Incidentally, there's talk of a rival organization leading the anti-smoking political agenda from behind the scenes. They probably figure removing smoking sections, and thus ashtrays, from restaurants and bars is a good first step towards thwarting whatever it is this ashtray company is trying to do.

As we all know, smoking is really bad for your health. What a lot of people don't realize is that when you smoke, those few minutes of your expected lifespan are literally transformed into the ash you flick away into an ashtray. Ashtrays, each and every one of them, are constructed by a single group running several dozen front companies.
Basically, unless you're putting out your smokes beneath your heel or in the ashtray your kid made at camp, you're dispensing your ashen life into this group's eager little recepticle. Their ashtrays absorb the life force from the ashes and sends it to a central holding facility. No one knows for sure what these guys are going to do when they've collected all that life energy, but it's probably going to be huge.