A major crunch is near when we will be facing, not so much a continuation of the episodic guerilla warfare we have had to endure over the last 25 years, but rather we will find ourselves in a tightly constrained and perilous "end game." When that point is reached, and it could be just around the corner, all our efforts will be hugely discounted and the result almost inevitably negative...

A vivid and forceful illustration of this worrying phenomenon was presented...in the prestigious journal, The Economist....The leader, titled "Advertising under siege," is worth cool reflection. The second sentence reads in part -- "The drug which Raleigh introduced to Europe now kills about 3M people a year around the world, and the number is rising fast." It then goes on apropos of the current wave of imposed or threatened advertising bans to say, that the "temptation to support such bans is immense--not least because of the obvious self-interest and fraudulent arguments of the tobacco and alcohol lobbies...The heart urges a ban on their lying killers" (this presumably is a reference to us!).

In the recent past, the Economist has castigated the whole concepts of foundations created by "social cost" levies...as "an exercise in bad government." ...

...But clearly it has been won over by the statistical claims and one-eyed moralism of the anti-tobacco lobby. Why is this so and what does it say about the counter campaign of the industry? The answer to both questions in fairly clear. We have dissipated our efforts, failed to use third parties effectively and lacked real follow through...

...The pressure against us is growing at a frightening speed. We are now in a new ball game. It's quite possible that unless we change our whole approach very quickly, and start using our resources in a much more intelligent fashion, we will find that within 12 months we could well lose our advertising and sponsorship, and a good deal of our marketing freedoms in most of our major markets. We could also face a worldwide spread of almost punitive tax regimes on tobacco...

Defeat, like fear, is contagious. Once people sense surrender is in the air, the collapse of the whole operation can come with enormous rapidity....The collapse of South Vietnam is a graphic case in point. We could be looking at such a scenario in a year or two's time if we don't seriously take the measure of our present plight.

We must, fundamentally, face the fact that the health issue drives every other issue. Not to even respond to the health issue, which is increasingly the case, simply confirms our "guilt" in the eye of both the public and politicians. Like the man who doesn't respond to an outrageous libel, the public, and indeed the law, tend to read such acquiescence as intimating guilt....It suggests intellectual and even moral bankruptcy.

What is to be Done?

The way out of our increasingly bleak dilemma is clear and realizable. We must robustly face up to the nature and scale of the challenge. While being prudent, we can no longer afford to hide behind the lawyer's instinctive caution as an all purpose excuse for putting up a half-hearted response.

What follows is a suggested plan of action for winning this war:

1. Squarely face up to the health issue and demonstrate the genuine doubts, conflicts, ambiguities and contradictions that characterize the evidence against smoking. This means using effectively, preferably through third parties, the many experts, scholars and commentators who over the years have criticized our opponents.

2. Go on the offensive through imaginative advocacy advertising campaigns, using leading figures around the world who will put the best arguments on a range of issues...

3. Arrange, through reputable third parties, a series of top seminars which will mobilize leading experts on such issues as "creative epidemiology," politicized health campaigns, the link between advertising freedoms and human rights and democracy, the "hidden agenda" of many of the anti-smoking and anti-business activists, etc.

4. Fortify...the range of coalitions to oppose both advertising and sponsorship bans.

5. Stress the absurd (often inhumane) priorities involved with anti-smoking campaigns in the third world...

6. Set up, through a reputable third party...a scientific assessment bureau which would establish a bank of experts to respond responsibly to attacks on our industry...

7. Establish a small, but very selective "brain trust" within PM companies to discuss and generate new ideas, new strategies and new programs on the corporate affairs front...

.....If one takes the pessimistic view of present trends, the tobacco industry could lose almost all its political clout within two years. Overstated? Not really. If you take away advertising and sponsorship, you lost most, if not all, of your media and political allies. If you take away those freedoms there is hardly any barrier to a punitive tax regime, part of it going to fund our complete anathemazation through the funding of ever more extreme anti-campaigns...

We could well be in this position within two years or even less, if the pace of present restrictions worldwide continues. It doesn't take much imagination to see what this would mean for our share price, not to mention our reputation.

Compared to the billions we could lose, our present commitment to recovering both commercial, political and, not least, moral ground is, to put it baldly, pitiful. The time to get on top of this deteriorating situation is now....