Tobacco.org

VIDEO: Penn & Teller Second Hand Smoke Correction 

Penn explains there is evidence that second hand smoke does cause cancer. This is from a Q and A session at the Amazing Meeting (January 2005). Southpark did an episode which incorrectly asserts there is no tie as well.

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Smoking Bans / Accommodation Communications Program 

GOAL:

Help defeat smoking bans and promote accommodation as the reasonable alternative. . . .

5. Government Intrusion

• Opinion Media -- social trend impact on legislation

Conservative media - Target the conservative, "old school" opinion writers via media outreach Continue to feed story ideas on the topic of creeping prohibition. Research appropriate topics regarding alcohol, red meat, fatty foods, smoking, etiquette, unsafe sex, ozone depleators (sic), furs, etc. Find ammunition to facilitate commentary by columnists, opinion leaders, and other pundits such as Pat Buchanan, Sidney Zion, Rush Limbaugh, Andy Rooney, etc.

Liberal Media - Target the "new school," young, alternative media to address how the "new Puritanism" can lead to government intrusion. Investigate who has researched social trend issues, who is industry "guru?" Consider bringing this person in to discuss societal trends and their impact, e.g. nannyism, moral majority, thought police, environmentalism, etc. Develop backgrounder on social trends for pitch to reporters for Rolling Stone, Playboy, Mondo 2000, Village Voice, Utne Reader, etc.

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• EMERSON: Limbaugh, others short on smoking ban facts  

When I heard that an Eau Claire homeowners association had voted to outlaw smoking in the owner-occupied residential complex, I knew right away the topic had the potential to ignite local controversy. . .. Initially I wondered how so many people from California to Massachusetts and points in between had read my story. I discovered there was a good explanation.

The story made its way to The Associated Press, then to the Drudge Report, a conservative online news site, where it reached a nationwide audience. From there the story took on an even larger life as conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh discussed it. . . .

I didn't hear the segment in which he addressed the matter but found a transcript online where he likened the smoking ban to "a communist idea" from somewhere other than Washington, D.C. Limbaugh and people calling his show apparently bashed the ban and the man who proposed it, Dave Hanvelt, the Fairfax Park Homeowners Association president. . . .

Here's a little secret most of those criticizing Hanvelt's political leanings apparently don't know: He's a conservative. In fact, he's a staunch conservative. . . .

"We accept these restrictions when we choose to live here," Hanvelt said, noting the smoking ban is about public health, not politics.

That makes sense to me, or certainly more sense than the rantings of people demonizing the Fairfax Park ban as the end of freedom for all. When compared to logic, those arguments go up in smoke.

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• RT-D keeps you informed on tobacco issues  

Big changes are coming to the tobacco industry, and we've ramped up our coverage in the Richmond Times-Dispatch to keep you informed.

Tobacco has long been a focus of our coverage -- the business has been a key component of Virginia's economy since soon after its founding at Jamestown. Now more than ever, Richmond is at the heart of the industry.

We are home to the nation's No. 1 cigarette-maker, Philip Morris USA, and its parent company, Altria Group Inc. Philip Morris operates one of the largest cigarette plants in the world in South Richmond. Altogether, Altria employs more than 5,000 in the Richmond area.

Myriad other tobacco-related businesses big and small populate the region, from venerable tobacco broker Universal Corp. to more recent arrival Swedish Match North America.

The health consequences of smoking continue to be widely debated, with long-sought legislation to ban smoking in restaurants finally making it through the General Assembly this year.

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Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies  

In 1954, when CBS challenged NBC’s popular morning program “Today” with the short-lived “Morning Show,” it tapped Mr. Cronkite to be the host. Early on he riled the sponsor, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, by grammatically correcting its well-known advertising slogan, declaring, “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.”

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McKenna claims win in tobacco advertising case 

Washington's Division One Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a cartoon image included in the Nov. 2007 ad campaign by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Rolling Stone magazine was in violation of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

In doing so, the court overturned a June 2008 verdict in favor of the company, which ruled that the content didn't depict traditional cartoons and that the images were more thought-provoking than humorous. Tuesday's decision awarded the State attorneys fees and costs and remanded the case for damages.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna called the ruling a reminder of how committed the states are to enforcing the public health provisions of the MSA and prohibiting the illegal marketing of tobacco products.

"This lawsuit demonstrates, even 10 years later, states have not forgotten legacy of the Master Settlement Agreement," said the Republican AG, who recently served three years as co-chair of the National Association of Attorneys General Tobacco Committee.

"This is the kind of advertising that brought about the Master Settlement Agreement in the first place and this is one of the on-going legal commitments tobacco companies made to the states. We are holding them accountable."

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• Camel violated ban on using cartoons to sell cigarettes, judge rules 

The four-page Camel cigarette ad in Rolling Stone magazine two years ago was a surrealistic journey to a place called "Camel Farm," where a woman with a retro hairdo sprouted from a green field; where a gramophone, a disembodied hand and a trippy tractor drifted through the air.

It was meant to connect Camels with alternative music, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company argued it was far from Joe Camel, the Disneyesque spokescharacter of yesteryear that got it in so much trouble.

But a state Appeals Court ruled Monday that the company nonetheless violated a ban on using cartoons to sell smokes. Now a King County Superior Court judge may have to decide what sanctions the company will face for its ad.

"The Camel Farm imagery depends entirely upon the suspension of the laws of nature," Appeals Court Judge Anne Ellington wrote in the ruling. . . .

However, the court also ruled against the state's contention that a Rolling Stone feature that ran alongside the ad, and also included cartoons, was not R.J. Reynolds' fault.

Assistant Attorney General Rene Tomisser said he was gratified by the ruling because it affirms the state's contention that "it doesn't have to be a cartoon directed at kids ... Any cartoon fits the bill," he said.

Still, it's unclear what, if any, penalty Downing could impose on R.J. Reynolds now.

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Under a blue sky in a pastoral Eden, roosters hitch rides on floating tractors, speakers grow out of the ground and radios fly. This is in a world where the natural laws do not obtain, where cancer and serious health problems can cease to exist. For a product known to cause both, such a world is a potent sales device.
Appeals Court Judge Anne Ellington, on RJR's "Camel Farm" ad in Rolling Stone.

• State Of Washington, App. V. R.j. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Res.  

The chief question here is whether a Reynolds advertisement in the November 15, 2007 edition of Rolling Stone violated this prohibition. A secondary question is whether Reynolds had a duty to ensure the adjacent content within the magazine did not violate the cartoon prohibition.

The trial court ruled the Reynolds advertisement did not violate the cartoon ban and that Reynolds did not cause Rolling Stone's use of cartoons in the editorial content enfolded by the advertisement. The court also ruled that because the Rolling Stone cartoon material was unforeseeable, Reynolds had no duty to prohibit its use.

The State appeals. We affirm the ruling that Reynolds is not liable for the Rolling Stone content. But we hold that Reynolds' advertisement violated the settlement agreement. We therefore reverse.

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• Wash. court: Cartoon cigarette ads broke agreement 

For the second time in two months, a court said Monday that an advertisement RJ Reynolds placed in Rolling Stone magazine broke the tobacco industry's 1998 settlement with the states by using cartoons, and the company will have to pay damages.

The Washington state Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's finding that content Reynolds produced for the 2007 Rolling Stone advertisement did not include cartoons.

Though the photographic images weren't Disney-style illustrations, the appeals court said they were cartoonishly arranged in a bucolic collage. The theme of the "Camel Farm" ad campaign was that Reynolds was helping to support - grow - independent music.

At least eight states - Maine, Ohio, California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Washington - sued the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company after the fold-out advertisement appeared in one of Rolling Stone's special 40th anniversary issues. . . .

The Maine and Ohio judges sided with the company and California came back with a split decision. In May, a Pennsylvania judge became the first to hold Reynolds liable, ordering the company to pay $302,000 or run a full-page anti-smoking ad in Rolling Stone. Reynolds vowed to appeal.

Washington's court said Monday that Reynolds couldn't be held liable for content produced by Rolling Stone without the company's knowledge, but that the company's own content fell within the settlement's cartoon prohibition, aimed at restricting the tobacco industry's ability to market to young people.

The decision overturned a ruling by King County Superior Court Judge William Downing

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BLUMER: USAT's Pathetic Pic At Story About Proposed Military Tobacco Ban 

Call it "Yankee Imperialist Corrupts Impressionable Iraqi Youth":

Am I supposed to believe that USA Today had no other more relevant pictures they could have used? The fact that they went back to an AP file photo from 2007 is pretty strong evidence that USAT's page-fillers were looking to make a point. . . .

Far be it from me to deny soldiers risking their lives for their country a bit of stress relief. But apparently the perfumed princes at the Pentagon can't put themselves in the shoes of combat soldiers and imagine that for some of them a smoke break might be a useful tonic in very difficult situations.

Besides, a graphic at the USAT's story shows that tobacco use by all veterans, at 22%, is barely higher than that of the entire population's 20%. And guess what? If you take into account the fact that men greatly outnumber women in both the active military and veterans' ranks, that 2% difference probably disappears. This American Lung Association Fact Sheet estimates that 17.4% of women smoke. So it appears that smoking is no more of a problem in the military than it is in the country as a whole.

So what's the point? I'll leave that to readers to think through and perhaps comment upon.

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• Ad Industry Fights Tobacco Bill 

Tobacco advertising has been declining since the 1970s, when TV and radio commercials for cigarettes were banned. The industry cut back heavily on magazine ads in 2000, under pressure after placing ads in magazines with many young readers.

Last year, tobacco companies spent $78.4 million on ads in the U.S., with $69.3 million of that in magazines, mostly male-oriented publications including Maxim, Playboy, Men's Journal and Field & Stream, according TNS Media Intelligence, an ad-tracking firm owned by WPP.

Any further loss of revenue, even the relatively small amount flowing from tobacco, would hit at a particularly hard time for the magazine industry, which saw ad spending drop 21% in the first quarter of 2009 from a year earlier, according to TNS.

The ad industry opposes the legislation, arguing that it violates free speech. . . .

Magazines that have "a significant readership of people" under the age of 18 wouldn't be allowed to run a tobacco ad unless it was black-and-white text only, a "tombstone" in ad-industry parlance. Tombstone ads would command a far lower rate than the colorful print ads that tobacco companies have relied on for decades.

Advertisers argue that their industry can regulate itself and that the legislation could set a dicey precedent for products such as alcohol and fast food. Last week's legislation would be "the most restrictive advertising bill ever passed in the U.S. for a legal product," says Dan Jaffe, executive vice president for government relations at the ANA.

A spokeswoman for Reynolds, a unit of Reynolds American, said she can't give details on its advertising plans for competitive reasons but that the tobacco company "will be in compliance with the law."

A spokesman for tobacco maker Lorillard said it is "premature to speculate on what the future will hold." Lorillard plans to spend about $12 million on magazine ads for all of 2008 and 2009.

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• Tobacco-Free Coverage for Australian Honoree  

Should someone who worked for one the world's biggest tobacco companies be celebrated as a national role model?

Ms Quentin Bryce, the Australian Governor-General who acts as the representative of the Queen of England, apparently thinks so. To coincide with the Queen's Birthday long weekend in early June, Bryce announced that Carla Zampatti had been made a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia for "service through leadership and management roles in the fashion and retail property sectors, to multicultural broadcasting, and to women as a role model and mentor." Two others were also made companions, the most prestigious honorary titles bestowed on individuals.The awards, announced twice a year, are extensively publicised in the mainstream media.

Zampatti is best known as an Italian immigrant who created a name for herself as a fashion designer, building a successful boutique retail chain on her clothing designs. It's an appealing "underdog makes good" story.

But the information used to support Zampatti's honor clearly indicated that she had been a director of British American Tobacco Australasia (BATA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of British American Tobacco, for nearly three years. On its website, BATA boasts that it manufactures a total of over 18 billion cigarettes a year in plants in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Western Samoa for domestic consumption and for export to other countries in the Pacific region.

So did Zampatti's service for one of the world's most notorious tobacco companies count at all against her? And why did none of the media reports on her award even mention that she had been a director of a tobacco company?

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Monograph 19: The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use 

The National Cancer Institute presents this 19th monograph in the Tobacco Control Monograph Series, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use. Monograph 19 provides a critical, scientific review and synthesis of the current evidence regarding the power of the media, both to encourage and to discourage tobacco use. It is the most current and comprehensive summary of the scientific literature on media communication in tobacco promotion and tobacco control. Research included in the review comes from the disciplines of marketing, psychology, communication, statistics, epidemiology, and public health. All are vital to understanding how exposure to the media influences tobacco use.

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CRIME: Canadian Hells Angels and Contraband Tobacco 

The Center's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has taken heat lately for exposing the large-scale tobacco smuggling out of U.S. and Canadian Indian reservations. The Mohawk News Network called us "untruthful" for linking the Indian trade to "bikers and other gangs," and concluded that "the Center serves Big Tobacco." One angry blogger branded our stories "a precursor to genocide."

Now comes word that Canadian police in Quebec this week have cracked down on what they are calling a major Hells Angels contraband tobacco and drug trafficking ring inside the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve near Montreal. About 60 police officers raided the bunker-like compound of Rice Mohawk Industries in an investigation code-named "Project Machine" and rounded up 46 people. Among those arrested were owner Peter Rice and his two sons Burton Rice and Peter Francis Rice. Also arrested was Salvatore Cazzetta, the reputed leader of the Montreal chapter of the Hells Angels.

Police say the Hells Angels used the Rice compound as a base for trafficking in contraband tobacco and crack cocaine. The men are charged with participating in a criminal organization that defrauded the Quebec and Canadian governments of millions of dollars in tobacco taxes. Cazzetta is also charged with drug trafficking.

In "Canada's Boom in Smuggled Cigarettes," ICIJ took readers inside a billion-dollar black market and revealed the close ties between Indian tobacco sellers and organized crime.

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The Role of Media for Tobacco Control 

"To deliver a health message effectively and in confidence it should consist of 3 significant factors, viz. authoritative, comprehensive and clear. The nature has gifted the human brain with science to be authoritative, religion to be ethical and art to address the wisdom with our feelings. If we use all these factors we may deliver a strong message to the society”, said Professor Carlo Fonseka, the Chairman of the National Alcohol and Tobacco Authority addressing the media on “How to deliver an effective health message to the public". Professor Fonseka said so addressing a workshop organized by Jeewaka Foundation for media personnel held in Colombo, to evaluate their contribution for tobacco control during the recent past. . . .

Dr. Somatunga requested the media personnel to raise awareness on the importance of creating smoke-free public places and on tax policies to increase cigarette prices. "According to a World Bank report, it is through high tax policies that the prevalence of smoking among low income people could be reduced. Help every moment to reduce smoking prevalence; even 10 good journalists can do wonders!"

"The media has the power to make Sri Lanka good or bad. Really speaking, media personnel are more important than politicians." Said Dr. D.V.J. Harsichandra, the Consultant Psychiatrist.

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