Daily Doc: Burson Marsteller, Sep 28 , 1993: 'Independent Scientists' Tout Substance Enjoyment
Daily Doc: "Independent Scientists" Tout Substance Enjoyment
Title: SCIENTISTS MEET IN BRUSSELS TO REFLECT ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE
Burson Marsteller, Sep 28 , 1993
Bates #: 2023437459/7460
February 6, 2001
Desperate to reverse the growing social unacceptability of smoking, in 1993 the joint global tobacco industry (through PR company Burson Marsteller) invented an "independent" group of "eminent" scientists, putting them forth as "apolitical" experts on the topic of how substance use enhances quality of life.
Incredibly, they named the group "Associates for Research in Substance Enjoyment," or ARISE.
ARISE held press conferences around the world at which they expressed their expert scientific opinion that substance use gives humans pleasure, thus enhances people's quality of life and health. Among the activities they listed as being beneficial were "eating food, chocolate, smoking, drinking tea, coffee and alcohol."
The group did not mention that drinking tea and eating chocolate never killed anyone, but smoking has taken the lives of millions.
In fact, practically sniffing at health advocates, ARISE spokesperson, Professor David Warburton, said in a press release:
"..too often, the beneficial effects of 'products of enjoyment' are forgotten or ignored in well-meaning health information initiatives."ARISE held conferences around the world, released polls and sent video news releases to the media assuring the masses that substance use (including smoking) is pleasurable and harmless.
Journalists ate the hook. In this January, 1997 Philip Morris memo, the writer bragged that
"Yolande de la Bigne, a well-known [French] journalist, covered the [ARISE Paris] conference...concluding that 'a piece of chocolate, a glass of wine, a good cigarette, you can go for it. Instead of being obsessed by health, everybody should be obsessed by pleasure which induces good health. Le Parisien also covered the conference in a lengthy feature entitled 'Pleasure is good medicine.' "Documents show that the tobacco industry persisted in funding this incredibly damaging front group as late as 1997.
http://www.tobaccodocuments.org/view.cfm?docid=2060579242&source=SNAPPM&ShowImages=yes
CITATION
Title: SCIENTISTS MEET IN BRUSSELS TO REFLECT ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE
Type of Document: Press release
Author: Corporate author ARISE
Recipient: N/A (presumably sent to the media)
Date: 19930928
Site: http://www.tobaccodocuments.org/
Page Count 2
Bates No. 2023437459/7460
URL: http://www.tobaccodocuments.org/view.cfm?docid=2023437459/7460&source=SNAPPM&ShowImages=yes
Litigation Usage: None yet, but maybe soon!
Found using search criteria: . "public affairs strategy" on TDO
QUOTES
Brussels, September, 28, 1993 -- An international group of scientists and academics gathered in Brussels last week to discuss the ways in which "everyday pleasures," such as eating chocolate, smoking, drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, contribute to the quality of life.
The workshop convened by Professor David Warburton of the University of Reading in the U.K., was attended by scientists and academics representing a wide range of disciplines (including psychology, sociology, psychopharmacology, ethics and medicine).
According to Professor Warburton, "pleasure plays a central role in human life and brings many benefits to the individual. Many pleasures function as important guides which direct us in our interaction with the world. It is not surprising that the pleasure state is associated with biologically important behaviours, like eating and sexual activity."
"Studies in the neurochemistry of behavior have shown that all pleasures are mediated by the same brain system, including our enjoyment of alcoholic drinks, chocolate, coffee, food and tobacco products. It is in this way that these substances give us pleasure and enhance the quality of our lives," said Professor Warburton.
Another participant to the workshop, Professor Dr. Petra Ketter from the University of Giessen in Germany, said that "the importance of pleasure is that it is the antidote to negative mood states. Pleasurable experiences are in fact beneficial to health."
Yet, said Professor Warburton, "too often, the beneficial effects of 'products of enjoyment' are forgotten or ignored in well-meaning health information initiatives."
The workshop was organized by ARISE (Associates for Research in Substance Enjoyment), a worldwide association of eminent scientists who act as independent commentators. Apolitical as a group, they have the recognised expertise to review scientific statements and make constructive proposals in their respective regions.
ARISE has already held two other workshops: "Addiction Controversies" in Florence in 1991 and "Pleasure: the Politics and the Reality" in Venice in 1992.
This service is brought to you by the American Lung Association of Colorado ( http://www.alacolo.org/) and Smokescreen ( http://www.smokescreen.org)
To join Doc-Alert, go to http://tobaccodocuments.org/, scroll down to the bottom of the page, enter your email address in the box marked "Daily Document Newsletter," and click *subscribe.*
Visit the Daily Document Archives at http://www.smokescreen.org/list/viewmsgs.cfm?id=66, or, for quick and easy at-a-glance viewing, try Gene Borio's great new Daily Document Archive at http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/dd/dd.html
Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
***********************
Go To: Tobacco BBS HomePage / Resources Page / Health Page / Documents Page / Culture Page / Activism Page
***********************
END OF DOCUMENT