Quotes
Latest quotables from tobacco newsIf limiting distribution and limiting the visibility of this dangerous product reduces smoking in communities, we believe pharmacists would be more than happy to be part of the program
— San Francisco entrepreneur Stuart Skorman, who wants to make pharmacies the only places that sell tobacco products. / Push to restrict tobacco sales to drugstores / San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, November 6, 2009.
It is not an advertisement if there are no words.
— Ms Chim, a vendor who said tobacco companies helped her renovate her stand by adding display boxes, and were still paying her about HK$3,000 a month in "advertising fees"--even though her posters and banners had been taken down as Hong Kong's final phase of its advertising ban took effect. / Display boxes for cigarettes may be illegal ($$) / South China Morning Post, Monday, November 2, 2009.
A fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act where drug classification
accurately reflects harms would be a powerful
educational tool. Using the Act in a political way to
give messages other than those relating to relative
harms undermines the Act and does great damage
to the educational message.
We also have to fully endorse harm reduction
approaches at all levels and especially stop the
artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as
‘non-drugs’.
— Professor David Nutt / Estimating drug harms: a risky business? (PDF) / Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (uk), Thursday, October 1, 2009.
The Good Life—that is the art of living. A culture of its own that revolves around taking time, perceiving the world with all the senses in order to experience the fine nuances of pleasure.
— Davidoff's "The Good Life" campaign. The Davidoff Swiss indoor tennis tournament is under fire.
/ Tobacco sponsorship of tennis tournament goes ahead because of weak Swiss legislation, says campaigning group / British Medical Journal, Monday, October 19, 2009.
Modern living has exposed people to a variety of toxic substances. Illness and disease from exposure to these substances are often latent, not manifesting themselves for years or even decades after the exposure. Our tort law developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . . . We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects are not immediately apparent.
— MA Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Spina, writing for the court in the Donovan medical monitoring suit. / SJC: Philip Morris may have to pay for diagnostic tests for smokers / Boston (MA) Globe, Monday, October 19, 2009.
[W]e got 80 percent of the people who were going to quit smoking to quit smoking. That's great, but the next 20 percent is going to be tough. Smoking tends to be a disease of poverty and lack of education. Thirty years ago, 50 percent of the population smoked and now we're down to roughly 25 percent. What we have left is a very select group of people.
— Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. / Smoking Keeps Its Grip on Urban Poor / HealthDay [HealthScout], Friday, October 16, 2009.
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. / Scholars' Right to Keep Unpublished Work Private Is at Issue in Lawsuit / Florida Board of Governors - State University System , Wednesday, October 14, 2009.
Tobacco packaging is no longer the 'silent salesman' it once was, now it shouts loudly. These screams for attention are used to defy advertising bans and drown out health warnings. The industry will fight tenaciously but the only consistent and effective policy response is generic packaging.
— Professor Gerard Hastings , lead researcher based at the Institute for Social Marketing at the University of Stirling. / Tobacco Research Reveals The Packet Racket / Medical News TODAY(UK), Tuesday, October 13, 2009.
I found no support for the claim that a display ban is likely to cause a reduction in smoking prevalence.
In contrast, tobacco price increases, driven mainly by increases in taxes, had a negative and statistically significant impact on smoking prevalence. Furthermore, other tobacco control measures, like bans on smoking in public areas and health warnings on cigarette packages were effective tobacco control measures, as they had a negative and statistically significant effect on smoking prevalence.
— Display bans must be tremendously threatening to Philip Morris if its own report establishes taxes, warning labels and smoking bans as effective tobacco control measures. It seems PM would prefer ANYTHING but a display ban. / The effectiveness of display bans: the case of Iceland (PDF) / Banning the Display of Tobacco Products (Philip Morris International) (ch), Thursday, October 1, 2009.
It's just to protect our ability to show our product in stores. We are not seeking changes to the law prohibiting smoking in public places or that prohibit tobacco advertising.
— Philip Morris spokesman Peter Nixon, on the Irish lawsuit. / Cigarette giant fights ban on advertising in shops / Irish Independent (ie), Monday, October 5, 2009.
The country is swamped in legislation that is making life very difficult for compliant retailers like me. The ban on the display of cigarettes is just one example of a piece of over-regulation that has negatively affected my business. As a law-abiding retailer, I have a responsibility to my employees to make sure that I can continue to employ them going forward.
— Donegal Town shopkeeper Maurice Timony--the local presence Philip Morris partnered with to bring a lawsuit in Ireland--sounding just like a corporate press release. / Shopkeeper and cigarette giant unite to fight Irish tobacco law / The Guardian (uk), Monday, October 5, 2009.
I certainly had no idea about any of this at the time. I take responsibility for publishing the piece, and feel that airing some of the internal fight over it would violate confidences.
— Then-New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan, on publishing "No Exit," the 1994 Betsey McCaughey item on Clinton's Health Care plan. / SULLIVAN: Betsy McCaughey And Big Tobacco / The Atlantic Monthly, Tuesday, September 29, 2009.
We find it unbelievable that the Government of Ontario - a senior partner in the tobacco industry for more than 50 years - would use taxpayers' dollars to sue legal tobacco companies rather than invest in eliminating the contraband market
— Imperial Tobacco Canada, on Ontario's lawsuit. / Government of Ontario lawsuit is "hypocrisy", says Imperial Tobacco Canada / Canada Newswire (CNW) (ca), Tuesday, September 29, 2009.
To be brutally frank Mr Speaker, I’d like to lynch these #$^&** tobacco company executives.
— Hone Harawira, MP for Te Tai Tokerau. Tobacco companies seem to have roused New Zealand's famously war-like Maori. / Harawira: To Smoke or to Choke / Scoop (nz), Wednesday, September 23, 2009.
We do not advertise cigarettes in print right now and have not done that for a couple years, but Camel Snus is not a cigarette. This is a different product, and if ultimately you want your adult tobacco consumers to be aware of the product and its attributes, clearly you have to advertise.
— David Howard, an R. J. Reynolds spokesman.
/ A Different Camel Is Back in the Glossies / New York Times, Tuesday, September 22, 2009.
Camel clearly is not marketing snus as a replacement product -- it's a complementary product. [With dual use] you have two forms of nicotine addiction, and if that's the future, then we have a real problem, because that's going to be very difficult to treat.
— Gregory N. Connolly, a professor and tobacco researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, on "dual users." / A Different Camel Is Back in the Glossies / New York Times, Tuesday, September 22, 2009.
Yet another first for Ryanair – now it’s also the smokers’ favourite airline.
— Similar Smokeless Cigarettes Director Chris Parsons. / Ryanair to allow passengers to 'smoke' onboard with Similar Smokeless Cigarettes / Ryanair, Sunday, September 20, 2009.
As these cigarettes are smokeless they cause no discomfort to other passengers and can ensure a more enjoyable and stress-free flight for all passengers, as non-smokers will no longer have to cope with moody smokers in need of nicotine.
— Stephen McNamara, spokesman for Ryanair, which will begin selling the new "Similar Smokeless Cigarettes" on its flights. / Ryanair to introduce smokeless 'cigarettes' / Irish Times (ie), Monday, September 21, 2009.
[Tobacco] is so hurtful and dangerous to youth that it might have the pernicious nature expressed in the name, and that it were as well known by the name of Youths-bane as by the name of tobacco.
— Recently-found letter by Dr Eleazar Duncon which was published in Scotland in 1606. / Tobacco warning from 17th Century / BBC Online, Saturday, September 19, 2009.
I smoked because Betty Davis said it was very glamorous. I smoked because it was seen everywhere and done everywhere. I got addicted because the tobacco companies add additives to their tobacco to make it more addictive. I'm damned mad at all of them.
— TV star Kathryn Joosten. / 'Desperate Housewives' actress Kathryn Joosten diagnosed with recurrence of lung cancer / Los Angeles Times blogs, Monday, September 14, 2009.
Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! . . . For the tough cases, go Dada. . . . Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm.
— Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, who combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about BPA, even on the most obscure blogs, and chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful.
According to a stellar series of Journal-Sentinel articles, secret tobacco documents reveal that STATS' parent organization is the Center for Media and Public Affairs--paid for in the 1990s by Philip Morris to pick apart stories critical of smoking.
Even today, tobacco-related message boards across the country seem vulnerable to this and other techniques that may be deployed by tobacco companies and/or their hirees in this, the new world of Internet PR. / 'Watchdog' advocates for BPA / Milwaukee (WI) Journal-Sentinel, Saturday, August 22, 2009.
After hearing weeks of improper arguments and evidence that violated state and federal law on punitive damages, the jury still managed to reject plaintiff's patently unreasonable request. Even so, we believe that any punitive damages award is unwarranted based on the facts in this case and that this award is unconstitutionally excessive.
— Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris, on the $13.8 M Bullock judgment. / Jury awards punitive damages to smoker's daughter / AP, Monday, August 24, 2009.
Some of us looked at it as an opportunity to deter this behavior. I don't find $13.8 million to be much of a deterrent.
— Matt Reed, 37, of Burbank one of the three dissenting Bullock jurors, who believed Philip Morris should pay a higher amount than the verdict. / Jury awards punitive damages to smoker's daughter / AP, Monday, August 24, 2009.
The combination of direct health threats from smoking coupled with the potential loss of [food] consumption among children linked to tobacco expenditure presents a development challenge of the highest order.
— Steven A. Block and Patrick Webb. Up in Smoke: Tobacco Use, Expenditure on Food, and Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 58:1. (October 2009) / Smoking May Worsen Malnutrition In Developing Nations / ScienceDaily, Monday, August 24, 2009.