Jump to full article: Grand Junction (CO) Free Press , 2009-09-07
Author: Sharon Sullivan Free Press Staff Writer
Intro: A river brought Anne Landman to Grand Junction. . . .
Landman began working in 1996 for the American Lung Association.
That job heightened Landman's awareness of tobacco-caused diseases and she began noticing cigarette displays in stores — how they always seemed to be out of the line of sight of clerks, placed around the corner near the door and below counter level.
“I started asking clerks: ‘Do you lose merchandise off these displays?'” Landman said.
She said store clerks used words like “tons” and “gobs” to describe the amount of merchandise that was lost. However, they weren't allowed to move the tobacco products display, or they'd lose huge placement fees paid by the tobacco companies.
Clerks in stores all over Grand Junction — many near schools — told Landman that tobacco representatives came and monitored the placements.
A manager of one Stop N Save convenience store near a school in Clifton told Landman she was losing 300 packs a month. Store clerks told Landman it was mostly kids stealing the cigarettes.
. . .
Companies were also required to reveal all their secret documents. Millions of pages of internal documents were scanned and placed on the Internet for public access.
In her spare time at home in Glade Park where she had a dial-up connection to the Internet, Landman began downloading tobacco industry documents.
“I was looking for something in the documents to substantiate what I found on the ground,” Landman said.
“I couldn't believe what I saw. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was like a murder mystery novel with no ending. Confidential memos talked about strategies for undermining public health authorities.”
Landman gathered the information and began putting it on an Internet list serve (similar to an e-mail newsletter). She summarized documents and included excerpts. She began writing and publishing articles in medical and academic journals. . . .
One of her Grand Junction colleagues contacted CBS news in New York, who sent a four-person crew to Grand Junction to report on the tobacco displays and the placement fees for its “Eye on America” segment that was broadcast nationally April 12, 1999. Television stations around the country checked tobacco products displays in their own towns, and localized the issue to create their own segments.
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