Tobacco.org

Why Do So Many Baseball Players Chew Tobacco? 

Have baseball players always used smokeless tobacco?

Yes. In the mid-19th century—baseball's formative years—chewing tobacco was enormously popular in the United States. Early ballplayers likely chewed tobacco for the same reasons as other American men, but they soon discovered baseball-specific benefits. It spurs saliva production and lubricates the mouth in the dusty infield environment. When fielding gloves came into vogue in the 1870s and 1880s, players moistened the leather with spit. Pitchers used the juice from a chaw to prepare the notorious spitball, which was widely permitted until 1920.

It's not surprising that chewing tobacco has become identified with baseball. Both pastimes came of age when America was

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• Scholars' Right to Keep Unpublished Work Private Is at Issue in Lawsuit 

In a case with potentially major implications for scholars and publishers, a Stanford University professor who often serves as an expert witness against tobacco companies is fighting an effort by lawyers for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to obtain the manuscript of his unpublished and unfinished book on that industry.

A Florida state court judge has already authorized the tobacco company's lawyers to issue a subpoena requiring Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford professor of the history of science, to make his book manuscript available to them so they can comb it for possible material to use in cross-examining him in a civil lawsuit pending there.

But the lawyers for the plaintiffs suing the tobacco company last week filed a motion asking the court to reconsider that decision and protect Mr. Proctor from being forced to grant access to the unpublished manuscript. Their motion calls Mr. Proctor their "single most important witness" in their case against the tobacco company, and argues that forcing him to share the manuscript would violate his privacy, his free-speech rights, his academic freedom, and his rights as an author.

Mr. Proctor, for his own part, refused to produce the manuscript at a recent deposition in the case and has retained a San Francisco law firm to fight the subpoena—as well as any other efforts to obtain his book—in California state courts.

In an interview Monday, he said of the book: "It's my private thoughts. They are not organized yet. They are not in finished form." . . .

The Florida court where the case is pending, the state's Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Volusia County, possibly could entertain arguments for and against the subpoena at a hearing scheduled for Thursday. . . .

Robert M. O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia and a veteran scholar of issues related to academic freedom, said Monday that the legal fight over the manuscript "has profound implications" for academe. . . .

Mr. Proctor said Monday that lawyers for the tobacco company have sought for more than a year to obtain the manuscript to his planned book, tentatively titled "Golden Holocaust: A History of Global Tobacco." . . .

In a deposition filed in connection with the Florida case, he describes himself as one of only two professors of history in the nation who regularly testify against the tobacco industry, and alleged that "the tobacco industry has spent years trying to harass, intimidate, and use multiple legal means to prevent me from testifying in litigation." He said that his book "will contain previously unpublished information regarding tobacco-industry practices,"

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Golden Holocaust: A History of Global Tobacco
Tentative title of Robert N. Proctor's work-in-progress. RJR is battling in a Florida court for a sneak preview.

The Chemical Industry's Attack on Historians 

We think it important to put this controversy in a broader context. During the past decade or so historians have been drawn into the courtroom as expert witnesses in cases involving workers and consumers harmed by a variety of products including tobacco, lead, asbestos, silica and most immediately plastics. This issue has become widely discussed among historians of medicine but has so far escaped attention within the broader community of historians.[2] Of most significance for the historians of medicine is that Kenneth Ludmerer, past president of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Peter English, professor of medicine and history at Duke, Robert Hudson at the University of Kansas and John Burnham at Ohio State, among others, have worked for or testified on behalf of tobacco companies, lead companies and other industries that have been the defendants in lawsuits. In addition, historians such as ourselves, Robert Proctor at Stanford and Allan Brandt at Harvard have testified or worked with workers injured or diseased by their job, children damaged from lead and individuals hurt by tobacco, as well as various cities, states, and the federal government in suits brought against tobacco, lead, silica, and now the chemical industry.

It appears that the legal strategies of the law firms defending the various industries have been more or less the same, following a common pattern and a common rationale. In what historian Robert Proctor has called agnatology, industry has created a new "science" for the creation of doubt and ignorance about its actions in the past and historians have played a significant, if duplicitous role.[3]

In brief, as Robert Proctor has stated in a number of oral presentations and editorials with regard to the tobacco industry, historical experts testifying for industries have adopted a few basic techniques to undermine the historical data indicating knowledge of danger. In general, they have argued that:

* Whatever the evidence of knowledge within industries of the dangers of a product existed in the past, there was insufficient information available for there to be definitive proof of real danger.

* Therefore, there was always a need for more research before doubt could be eliminated and those who questioned that a material was dangerous meant that there was a "controversy" about whether or not it was.

* Causation is extremely difficult to prove and requires years, if not decades, of careful experimentation and observation before "controversy" about the sources of disease could cease.

* Hence, without certainty, and in the context of any on-going controversy about the danger of a product or substance, there was little or no obligation on the part of industries to act to remove their product from the market or to lower exposures to toxic materials within the factory. [4] . . .

[3] Robert Proctor has been engaged in the path-breaking research into historians' role in the tobacco cases and has coined this term in oral presentations. See, Robert N. Proctor, "Should Medical Historians be Working for the Tobacco Industry?" Lancet 363 (Apr 10, 2004), 1174-5.

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Scholars' Right to Keep Unpublished Work Private Is at Issue in Lawsuit ($$) 

In a case with potentially major implications for scholars and publishers, a Stanford University professor who often serves as an expert witness against tobacco companies is fighting an effort by lawyers for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to obtain the manuscript of his unpublished and unfinished book on that industry.

A Florida state court judge has already authorized the tobacco company's lawyers to issue a subpoena requiring Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford professor of the history

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DIPIETRO: The Daily Walk of Shame: "Unbiased" Health Insurance Industry Report 

This new Motley Fool series examines things that just aren't right in the world of finance and investing. Here's what's got us riled today. . . .

This all comes out despite a report released last week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stating that the legislation in question would reduce the federal deficit by $81 million by 2019 and would probably extend coverage to about 29 million Americans who currently lack insurance.

Why you should be indignant: Where to begin? There are at least three very good reasons to be apprehensive of PwC's report.

* Because the report is commissioned by AHIP, a group that represents health policies from companies like Aetna (NYSE:AET), Aflac (NYSE:AFL), and Humana (NYSE:HUM), PwC should have been extra careful to dispel any apparent conflict of interests. However, instead of performing tremendous due diligence, PwC seemed to have produced a report with too many holes to poke through and too much room left to be guessing about the legitimacy of their work. . . .

Well, you can choose to believe PwC's report or you can choose not to. Before you reach any conclusion, consider this: In the early 1990's PwC performed similar studies for the tobacco industry, which included bigwigs like Phillip Morris International (NYSE:PM) (then part of Altria) and Reynolds American (NYSE:RAI). They provided supposedly hard data that showed how a new excise tax on tobacco would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The report was apparently so lopsided that another consulting firm, Arthur Andersen, reviewed PwC's work. They found "serious methodological problems and errors of omission (one-sided analyses likely to lead to misinterpretation) in both the PW Report and the [tobacco industry's Tobacco Institute] Estimates." Ultimately, the string of blunders made by PwC led Andersen to report that "these and other serious flaws in the Price Waterhouse Report and the Tobacco Institute Estimates build upon one another in a cumulative fashion to present grossly exaggerated and misleading estimates of job loss from an increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco products."

There are some eerie similarities here considering that one of the methods considered for funding health-care reform is a tax on some very expensive "Cadillac" health-care plans. Looks to me like another case of lobbyists hiring consulting groups to find data that supports their claims instead of performing a comprehensive, objective analysis.

This report has conflict of interest written all over it. Ill-timed. Factually debatable. Contrary to reports by the CBO. I'm not buying one word of it.

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• Audio slideshow: Created by Mad Men 

Cigarette vending machines should be banned and shops in England, Wales and Northern Ireland should keep stocks out of sight, MPs say. Similar plans are being discussed in Scotland.

But there was a time when there were very few restrictions on tobacco promotion. Larry Viner, of the Advertising Archives, takes a look at the ingenious, and not so truthful, ways the ad agencies tried to sell cigarettes in the past.

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• Price Waterhouse and Big Tobacco 

There's a big scary new study out today from the health insurance lobby and PricewaterhouseCoopers purporting to show that the Senate Finance Committee's reform bill -- funded by new excise taxes on "Cadillac" health plans -- would cause future health insurance premiums to spiral out of control.

Before this genie gets too far out of the bottle, just consider the track record of such industry-funded excise tax "research" by Price Waterhouse.

In the early 1990s, Price Waterhouse did similar handiwork on behalf of Big Tobacco, serving up allegedly hard data to bolster arguments that a new excise tax on tobacco (a proposed mechanism to fund Clintoncare) would destroy hundreds of thousands of good American jobs.

Dire predictions. But a subsequent review of Price Waterhouse's methods by an independent team at Arthur Andersen, revealed that Price Waterhouse's "grossly exaggerated" and "one-sided analyses" were so "flawed" as to produce "patently unreliable results." . . .

“These and other serious flaws in the Price Waterhouse Report and the Tobacco Institute Estimates build upon one-another in a cumulative fashion to present grossly exaggerated and misleading estimates.”

“The cumulative effect of PW’s methods… is to produce patently unreliable results.”

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Climate Cover-Up / The Crusade to Deny Global Warming  

"Climate Cover-Up documents one of the most disgusting stories ever hidden about corporate disinformation. What you'll discover in this book amounts to proof of an intergenerational crime." DAVID SUZUKI, Author of The Sacred Balance and Good News for a Change.

"This book explains how the propaganda generated by self-interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It's an imperative read for a successful future." LEONARDO DICAPRIO, Actor and Producer . . .

Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry's own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all drafted and promoted campaigns of climate change disinformation.

The success of those plans is self-evident. . . .

Although all public relations professionals are bound by a duty to not knowingly mislead the public, some have executed comprehensive campaigns of misinformation on behalf of industry clients on issues ranging from tobacco and asbestos to seat belts.

Lately, these fringe players have turned their efforts to creating confusion about climate change.

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When Cigarette Ads Had Balls 

In five years, will you be a wheezing, blackened mess? Or--conversely--will you have five more years of tobacco byproducts in your lungs? Well. You have to admire their "Lie big or lie dead" attitude. Click to enlarge. [Copyranter]

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Chronicler of cool  

Los Angeles photographer Phil Stern turns 90 tomorrow. That's his photo of Frank Sinatra lighting JFK's smoke.

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• The Truth About American Legacy 

The American Legacy Foundation is a rare example of a public charity being born with a silver spoon. Even before it began operating in 1999, the foundation was bequeathed more than $1 billion from the settlement of a massive lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of 46 states against the country's major tobacco companies. . . .

For the first few years, it seemed a great success. The foundation rolled out hard-hitting and ubiquitous advertising, known as "the truth" campaign. . . .

Then the magic stopped working so well. Since 2003, teen smoking rates have hovered around 22 percent, even as adult smoking has continued to dwindle (to under 20 percent now). After the final really big tobacco payment of $307.9 million came that year (under the Master Settlement), "the truth" campaign continued on a much smaller scale.

But despite spending less on those ads, awarding fewer grants for anti-smoking programs and seeing all the tobacco company contributions end last year, the foundation itself grew wealthier. As expenditures for its primary missions fell, two budget items kept growing: investment fees and salary costs, especially for top executives. . . .

While most nonprofits invest to protect their funds, the Legacy Foundation has pursued an aggressive investment strategy that includes hedge funds, foreign stocks (sometimes accompanied by currency exchange losses), interest rate swaps, two office buildings in downtown Washington and other investments.

Some observers say Legacy is trying too hard to perpetuate itself and the cause would be better served if it spent more of its endowment, which stood at $1.156 billion at the end of fiscal 2008.

The American Legacy Foundation says President Cheryl Healton's salary of $570,000 in 2008 (plus benefits) is about the same as the median for others in large philanthropic endeavors. . . .

(For a more complete rundown of the foundation's annual budget and spending, see the pie charts on these pages.) . . .

The foundation is phasing out its grant program for small innovative programs, for anti-smoking programs in rural areas and among minority groups, and for research. It has spent about $150 million on these grants during its existence.

As for media strategies: Despite embracing social media such as Facebook and YouTube, the ubiquity of the foundation's ads has faded. None has gone viral on the Web. The foundation has attracted fewer than 200 Facebook fans.

Meanwhile, tobacco companies lay out about $41 million a day for advertising.

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"Tobacco and Health" Expert Witness Report Filed on behalf of Plaintiffs in: "The United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Philip Morris, Inc., et al., Defendants," 

I am a Distinguished Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, where I am also Co-director of the Science, Medicine, and Technology in Culture initiative. I have been asked to review the history of tobacco health hazards, focusing also on the history of the tobacco industry's response to evidence of a tobacco hazard. I have also been asked to respond to the February 2002 reports submitted by Kenneth Ludmerer, Theodore A. Wilson, Richard D. Thomas and Peter C. English. I will begin with some historical background, followed by a review of the discovery of tobacco hazards and the tobacco industry's response to these discoveries. I will then respond to the four reports prepared by expert witnesses for the defense.

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Tim Giago: Here's another nail in your coffin 

Most Americans, and I am sure the chief executive officers of the major tobacco manufacturing plants, knew that smoking was not good for your health more than 50 years ago. . . .

50 - 60 years ago, no one in a position of authority, not doctors or the tobacco industry, told us that smoking could cause lung cancer and other deadly illnesses. There were television shows totally sponsored by cigarette companies. . . .

Tobacco was a crop cultivated by Native Americans centuries before the arrival of the white man. It was used primarily in spiritual gathering and was smoked in a ceremonial pipe, a pipe that was misnamed "Peace Pipe" . . .

Millions of Americans got hooked on smoking when they joined the U. S. Armed Forces. When I served, I could buy a pack of cigarettes at the PX for 10 cents. . . .

I give my employees at Native Sun News a smoke break in the morning and one in the afternoon. They have to smoke outside because it is not allowed in the office. And since I have been a non-smoker for a very long time, as I see them heading out for their smoke break, I cannot help but wonder if they realize the danger they are courting or I wonder what pleasure they can get from something that may eventually kill them. It's a curious thing.

But they won't quit.

Many states now have anti-smoking laws and we seem to be moving, as a Nation, in that direction. But we are facing the same situation confronting the gun lobby: "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Can the same be said in defense of cigarettes? Here's another nail in your coffin!

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/heres-another-nail-in-you_b_301160.html

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Woodwork handcrafts tell WNC tobacco history 

Business: New Leaf Historical Woodwork, furniture and other housewares made from the wood of Appalachian tobacco barns.

Who: Terri King, owner; Roger Shelton, master craftsman.

Headquarters: Asheville.

Offerings: Everything from picture frames and small wooden trays to tables, chests and custom furniture. Each item comes with a written history of the barn where the wood originated.

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Black Americans and Tobacco  

The onset of slavery in America can be directly linked to the beginning of tobacco production in this country. Though many factors contributed to slavery in the New World, tobacco was the main reason that slavery first flourished as an industry.

By the mid-1600s the slave trade flourished with established routes connecting North America, Africa and the West Indies. Manufactured goods were traded for African Natives; the African Natives were taken to the West Indies to be broken in before being taken to mainland North America. . . .

Tobacco companies began advertising in Black newspapers and magazines in the 1940s, when typically they would profile prominent African Americans in their ads. To lure more African Americans to smoke, the tobacco industry would combine images with remarkable claims in their advertising. In one Lucky Strike ad, gold medal Olympian Jesse Owens states, “I smoke Luckies. So do Mrs. Owens and my eldest daughter. To all of us, Luckies taste better.”iv

In the 1930s, menthol brands were introduced, and by the 1960 it was clear to tobacco companies that menthol brand popularity was due to Black Americans consumption of menthol cigarettes. . . .

What can be done? Know your personal and cultural history. Tobacco production has exploited African American people. You can also plan to attend the training program, Follow the Signs II to learn more about the impact of Big Tobacco in Black communities and what you can do about it. This training is designed for Denver area youth and community leaders. If you use tobacco stop! Also support others who desire to stop using tobacco because the struggle isn’t theirs, it’s ours.

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