Who Bought the Minnesota Smoking Ban? Part 1

When the 2007 legislature passed the Minnesota Smoking Ban, many of the legislators who voted in favor of the bill contended that regular Minnesota citizens were clamoring for an indoor smoking ban; that it was a grassroots movement. We, here at Ban the Ban Minnesota do not believe that was true, as many non-smokers do not support the smoking ban, and many others may like the ban simply because the smoke was “annoying”.

The truth of the matter is that there was a lot of money dumped into lobbying for the ban. For this post, we’ll take a look at an organziation called, “Clearway Minnesota”. Clearway Minnesota receives $10 million a year from the 1998 tobacco settlement. Initially, Clearway Minnesota focused on their disappointing quitting plan (trademark name not used here), which is supposed to help people to quit smoking. Unfortunately, less than 1% of Minnesota smokers have quit smoking with the help of Clearway’s quitting plan, according to their website. We would call this program a failure.

In an effort to stir things up, Clearway Minnesota began using their settlement money to pursue smoking bans. This got the attention of the MN Attorney General in 2002, Mike Hatch, and he took Clearway Minnesota (then known as MPAAT) to court. The judge ruled against MPAAT. However, MPAAT changed its name to Clearway Minnesota and Mike Hatch was blasted as a “big tobacco” sympathizer.

Clearway then continued on its mission of lobbying for smoking bans. In 2004, Clearway Minnesota granted $115,000 to The William Mitchell School of Law to get their opinion on passing smoking bans. That same year granted the following for smoking bans:

$34,000 Clay County Public Health

$75,000 Hennepin Medical Society

$85,000 Family Support

$130,000 Goodhue County Public Health

There are probably about another $500,000 worth of grants that may have gone to promote smoking bans in 2004, but you can see Clearway Minnesota IRS 990 form for 2004 by clicking here.

This weekend, when I post next, I’ll have the good stuff: grants from 2005-2006, when Clearway started donating some real money for smoking bans.

Note: I believe all of these facts are correct, but I would be more than willing to look any data that our readers find to be incorrect.