I’m sort of new to Portland (you know, like nearly everyone else here). It’s a spread out place with so much to do, but a bit confusing for newcomers—which is why I was happy to come across the Mercury. You guys do such a great job showcasing festivals, music events; you help me decide which movie to see next and which beers to try out. The style, edginess, of the Mercury is, no doubt, a major influence to thousands of Porlanders. It’s sort of the social manual for living in this town! However, it’s this journalistic leadership that makes me dumbfounded—no, pissed off!—whenever I come across those horrifically manipulative tobacco ads in your publication. Really, do you need tobacco’s money that much that you’ll look the other way while enticing impressionable (gullible) people to roll their own Bugler cancer delivery vehicles, or get them to feel healthier that they’re inhaling organic tobacco instead of Salem menthol?

What perpetrates the biggest marketing con of all time—one that kills nearly one-half million people each fucking year—are not just the tobacco industry marketing professionals and lobbyists (if there’s a hell, they’ll be eviscerated there), but niche publications that advise their readers of what’s hip and stylish. Please, be the adult here! Save your soul, Mercury. End your duplicity with the tobacco peddlers!