FORCES (Fight Ordinances & Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking)

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

FORCES (Fight Ordinances & Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking) is a smokers rights group that opposes clean indoor air laws. FORCES is a nonprofit organization registered in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, a tobacco-growing state that is also home to the headquarters of Philip Morris.

FORCES strives to portray smoking as a human right and laws limiting where people can smoke as violations of human rights. FORCES also works to portray efforts to improve public health as paternalistic.

A current (2007) member of the board of FORCES is Gian Turci, who has been in communication with the tobacco industry in the past. Turci wrote, in an October 6, 1997 letter received by Mark Berlind of Philip Morris:

I would like to thank you and the CTMC [Canadian Tobacco Manufacturer's Council] for the wonderful hospitality reserved to me during my visit. I am sure that this will mark the beginning of a good and mutually beneficial cooperation between FORCES, other smoker' right groups, and the industry. However, I will keep our communications confidential for obvious reasons.