Seemingly off topic, but it could impact on metric use in the Americas. Big Tobacco is suing all non-smokers in the Americas for non-smoking. They will also demand compensation from all states, counties, cities etc. that have smoking bans. A crazy rule in the NAFTA treaty, Chapter 11, bans any action that prevents a company from making profits. People who do not smoke, say lawyers of Big Tobacco and NAFTA, are responsible for trillions off losses for the industry and it simply harms doing business". Metalclad, a trash disposal company, last year successfully sued Mexico because that country was not being polluted enough. Or this gem of lunacy: After agreeing to arbitrate the tobacco case, the NAFTA judiciary tribunal agreed to hear a North Dakota bank robber suing BancCanadienne for "hindering international commerce" by pressing the alarm button. This madness means that using the metric system in the Americas could easily become a target for such suings. Big US companies could sue metric American countries for using the metric system, which is bad for their production process, makes people shun their products and is harmful to business in general as they probably see it. Be on your guard, metric countries in the Americas, for this NAFTA clause and try to have it removed, and not just for metric's sake! Get rid of it!
http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2003_smokers.html Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
