smoked. Marlboro Lights. I remember standing next to him in the gas station countless times. “Gas on pump two, and two packs of Marlboro Lights in the box.” That’s what he would always say. He would motion to the boxes with his hand or lean over the counter a little as he asked in a voice he never used at home.

He smoked in the car. The window cracked, his elbow on the door, the cigarette hanging right above the glass. I could smell it so faintly in the back seat. Just barely.

I remember late at night, on long road trips, the sight of that orange ember on the end of the cigarette in the dark night. The green lights of the dashboard and his hand on the steering wheel.

My dad didn’t smoke in the house. He would stand at the door to the garage. Crack it about six inches with his hand on the doorframe so the smoke wouldn’t come in. The smell of Stroh’s, cigarette smoke, and cold air. I remember standing in the kitchen talking to my dad right there. The smell of all those things together. That’s a memory.

Bacon and eggs

My grandparents smoked, too. Salems. They bought them in the carton. They smoked inside the house. We didn’t live too far away, and we visited them often. Sometimes we would stay over the weekend.

I remember my grandpa standing in the kitchen frying eggs in an electric frying pan, an ashtray on the counter and a burning cigarette turning to ash. The smell of syrup and bacon grease, smoke and coffee. Still in my pajamas.

My grandparents drank 7&7s at night. I would watch my dad sitting with my grandpa, smoking and drinking. The sweet smell of the 7-Up tainted by the unappealing, all-too-adult scent of Seagram's. The look of the sweaty glass. Cigarette smoke in the air.

These are old memories, places I haven't been to in years. Moments I can’t find in a picture or a video. But certain smells linger. They connect to some place behind my eyes, and I am there again. My grandpa and my dad. The smell of cigarettes.

Basics and Bud

My wife’s dad smoked. Basics. He worked out in the garage a lot. For her, it’s sawdust mixed with the smell of Basics and the faint aroma of Bud Light. Those are her memories, her dad. I knew my wife in high school. I remember walking through that garage and saying a quick “hi” to her dad as he stood back there behind his workbench.

Those were the smells of our dads. Cigarettes, beer, liquor, gasoline, sawdust, the garage. They make me smile. Our dads; they seem so big when we are little. They seem so grown and so old.

I am his age now. Do I loom so large over my son? Those smells felt so familiar, yet so strange and unappealing at the same time. Beer and cigarettes don’t sound good when you are little kid, but they are the smell of your dad.

My dad always smoked when he was working on some home improvement project. I close my eyes and I can see him putting all his weight on a screwdriver with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Muttering profanities under his breath, cursing the cheap screws.

My son won’t have the same scent memories that I do. His grandfather doesn’t smoke in the kitchen over a pan of fried eggs. His dad doesn’t request the smoking section when we go out to eat. There aren’t any smoking sections any more. Some of his memories will be the same as mine, but not these. Those scents are from another time.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Yeah, we all know that cigarettes aren’t the healthiest thing in the world. I’m sick of hearing about it. I’m starting to think there are a lot worse things than a pack of butts, if we are being honest.

I’ve become anti-anti-smoking.

Those scent memories that still hang deep in my nose remind me of being a kid and looking up at my dad. How he held his cigarette between his fingers and how he brought it to his lips. Feeling so little and like nothing would ever happen to me because my dad would always protect me. Like everything would always be OK. I miss the smell of cigarettes.

Smoking out, vaping in: A new CDC report offers cause for optimism



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey results, an annual assessment of various health-related behaviors among U.S. adults. Tobacco control advocates have reason to celebrate: The adult smoking rate has reached record lows, and in some states, young adult smoking rates are nearly nonexistent.

According to the BRFSS, only 12.1% of adults across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., smoked in 2023, down from 14% in 2022. This drop represents a decrease from 36.4 million smokers in 2022 to 31.7 million in 2023, a reduction of approximately 4.7 million. The decline among young adults aged 18 to 24 is even more notable: Only 5.6% smoked in 2023, marking a 23.5% decrease from 2022 and a dramatic 76.5% decline over the past decade.

Inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

While tobacco control advocates credit these historic lows to policies like taxes and smoking bans, the rise in e-cigarette use also appears correlated with the reduction in smoking rates. From 2016 to 2023, vaping among young adults rose by 90%, while their smoking rates fell by 63.8%. Interestingly, young adult vaping rates have also started to decline, dropping 23.5% from 20.9% in 2022 to 18.9% in 2023.

In some states, such as Utah and New York, young adult smoking rates are exceptionally low, at 2.6% and 3.4%, respectively. Even Oklahoma, which has the highest young adult smoking rate at 9.1%, is still significantly lower than the national adult average of 12.1%.

These trends extend to youth smoking and vaping statistics. According to the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 1.6% of U.S. middle and high school students reported current cigarette use in 2023. Youth vaping has also declined significantly, with only 5.9% of U.S. youth vaping this year — a 70.5% drop from 2019, when 20% were vaping. In just five years, America went from one in five youth using e-cigarettes to one in 20.

Despite these positive trends, many tobacco control advocates continue to push for strict policies and high taxes, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been slow to process authorizations for newer tobacco harm-reduction products. This has contributed to public misunderstandings about the relative risks of these products compared to traditional cigarettes.

Numerous organizations, including the American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the Truth Initiative, recognize the significant declines in youth vaping but remain concerned about the frequency of use among current users, particularly criticizing flavored tobacco and vapor products.

The ALA describes vaping as “a serious public health concern,” while CTFK emphasizes that youth e-cigarette use “remains a serious public health problem” and calls for an end to this “crisis” by urging federal agencies like the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice to intensify their efforts to eliminate all illegal e-cigarettes from the market. Similarly, the Truth Initiative asserts that “youth nicotine addiction remains a serious public health concern.”

All these groups criticize flavored products, despite adults using these flavors in innovative tobacco harm-reduction products to remain smoke-free. These groups also focus their efforts on newer oral nicotine pouches, even though less than 2% of youth report using such products.

These groups are not alone. The inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

Since 2015, the FDA has issued only 56 marketing orders for newer tobacco products introduced in the United States after February 2007. Despite authorizing more than 16,000 other tobacco products since 2012, the FDA has approved marketing for only 34 e-cigarette products. In contrast, in 2023, the agency issued more than 660 orders for combustible cigarettes, despite declining smoking rates among American adults. This disparity likely contributes to public confusion about the relative health benefits of e-cigarettes.

Policymakers and tobacco control groups should recognize and celebrate the historic reductions in cigarette use among both adults and youth. This is a significant public health achievement that may be driven by the availability of tobacco harm-reduction products, such as e-cigarettes and oral nicotine pouches.

Instead of resisting these market trends and products that have been associated with significant declines in smoking rates, these groups should advocate enhanced access to these alternatives to help end the use of combustible cigarettes once and for all.

‘A Devastating Impact’: Harris’s Silence On Key Biden Policy Leaves American Farmers In The Lurch

'A Devastating Impact': Harris's Silence On Key Biden Policy Leaves American Farmers In The Lurch

‘Lethargic And Obese’: Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith Chide Tim Walz For Being ‘Afraid Of Testosterone’

’It’s not like health is really the concern here’

WHO’s New Tobacco Guidelines Prioritize Ideology Over Public Health

By ignoring the benefit of non-combustible nicotine products in helping smokers quit, the WHO is jeopardizing public health.

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By trying to take down Zyn, the federal government is seeking to suppress the vibrant, youthful spirit that once defined America.

EXCLUSIVE: Former FDA Official Cozied Up To Activists Months Before Joining Them, Emails Show

Truth Initiative paid its last CEO about $1.1 million