Tobacco.org

Medical, or small business?  

Michael Dresden holds high expectations for Washington’s marijuana trade. Dresden’s vision is to use local, sustainable and highly taxed micro-crops of marijuana to eliminate the state’s deficit and fight international terrorism. Despite Dresden’s lofty goals, many may view the twenty-something Vancouver resident as a simple drug dealer with delusions of grandeur.

Dresden, whose name and date of birth varied on each of the six Washington state ID cards he presented during a recent interview, uses a straight forward business model. Dresden collects what he describes as “surplus” marijuana from state licensed medical marijuana growers and distributes it to recreational cannabis users at a sizable mark up. . . .

Dresden’s greatest business fear is a tobacco industry take-over of the marijuana trade. “Sooner or later, the tobacco industry will get tired of its dwindling profits and will use its entire army of lobbyists to control the marijuana trade” Dresden stated. Dresden fears tobacco companies will lobby for laws and regulation that give exclusive marijuana grow rights to mega-corporations. “I think what will happen is that congress will place so-called ‘safe-guards’ in a future legalization [of marijuana] bill that really just give large international corporations a monopoly of marijuana.” Dresden’s concerns of a tobacco industry takeover have been around for decades and gained credibility when a 1976 document surfaced during a 1990’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry.

A 1976 confidential tobacco industry forecast prepared by Forecasting International, Ltd for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation made direct references to national trends in recreational marijuana use and the tobacco industry’s ability to offer marijuana as a retail product. “[Marijuana] also has important implications for the tobacco industry in terms of an alternative product line. [Tobacco industries] have the land to grow it, the machines to roll it and package it [and] the distribution to market it… Estimates indicate that the market in legalized marijuana might be as high as $10 billion annually." the report stated. . . .

Dresden believes a tobacco industry changeover to marijuana would pose insurmountable competition for Northwest marijuana growers. “When the tobacco industry starts to switch over to marijuana, it will use the same locations, equipment and tactics that is has used for tobacco… Southern states will get the employment and tax benefits and the traditional Northwest trade will be destroyed.” Dresden stated. Dresden’s concerns also include product quality and environmental impact. “Look at what large corporations did to tobacco, the additives, the genetic modification, the use of environmentally harmful fertilizers and pesticides; do we really want them to be in charge of future marijuana farms?” Dresden asked rhetorically.

The idea of switching over tobacco farms to hemp or marijuana has gained momentum in the face of declining tobacco sales and the current economic recession.

Jump to full article »

ARCHIVE: Report of the Committee of Experts on Tobacco Industry Documents (PDF) 

Conclusion Page 244

While this inquiry was not exhaustive, it has demonstrated beyond doubt the magnitude of tobacco companies’ continuing opposition to WHO tobacco programs. The tobacco companies’ long-secret documents offer a window of insight not only into many of their surreptitious activities, but also into the strategies and attitudes that guide their conduct. To some, these revelations may come only as confirmation of long-held suspicions. To many, however, they will be eye opening.

But the significance of this inquiry may lie less in what it reveals about the past, than in what it suggests for the present and future. As WHO embarks on a global discussion of tobacco and health, and of the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, this inquiry invites a reassessment of the way WHO and its member states view the global epidemic of tobacco use.

At the most fundamental level, this inquiry confirms that tobacco use is unlike other threats to global health. Infectious diseases do not employ multinational public relations firms. There are no front groups to promote the spread of cholera. Mosquitoes have no lobbyists. The evidence presented here suggests that tobacco is a case unto itself, and that reversing its burden on global health will be not only about understanding addiction and curing disease, but, just as importantly, about overcoming a determined and powerful industry. If this inquiry contributes to that understanding, the committee of experts will have succeeded in its work.

Jump to full article »

John Luik - SourceWatch 

John Luik is a Canadian philosopher with a history of vocally opposing government agency efforts to warn people about the health dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke. Luik was involved in a tobacco industry-coordinated attack on United States Environmental Protection Agency’s 1992 Risk Assessment on secondhand tobacco smoke.[1]

In 1993, the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM) hired Luik to write a paper attacking the EPA’s influential 1992 risk assessment, The Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking - Lung Cancer and Other Disorders. [2] (CECCM is a coordinating body for European tobacco manufacturers similar to the Tobacco Institute, and like the Institute, helped European cigarette manufacturers fight public health efforts to reduce smoking. tobacco.) [3][4].

Luik gave several tobacco companies editorial capacity over the content of the paper. . . .

Luik taught philosophy at Nazarene College in Winnipeg, Canada from 1977 to 1985, after which time he was fired for misrepresenting credentials on his resume. In 1985 he was accepted at Brock University where he taught applied professional ethics. In 1990 Brock discharged Luik citing "misrepresentation of his credentials" and saying he was unable to fulfill his duties there "since he has apparently engaged in a series of misrepresentations of his professional and/or academic qualifications to three separate employers, and had done so again, on several occasions, to Brock University." Luik has worked at several conservative Canadian think tanks including the Niagara Institute and the Fraser Institute.

In 1994 Luik was invited to a meeting at Rothmans Tobacco to discuss a proposal he had submitted to serve as managing editor for the book about plain packaging for cigarettes. [14] In 1995 Luik was commissioned to produce and edit the book.

The book, entitled Plain Packaging and the Marketing of Cigarettes, was published in 1998 by Admap Publications in Oxfordshire, England. It concluded that public health assumptions about the beneficial effects of plain packaging were defective, that plain packaging would cause problems with smuggling and threaten the values of a democratic society. It wasn't until June 21, 2001 that a report emerged (in the Montreal Gazette) that Luik was paid US $155,000 to edit the book. [Montreal Gazette, June 21, 2001] The total cost of the book project to the participating tobacco companies was US $240,000.

Luik also served the industry as an associate of the tobacco industry-funded group, Associates for Research in the Science of Enjoyment (ARISE), that was publicly active between 1991 and 1999.

Jump to full article »

New Republic Finally Gets Around to Calling Betsy McCaughey a Crazy Person 

As we explained in August, Betsy McCaughey is a liar who lies. Incessantly. The magazine that ennabled her lying originally is now, finally calling her out on it.

McCaughey first began lying in 1994, because she was bored. While working at a conservative think tank and conferring on the regular with the tobacco industry, McCaughey wrote a lengthy and incredibly misleading story about Bill Clinton's health care reform bill that Andrew Sullivan's New Republic happily printed, despite the fact that it was just full of lies.

Michelle Cottle just wrote a piece for Franklin Foer's newer, less annoying New Republic all about McCaughey, and while it doesn't go into the gritty details of how incredibly irresponsible Sullivan was as an editor back in the '90s . . . . it is satisfyingly mean to McCaughey. . . .

Of course her political "career" ended in disaster because she's impossible to work with or for, and she rightfully faded back into obscurity at another conservative think tank. Until, weirdly, she came back with columns and op-eds and radio appearances and TV interviews in which she shamelessly lied about Barack Obama's health care plans, just this year! It is weird how that happens, right? How no one is ever so wrong that they're not allowed back on TV to be wrong some more, as long as they're useful to people with lots of money at stake?

Jump to full article »

Cigarette firm could face pressure to settle 

An anti-tobacco lobby group says revelations that Imperial Tobacco Canada attempted to destroy its own damning studies will put pressure on the firm to settle lawsuits by several provinces.

"What can they say? That our studies are wrong? They have no real answer," said Michael Perley, executive director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco.

On Wednesday, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published online a review that examined 60 cigarette studies thought to have been destroyed by the Montreal-based firm.

The internal studies, done from 1967 to 1984, were destroyed in 1992 on orders from head office at British American Tobacco in the United Kingdom to avoid "exposing the company to liability or embarrassment," the authors of the review say.

But other copies kept in a U.K. depository were later discovered. . . .

The 60 studies were among 70 million pages that cigarette firms were forced to disclose for a landmark anti-tobacco trial in Minnesota in 1998.

Perley could not say if the 60 studies were ever made public and presented to the jury.

"That's part of the reason this is such a dramatic discovery. Researchers could examine them and put them in some kind of context," said Perley. "The problem is making sense of them and creating a pattern of corporate behaviour."

Jump to full article »

Tobacco firm had data linking cigarettes to cancer, newly discovered papers show  

Researchers have uncovered copies of sensitive internal documents destroyed by a Canadian tobacco company that could boost efforts by provincial governments suing the industry over health costs linked to smoking.

The documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco Canada reveal the firm had scientific data decades ago showing that cigarettes were addictive and caused cancer.

"This evidence suggests that the industry wasn't sharing absolutely critical findings about addiction and the health hazards," said David Hammond, a professor in the University of Waterloo's department of health studies. "There's real potential that if they had done so, we would have had laws that saved lives implemented much sooner."

Prof. Hammond is the lead author of a review of 60 documents that was published yesterday by the Canadian Medical Association Journal. British American Tobacco, the principal shareholder of Imperial Tobacco Canada, ordered Imperial to destroy its copies of the documents in 1992. But other copies had remained in the company's UK headquarters and were included in millions of pages of information released by the tobacco industry as part of court settlements since 1998. That's where Prof. Hammond and his co-authors discovered them.

The records will likely come into play in lawsuits by three Canadian provinces . . .

Most of the records are reports of original scientific studies conducted between 1967 and 1984 by British American Tobacco. Some studies examined the effects of second-hand smoke on rats and found it was dangerous. Other research cast doubt on the comparative benefits of low-tar cigarettes, finding that smokers compensated by inhaling more intensely.

"The studies are notable both for the wide range of research designs used to examine the health effects of smoking and for the consistency of the findings," the CMAJ review says.

Jump to full article »

Tobacco company tried to cover up smoking risks: Report 

Documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco Canada contained scientific proof that cigarette smoke was potentially deadly, and could be used as evidence as provinces fight legal battles with big tobacco, according to a study published in Canada's top medical journal.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal, in the first published account of a Canadian tobacco company destroying documents, reviewed 60 scientific reports that Imperial Tobacco tried to conceal from the public.

The authors found evidence that could have had important implications, dating back as far as the 1960s, for government regulation of tobacco and the future health of Canadians.

Jump to full article »

Cigarette firm destroyed studies, review finds 

Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed documents related to the dangers of smoking. (Canadian Press)Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed up to 60 early studies that linked cigarettes to addiction and carcinogens, according to a review published Wednesday in the online Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The internal studies, done from 1967 to 1984, were destroyed in 1992 on orders from head office at British American Tobacco in the United Kingdom to avoid "exposing the company to liability or embarrassment," the authors of the review say.

The studies were later uncovered in British American Tobacco files, which began to be made available through disclosure during a U.S. trial in 1998, Dr. David Hammond of the University of Waterloo said in an interview.

Hammond said he and his team undertook the review because they knew the studies existed and involved high-quality research into cigarette design and the health effects of smoking.

Jump to full article »

Imperial Tobacco destroyed 7 million pages of research on smoking, says report 

Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed seven million pages of research which included decades worth of studies that indicated the devastating effects of smoking, a new medical journal article alleges.

The University of Waterloo researchers examined 60 scientific studies conducted between 1967 and 1984, and published their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

They said one of the studies showed tobacco company researchers exposing hamsters to cigarette smoke, and concluding that they developed cancerous lesions as a result.

They also said the studies demonstrated how second-hand smoke was worse than first-hand smoke.

The researchers said the documents were destroyed in Canada in 1992 at the request of Imperial's British head office, but copies remained stored at British American Tobacco headquarters in the United Kingdom. . . .

"Originally we found a document from Imperial Tobacco to British American Tobacco, their parent company, saying, 'We've destroyed the 60 sensitive documents as you requested,"' Hammond said, adding there was a list of internal codes indicating a number for each destroyed document.

Copies of the documents were then located in the British American Tobacco files in England.

Jump to full article »

120000 Lives a Year 

Video highlights one of the most urgent health challenges of the 21st Century, from the history of paid product placement to the May, 2004 U.S. Senate hearing, scientific research confirming the problem, growing youth activism, and the reasonable, effective four-step Smoke Free Movies solution endorsed by leading health groups.

Jump to full article »

Destroyed documents: uncovering the science that Imperial Tobacco Canada sought to conceal (PDF Full Text) 

The destroyed documents reveal a vast body of scientific evidence on the health effects of smoking. Forty of the 60 documents pertain to carcinogenicity and “biological activity” of cigarettes. . . .

All 60 documents ordered destroyed were reports of scientific work, performed either by British American Tobacco or contractors hired by British American Tobacco. The earliest report dated from 1967 and the most recent was produced in 1984. Of the 60 reports, 11 were reviews of internal research or methods development, 2 were statistical re-analyses of previous studies and the remaining 47 documents contained research findings from original studies conducted by British American Tobacco. . . .

Nicotine and addiction

Six of the destroyed documents depict a sophisticated program of research on nicotine addiction . . . Collectively, these research reports include convincing evidence about the addictive nature of nicotine — a fact that was vehemently challenged at the time in public by British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco Canada. . . .

Second-hand smoke

Eleven of the destroyed documents included original research findings on the effects of second-hand smoke.26,27,72–80 Nine of studies were experiments performed on rats to determine the effects of second-hand and mainstream smoke.26,27,73-79 The primary outcome of the tests was the finding that “In all exposed animals there was a consistent smoke-induced change in the larynx …

in 1990, the president of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers’ Council submitted a written objection to government proposals for a new health warning on the risks of second-hand smoke, stating that “we do not accept that there is any credible or reliable evidence to establish that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) constitutes a genuine health hazards to smokers.”82 The destroyed documents indicate that this evidence had already been collected by the industry and was concealed in confidential files. . . .

In 1954, the Canadian Medical Association issued its first public warnings about the risks of smoking, followed in 1963 by the landmark statement in the House of Commons from Canada’s Minister of National Health and Welfare that smoking was harmful to health. Despite these historic proclamations, there remained considerable uncertainty about the extent of the health risks, whether some products were less harmful than others, and what government measures should be taken to reduce the harm from tobacco. During this period, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco Canada collected high-quality scientific evidence that bore directly on these issues and had the potential to hasten effective public health regulation. However, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco concealed this information and argued that there was a lack of evidence to support government measures such as workplace smoking restrictions and mandatory health warnings on packages.81 For example, in 1990, the president of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers’ Council submitted a written objection to government proposals for a new health warning on the risks of second-hand smoke, stating that “we do not accept that there is any credible or reliable evidence to establish that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) constitutes a genuine health hazards to smokers.”82 The destroyed documents indicate that this evidence had already been collected by the industry and was concealed in confidential files.

Efforts to conceal research findings on “low-tar” cigarettes have been particularly damaging to health policy and government regulation. Canadian manufacturers began producing and marketing “lower-tar” cigarettes during the 1960s and 70s as a direct response to growing health concerns among consumers.81 Without the benefit of independent evidence on the potential benefits of “lower-tar” cigarettes, many leading health agencies supported this industry strategy.83 For example, in the 1970s, Health and Welfare officials urged the Canadian manufacturers to reduce tar levels further and to print tar numbers on packages to help guide consumers.81 The destroyed documents indicate that British American Tobacco had collected evidence that cast doubt on the potential health benefits of “low-delivery” products. In vivo studies indicated that human smokers were compensating for “low-tar” cigarettes by smoking them more intensely, while biological testing from Projects Janus and Rio revealed negligible differences in the carcinogenity and mutagenicity of cigarette brands. Without access to this evidence, several decades elapsed before regulators and health agencies reached consensus that “low-tar” products did not reduce risk.81,84 In the meantime, millions of smokers switched to these brands, many under the assumption of reduced harm as an alternative to quitting.84 The legacy of low-tar cigarettes continues today . . .

Had the tobacco industry been forthcoming about the evidence collected about human smoking behaviour and low-tar cigarettes, much of the confusion over these products may have been averted.

Imperial Tobacco’s attempt to destroy the evidence in the 60 documents is consistent with the tobacco industry’s welldocumented efforts to undermine science on the risks of smoking and to engineer doubt in the minds of health professionals and consumers.87 Imperial Tobacco Canada and British American Tobacco publicly denied the importance of the health effects that were clearly shown in the 60 destroyed documents. For example, in 1987 — 9 years after the conclusion of Project Janus, which showed the carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke — the chairman of Imperial Tobacco Canada and the chair of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council, Jean-Louis Mercier, testified in front of a House of Commons Legislative Committee, stating that “It is not the position of the industry that tobacco causes any disease. … The role, if any, that tobacco or smoking plays in the initiation and the development of these diseases is still very uncertain.”88

Further, in 1996, Martin Broughton, the chief executive of British American Tobacco stated, “We have not concealed, we do not conceal and we will never conceal. … we have no internal research which proves that smoking causes lung cancer or other diseases or, indeed, that smoking is addictive.”89

Finally, the destruction of documents by Imperial Tobacco Canada has direct implications for industry liability and new litigation that is proceeding in Canada. Canadian courts are currently being asked to consider whether the tobacco industry should be liable for the health care costs attributable to smoking.

In the first Canadian trial of its kind, the province of British Columbia has launched health care cost-recovery litigation . . .

Tobacco companies have yet to pay any compensation either to the Canadian government or to their consumers as a result of their actions.

Jump to full article »

• Destroyed documents: uncovering the science that Imperial Tobacco Canada sought to conceal  

Background: In 1992, British American Tobacco had its Canadian affiliate, Imperial Tobacco Canada, destroy internal research documents that could expose the company to liability or embarrassment. Sixty of these destroyed documents were subsequently uncovered in British American Tobacco's files. . . .

Results: Imperial Tobacco destroyed documents that included evidence from scientific reviews prepared by British American Tobacco's researchers, as well as 47 origin al research studies, 35 of which examined the biological activity and carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke. The documents also describe British American Tobacco research on cigarette modifications and toxic emissions, including the ways in which consumers adapted their smoking behaviour in response to these modifications. The documents also depict a comprehensive research program on the pharmacology of nicotine and the central role of nicotine in smoking behaviour. British American Tobacco scientists noted that "... the present scale of the tobacco industry is largely dependent on the intensity and nature of the pharmacological action of nicotine," and that "... should nicotine become less attractive to smokers, the future of the tobacco industry would become less secure."

Interpretation: The scientific evidence contained in the documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco demonstrates that British American Tobacco had collected evidence that cigarette smoke was carcinogenic and addictive. The evidence that Imperial Tobacco sought to destroy had important implications for government regulation of tobacco.

Jump to full article »

Case Studies 

In 1999, the House of Commons Health Select Committee acquired access to internal documents of the main advertising agencies of the UK tobacco industry as part of their investigation into the conduct of the tobacco industry. A range of documents were obtained including: contact reports between client and agency, client briefs, creative briefs, media briefs, media schedules, advertising budgets and market research reports (their own and others by contracted agencies).

The Centre for Tobacco Control Research at the University of Strathclyde have used the TobaccoPapers.com searchable archive as a tool to analyse these advertising agency documents and to develop a series of five marketing Case Studies. The subjects covered are Discount Brands, Sponsorship, the Low Tar Product Category, Rolling Tobacco and Tobacco Marketing and Young People.

Relevant keywords have been used to search the archive and each Case Study contains many extracts from the resulting internal documents to demonstrate how the UK tobacco industry and their advertising agencies market their products.

Jump to full article »

• VIDEO: Kevin Grandia: The Philip Morris Theory of Global Warming 

The tobacco companies were sued by the US government for this behavior and I suspect such a suit will be filed someday against the companies (i.e. ExxonMobil), the organizations (i.e. the Competitive Enterprise Institute) and the individuals (i.e. Steve Milloy) who perpetrated the attack on climate science.

All this leads to a shameless plug.

Jim Hoggan, co-founder of the DeSmogBlog Project, which I have managed for the last four years has written a book that chronicles the history of PR spindoctors working to confuse the realities of climate change (and tobacco). It's called Climate Cover Up: the crusade to deny global warming and it comes out in hard copy in the US on Oct. 20th. You can get it now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble if you can't wait.

People who have read the book tell me that they're angry. And its time for everyone to get angry about this and start holding people like Milloy accountable for what they've done.

Jump to full article »

ARCHIVE: Undercover operation ($$) 

y fears about the health risks from passive smoking, according to a memo dating from 1990. Among those claimed to be acting as consultants were an adviser to a British parliamentary committee and "an editor" of The Lancet.

The memo is one of 39 000 tobacco industry documents central to a lawsuit by the state of Minnesota, which aimed to recover from the tobacco industry the costs of treating illness caused by smoking. The case was settled last week. Philip Morris's index of the documents it handed over says the memo came from the London offices of its lawyers Covington and Burling.

Under the heading "Lancet" the document says: "One of our consultants is an editor of this very influential British medical journal, and is continuing to publish numerous reviews, editorials and comments on ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] ...

The complete article is 543 words long.

Jump to full article »