Tobacco Timeline: The Twentieth Century 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined

Author: Gene Borio

Tobacco Timeline--Chapter 7: The Twentieth Century 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined

Tobacco Plant

TOBACCO TIMELINE

Chapter 7

The Twentieth Century, 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined

The Fifties
The public's health concerns drive companies to compete in rival ad campaigns touting their filters (The "Tar Wars" or "Tar Derby"). When the decade begins, 2% of cigarettes are filter tip; by 1960, 50% of cigarettes are filter tips. 15 filter brands account for 95% of U.S. sales (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398).

1950s: ADVERTISING: "Tar Wars."

1950: MARKET SHARE:

RANK	BRAND	BILLIONS SOLD
1	Camel	98.2 billion
2	Lucky Strike Regulars	82.5 billion
3	Chesterfield Regulars	66.1 billion
4	Commander	39.9 billion
5	Old Gold Regulars	19.5 billion

1950: HEALTH: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer

In the May 27, 1950 issue of JAMA, Morton Levin publishes first major study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer.
In the same issue, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases," by Ernst L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham of the United States, found that 96.5% of lung cancer patients interviewed were moderate heavy-to-chain-smokers.
1950-09:30: RICHARD DOLL and A BRADFORD HILL publish first report on Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung in the British Medical Journal, finding that heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to contract lung cancer. The cancer advisory committee of the Ministry of Health say they have demonstrated an association, not a cause, and advise the Government to do nothing.

FTC complains that cigarette ads touting physical benefits are deceptive. (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398)

1950: MEDIA: TV pop-music series "Your Hit Parade" starts its 7-year-run; one of the first hits on TV; it is sponsored by Lucky Strike.

1950: MEDIA: Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" wins TV Guide's commercial of the year. (Cheerleaders sing: "Yes, Luckies get our loudest cheers on campus and on dates. With college gals and college guys a Lucky really rates.")

1950: STATISTICS: American cigarette consumption is 10 cigarettes per capita, which equals over a pack a day for smokers..

1950: LITIGATION: P. Lorillard Co. v. FTC. Lorillard had launched a national campaign claiming a 1942 Consumer Reports article showed Old Golds was "lowest in nicotine and tars". While technically true, the point of the article was that differences in tar and nicotine were insignificant when it came to the harmfulness of all cigarettes. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding the FTC's cease-and-desist order, declares that Lorillard's advertising violated the FTC Act because, by printing only a small part of the article, it created an entirely false and misleading impression. "To tell less than the whole truth is a well-known method of deception," the court ruled. (CC) Along with other protracted- FTC censures against tobacco company ad claims of the 30s and 40s, the action was too little too late. The Consumers Union Report on Smoking and the Public Interest (1963) said, "Like astronomers studying stars millions of light years away, the FTC commissioners were constantly coming to conclusions about phenomena that were no longer in existence."

1950: FRANCE: Le Musée d’Intérêt National du Tabac (National Museum of Tobacco) is established. http://www.france-tabac.com/musee.htm

1951: Consumers in many countries now spend from 3 to 5 per cent of their total income on tobacco products, American delegate John B. Hutson tells the World Tobacco Congress. Mr. Hutson, president of Tobacco Associates, Inc., of Washington, D.C., said in a "General Economic Survey" that "the average per capita consumption for all countries has increased slightly during the past 20 years."

1951-10-15: MEDIA: TV series "I Love Lucy" begins its run at 9:00 PM. It is sponsored by Philip Morris. The animated titles that open the show each week feature stick figures of Lucy and Desi climbing a giant pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. It is the top-rated show for four of its first six full seasons.

1951: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tip brand, emphasizing taste.

1952: UK: "The Great London Smog." 12,000 people are thought to have died from respiratory disease caused by the pollution. See, "The Big Smoke," at http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/smog/ (U. of London)

1952: USA: Federal Trade Commission slaps Philip Morris on wrist concerning claims about Di-Gl reducing irritation. (LB)

1952: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Kent cigarettes, with the "Micronite" filter. At the press conference at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Lorillard boasted that the "Micronite" filter offered "the greatest health protection in cigarette history." Its secret: asbestos.

1952: ADVERTISING: Good Housekeeping refuses ads for cigarettes.

1952: ADVERTISING: Lorillard: "Kent and only Kent has the Micronite filter, made of a pure, dust-free, completely harmless material that is not only effective but so safe that it actually is used to help filter the air in operating rooms of leading hospitals." (Life Magazine)

1952: ADVERTISING: Lorillard: Kent: "No other cigarette approaches such a degree of health protection and taste satisfaction"

1952: BUSINESS: Hollingsworth & Vose gets 100% indemnity agreement from Lorillard on filters.

1952: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers widely publicizes the results of tests run by Arthur D. Little, Inc. showing that "smoking Chesterfields would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs." The ads run, among other places on the nationally popular Arthur Godfiey radio and television show.

1952-02-06: UK: Heavy smoker King George VI (the current Queen Elizabeth's father) dies of lung cancer, sparking one of the first major public discussions of lung cancer and smoking in the UK. He became King on the abdication of his elder brother, Edward VIII, in 1936.

1952-09: READER'S DIGEST republishes Roy Norr's "Cancer by the Carton" article (December, 1952) from the October, 1952 Christian Herald. Norr was the publisher of possibly the first modern anti-smoking periodical, the "Norr Newsletter about Smoking and Health" (NYC)

1953: HEALTH: Dr. Ernst L. Wynder's landmark report finds that painting cigarette tar on the backs of mice creates tumors. This was the first successful induction of cancer in a lab animal with a tobacco product, the first definitive biological link between smoking and cancer.

1953: BUSINESS: Benson & Hedges' Parliament sales are skyrocketing due to its filter, though sales are still well behind the major companies' products: B&W's Viceroy, and Lorillard's Kent.

1953: BUSINESS: PR firm Burson-Marsteller is established.

1953: BUSINESS: UK: The house of Benson and Hedges joins Gallaher Limited.

1953: ADVERTISING: AMA bans cigarette ads in its publications.

1953: ADVERTISING: Liggett: L&M: "Just what the doctor ordered"

1953: ADVERTISING: "[Viceroy] gives double-barreled health protection."

1953-12-08: HEALTH: Dr. Alton Ochsner gives a speech in NYC, saying, "the male population of the United States would be decimated if cigarette smoking increases as it has in the past unless some steps are taken to remove the cancer-producing factor from cigarettes." Tobacco stocks drop 1 to 4 points the next day. This speech is considered by some the last straw, which led tobacco executives join together and to seek out John Hill.

1953-12-10,11: BUSINESS: In response to an urgent telegram from Paul Hahn (ATC), cigarette executives meet in New York City for first time since price-fixing scandal of 1939, and agree to consult with John Hill.

1953-12-14: BUSINESS: Tobacco Execs Meet to Discuss Response to Smoking Studies. Plaza Hotel, New York City: Tobacco executives meet to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes. The meeting, called by ATC President Paul M. Hahn, results in a decision to invite PR maven John Hill of Hill & Knowlton to a meet the next day.

1953-12-15: BUSINESS: Tobacco Execs Plan Counterattack on Smoking Studies. Plaza Hotel, New York City: Tobacco executives meet to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes. Participants included John Hill of Hill & Knowlton, his key aides, and the following tobacco company presidents: Paul D. Hahn (ATC), O. Parker McComas (PM), Joseph F. Cullman (B&H), J. Whitney Peterson, U.S. Tobacco Co. Here's the text of BACKGROUND MATERIAL ON THE CIGARETTE INDUSTRY CLIENT, the H&K memo covering the meeting, and here's the document in .pdf format, Minnesota Trial Exhibit 18905

1953-12-28: BUSINESS: Hill meets again with tobacco execs to report on his initial study of the smoking and health problem.

1954: CONSUMPTION: Per capita cigarette consumption drops another 6%, making a falloff of about 10 percent over the two years in which the Wynder skin-painting experiment and Hammond-Horn population study were reported.

1954: Doll and Hill publish The Mortality of Doctors and Their Smoking Habits, in the BMJ; it leads to most doctors giving up smoking, confirming the link between lung cancer and smoking. At a news conference, the Minister of Health, Iain Macleod--chain-smoking throughout the conference--said,: "It must be regarded as established that there is a relationship between smoking and cancer of the lung."

1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris (Australia) Ltd. is set up as PM's first major affiliate outside the U.S.

1954: Cigarette companies sponsor ad disputing evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398)

1954: Don Cooley, in the process of writing an article for True Magazine, is contacted by Hill and Knowlton. "Considerable information and assistance was provided Donald G. Cooley in the preparation for his story in True Magazine. This entailed conferences with the author to work on factual revisions. . . Further research and assembling of material and personal conferences have been extended Mr. Cooley to provide him requested aid in his writing of a 48-page, low-priced book for newsstand sales and angled at the idea "You don't have to give up smoking." Fawcett Publications is issuing the book entitled 'Smoke Without Fear' , in late August and early September. " Report of Activities through July 31, 1954

1954: AGRICULTURE: HURRICAINE HAZEL devastates tobacco-growing areas of North Carolina.

1954: LITIGATION: PRITCHARD VS. LIGGETT & MYERS: (dropped by plaintiff 12 years later).

1954: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tips brand, emphasizing taste, not health.

1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys Benson & Hedges, and in the bargain gets its president, Joseph Cullman III

1954: ADVERTISING: Life Magazine runs ads for L&M featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell giving testimonials for the brand's new "miracle product," the "alpha cellulose" filter that is "just what the doctor ordered." These ads will figure prominently in the Cipollone trial 30 years later.

1954: ADVERTISING: Marlboro Cowboy created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett. "Delivers the Goods on Flavor" ran the slogan in newspaper ads. Design of the campaign credited to John Landry of PM. At the time Marlboro had one quarter of 1% of the American market.

1954: Leonard Engel, a popular medical writer, stated in Harper's Magazine that "the case against cigarettes is by no means proved" and that cigarettes may have "little or nothing to do with cancer of the lung." Engel conceded that cigarettes were "dirty, expensive, and no contribution to physical health," but he also believed that the evidence made available to him was not yet enough "for a firm conclusion." (Procotor Testimony, 2004)

1954-01-04: BUSINESS: Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) announced in a nationwide 2-page ad, A FRANK STATEMENT TO CIGARETTE SMOKERS
The ads were placed in 448 newspapers across the nation, reaching a circulation of 43,245,000 in 258 cities.
TIRC's first scientific director was noted cancer scientist Dr. Clarence Cook Little, former head of the National Cancer Institute (soon to become the American Cancer Society). Little's life work lay in the genetic origins of cancer; he tended to disregard environmental factors.
In 1964, the TIRC will change its name to the Council for Tobacco Research-USA, Inc. ("CTR").

1954-02-12: UK: Government officially acknowledges smoking/lung cancer link. Health Minister Iain Macleod, finally meets the press in regards to the Doll/Hill studies. He says of the government-approved scientific committee's findings, “It must be regarded as established that there is a relationship between smoking and cancer of the lung, " and that “it would appear that the risk increases with the amount smoked, particularly of cigarettes.” He emphasises that the evidence is statistical only, thanks Doll and Hill for ‘what little information we have’ - and chain-smokes throughout the proceedings. He also announced that the tobacco industry had given £250,000 for research to the MRC. The press reported the uncertainty and the industry’s generosity. ("40 Years Later," RCP) On 12th February 1954 the then Health Minister Iain Macleod gave a press conference at which he reported on the findings of a government-approved scientific committee which had been investigating possible links between smoking and lung cancer.

1954-03-10: LITIGATION: St. Louis factory worker Ira C. Lowe files a suit, the first product liability action brought against a tobacco company. PHILIP MORRIS hired DAVID R. HARDY to defend the company against a lawsuit brought by a Missouri smoker who had lost his larynx to cancer. This case was the beginning of PM's association with SHOOK, HARDY & BACON. The case was won in 1962; the jury deliberated one hour

1954-03-24: BUSINESS: RJR's first filter, Winston, is launched.

1954-04: BUSINESS: TIRC releases "A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE CIGARETTE CONTROVERSY," a booklet quoting 36 scientists questioning smoking's link to health problems.
(The booklet) was sent to 176,800 doctors, general practitioners and specialists . . . (plus) deans of medical and dental colleges . . . a press distribution of 15,000 . . . 114 key publishers and media heads . . . . days in advance, key press, network, wire services and columnist contacts were alerted by phone and in person . . . and . . . hand-delivered (with) special placement to media in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. The story was carried by hundreds of papers and radio stations throughout the country . . . . staff-written stories (were) developed with the help of Hill & Knowlton, Inc. field offices. (Hill & Knowlton memo, May 3, 1954.)

1954-06-07: LITIGATION: EVA COOPER files first tobacco lawsuit; sues R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO COMPANY for her husband's death from lung cancer. He had smoked Camels.
Mrs. Cooper's complaint alleged her husband, Joseph, who had died of lung cancer, "to his detriment relied on advertisements doctors considered its cigarettes healthful and that its cigarettes were harmless to the respiratory system." She sought to recover damages for pain and suffering and death of her husband.
The document which follows, a decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, on May 24, 1956, overturned an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts which dismissed the earlier, rewritten complaint.
"[T]he defendant filed certain interrogatories with reference to allegations in Counts V and VIII that Joseph Cooper had relied upon representations in certain newspaper advertisements and television and radio broadcasts to the effect that "20,000 doctors say that 'Camel' cigarettes are healthful" and that such cigarettes "are harmless to the respiratory system". The interrogatories requested the plaintiff to state, as to each such representation upon which Joseph Cooper relied, the name and date of the newspaper publication and the name and date and identification of the television and radio programs. In response to these interrogatories, the plaintiff answered that the earliest newspaper advertisement upon which Cooper relied was published in the Boston Globe on or about March 12, 1951, and repeated in advertisements thereafter, to the effect that a nationwide survey indicated that "More Doctors Smoke CAMELS than any other cigarette." . . . On November 21, 1957, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment accompanied by an affidavit by the chairman of the board of directors of the defendant company and by an affidavit by the president of the defendant's advertising agency. The latter affidavit read in part: "No copy for advertisement of any kind for Camel Cigarettes was furnished for publication by any newspaper or other publication or by radio or television during said period [19511953] containing the words '20,000 doctors say that "Camel" Cigarettes are healthful' or '"Camel" Cigarettes are harmless to the respiratory system', or containing other words with the same meaning." No opposing affidavits were filed by the plaintiff.

It is apparent from the uncontradicted affidavits, and from the plaintiff's answers to defendant's interrogatories, that there was no genuine issue of fact properly to be submitted to a jury, and therefore that the trial judge committed no error in entering a summary judgment for the defendant as permitted by Rule 56, F.R.C.P. 168 F.Supp. 22. This is entirely apart from the fact that our credulity would indeed be strained by an assumption that a fatal case of lung cancer could have developed in such a short period after the alleged smoking by Cooper of Camel cigarettes in reliance upon representations by the defendant in the various forms of advertising."
http://www.tobacco.org/resources/documents/560524cooper.html

1954-07-26: PROPAGANDA: NCI Dr. W.C. Hueper's talk, "Environmental Cancer of the Lung," is given at the VIth International Cancer Congress in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Hill & Knowlton, having received an advance copy of Dr. W.C. Hueper's talk, and finding it favorable to their cigarette clients, deploy the 17 page text, with 2 pages of highlights and a cover letter, to newspapers and services, science writers, editorial writers and feature writers.

[A]s a result of the distribution in the U.S.A., articles questioning a link between smoking and cancer sprouted. In some press accounts, the Hueper story took precedence over the reports of Drs. Hammond and Wynder.

[Note: Wilhelm Hueper had been through years of battling corporate interests over water, air and occupational pollution; while recognizing the evidence for smoking-related causation, he felt these issues could be slighted by an over-emphasis on smoking. He reportedly refused a $250,000 a year offer from the Tobacco Institute.]

1954-10: PROPAGANDA: Reprints of condensed version of Hueper paper appear in CURRENT MEDICAL DIGEST, October 1954. The magazine reaches 123,000 doctors who are in active practice.

1954-10: LITIGATION: Pritchard v. L&M filed in Federal District Court, Pennsylvania Lung cancer

1954-11: LITIGATION: Ross v. PM filed in Federal District Court, Missouri Laryngeal cancer

1955: Dorn and Baum (NIH) 6-year (1946 - 1952) study of the mortality rates of 11,000 American Tobacco Co. employees is published in the Journal of Industrial Medicine and Surgery. (Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, "Draft 1: Corporate Activity Project") (pp 109-110))

1955: CONSUMPTION: Smokers: Males: 56.9%; Females: 28.4%

1955: BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces a flip-top box.

1955: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Incorporated becomes the company's corporate name.

1955: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Independent of its Research Department, ATC President Robert Karl Heimann participated in the last two parts of a five-party epidemiological study of American Tobacco Co.'s own employees. The five parts were described as follows:

1955: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco is still #1 in US, with 33% of the market. Philip Morris is sixth.

1955: TV: CBS' "See It Now" airs first TV show linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer and other diseases. (For the first time on TV, Edward R. Murrow is not seen smoking. He had not quit; he felt it was "too late" to stop. Murrow died of lung cancer in 1965.)

1955: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 30, switches from Chesterfield to L&Ms.)

1955-08: LITIGATION: Lartigue v. L&M/RJR filed in Federal District Court, Louisiana Laryngeal cancer

1955-09: REGULATION: FTC publishes rules prohibiting health references in cigarette advertising; references to the "throat, larynx, lungs, nose, or other parts of the body" or to "digestion, energy, nerves, or doctors."

1956: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate among white males is 31.0 in 100,000, resulting in 29,000 deaths.

1956: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: CORESTA founded (DOJ)

1956: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard discontinues use of "Micronite" filter in its Kent cigarettes.

1956: BUSINESS: RJR introduces Salem, the first filter-tipped menthol cigarette.

1956: BUSINESS: BAT acquires overseas business of Benson & Hedges.

1957: Effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on children's birth weight studied. (Simpson WJ. A preliminary report on cigarette smoking and the incidence of prematurity. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1957;73:808-815)

1957: PEOPLE: DR. EVARTS GRAHAM dies of lung cancer. He wrote to DR. ALTON OCHSNER 2 weeks before his death, "Because of your long friendship, you will be interested in knowing that they found that I have cancer in both my lungs. As you know I stopped smoking several years ago but after having smoked much as I did for years, too much damage had been done."

1957: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires Milprint and Nicolet Paper Co. of Milwaukee--it's first non-tobacco purchase.

1957: BUSINESS: Joseph Cullman, III, becomes president of Philip Morris

1957: BUSINESS: UK: Gallaher launches "Your Never alone with a Strand" TV commercial. The lonely soul walking rain-swept streets with a turned-up collar telegraphs to viewers what a sad person he is. While everyone remembers and admires the moody ad, no one wants to identify with the protagonist; the brand dies. A famous disaster.

1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower talks at a press conference about his battle to quit smoking after suffering a heart attack. "I'm a little like the fellow who said I don't know whether I'll start again, but I'll never stop again."

1957: UK: The Medical Research Council (MRC) accepts smoking/lung cancer link. The Minister of Health announces that the Government accepts the evidence now - while he smokes a cigarette. MRC also isues a statement that air pollution does play a role in lung cancer, but it is a "relateively minor one in comparison with cigarette smoking." In December of 2002, Virginia Berridge said secret papers reveal that the cabinet committe on lung cancer feared that the the statement was modified to downplay the role of air pollution to save the government embarrassment.

1957: "Science Looks at Smoking" by Eric Northrup, was a book written "for the layman," and claimed that "all those who have attempted to prove the evil effects of tobacco have failed to establish a valid scientific case." Northrup admitted that some people by virtue of their constitution should not smoke, just as people with ulcers should not eat oranges; he also noted, though, that such prescriptions "point more to a deficiency in the patient than to any noxious quality in tobacco per se." Northrup conceded that some dangers may be real, but his overall message was one of reassurance: a chapter titled "Tobacco: Fact and Fiction," for example, characterizes smoking as a "positive factor in everyday living." (Proctor testimony, 2004)

1957-07-12: First Surgeon General declares link between smoking and lung cancerl. SG Leroy E. Burney issues "Joint Report of Study Group on Smoking and Health," stating that, "It is clear that there is an increasing and consistent body of evidence that excessive cigarette smoking is one of the causative factors in lung cancer," the first time the Public Health Service had taken a position on the subject. Burney had put the study group together in 1955, with the help of NCI, NHI, ACS and AHA.

1957-03: MEDIA: READERS DIGEST article links smoking with lung cancer, discloses that the tar and nicotine yields of the filter brands had been rising steadily for several years and now approximated the level of the older and presumably more hazardous unfiltered brands. (RK)

1957-07: MEDIA: READERS DIGEST article rates tar/nicotine levels. RJR's filterless Camel, for example, yielded 31 mg. of tar and 2.8 mg. of nicotine per cigarette compared with 32.6 mg. and 2.6 mg. per Winston. Marlboro has one of the worst; in response, Leo Burnett goes into 2 years of the unsuccessful "settleback" campaign--Marlboro men in relaxed poses.

1957: MEDIA: Ad agency BBDO drops READERS DIGEST over tobacco article.

Barry McCarthy, onetime executive at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, said that in the 1950's, probably 1957, he was the account supervisor on the Reader's Digest business when the Digest ran one of its many anti-cigarette articles. American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike, was a major client at the same time. The article enraged J. T. Ross, American's public relations man, and he got the client to insist that B.B.D.O. decide between the magazine and the tobacco company. Since the latter billed $30 million or so, which was huge by 1950's standards, and the Digest a couple of million, the agency relucantly dropped the Digest

--NYT, April 7, 1988; Advertising; RJR Flap Not the First In Cigarette Ad History By Philip H. Dougherty

1957: REGULATION: Pope Pius XII suggests that the Jesuit order give up smoking.

There were only 33,000 jesuits in the world at that point, so the industry was not worried about losing this handful of smokers. They feared that the Pope or other church leaders might ask, as a magazine headline once put it, "When are Cigs a Sin?"

1957: REGULATION: Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is amended. The manufacturer must bear the burden of demonstrating the product is safe and effective. Products previously on the market, those "generally recognized among experts as safe," or "natural constituents of food" are exempt.

1957-03-01: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: At the cooperative British tobacco industry Tobacco Research Council laboratory at Harrogate, an internal report by Batco refers to cancer by the code name, zephyr: "As a result of several statistical surveys, the idea has arisen that there is a causal relation between zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking,"

1957: HEALTH: The British Medical Research Council issues "Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of Lung," which states that "... a major part of the increase [in lung cancer] is associated with tobacco smoking, particularly in the form of cigarettes" and that "the relationship is one of direct cause and effect."

1957: HEALTH: PREGNANCY: In the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Winea J. Simpson asked what effects smoking might have on the unborn child. The incidence of premature births and of all the complications that go with prematurity was twice as great for smoking mothers as it was for nonsmoking mothers. Simpson's paper confirmed that children of smokers are not only born early, but also weigh less and are more likely to be stillborn or die within one month of birth. (ASG)

1957-07: REGULATION: Sen. Bennett (R-UT) introduces bill requiring cigarette packs carry label, "Warning: Prolonged use of this product may result in cancer, in lung, heart and circulatory ailments, and in other diseases." [Bates 03553092]

1957-07: REGULATION: BLATNIK REPORT: The Blatnik hearings are the first testimony presented to Congress on smoking and health. The hearings center on whether the FTC should regulate advertising claims of filtered cigarettes. John A. Blatnik (D-MN) was chairman of the Legal and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee. After hearing that filtered cigarettes deliver about as much tar and nicotine as unfiltered due to the stronger tobaccos used, the subcommitte moves to grant the FTC injunctive powers over deceptive cigarette advertising. The Blatnik Report concludes, "The cigarette manufacturers have deceived the American public through their advertising of cigarettes." Shortly after the report is issued, Blatnik is stripped of his chairmanship and his subcommittee is dissolved.

1957-12: LITIGATION: Green v. American Tobacco Co. Filed. The case will not conclude until 1970--12 years after Green's death.

1958 (approx): Haag (MCV) and Hanmer (American) update of the Dorn-Baum study of American Tobacco Co. employee mortality rates for the period 1953 to 1956 is published in the Journal of industrial Medicine and Surgery.

1958: Roy Norr and the Reverend Ben-David found The Reporter On Smoking And Health newsletter

1958: BUSINESS: Tobacco Institute Formed

1958: ADVERTISING: British Medical Journal stops carrying tobacco advertising. It is unclear when The Lancet stops carrying tobacco ads--some time between 1953 and 1961. Bartrip, P. "Pushing the Weed:The Editorializing and Advertising of Tobacco in the Lancet and the British Medical journal, 1880-1958"

1958: DOCUMENTS: Senior PM scientist J.E. Lincoln writes to Ross Millhiser, then-Philip Morris vice president and later vice chairman: "This compound [benzopyrene] must be removed from Marlboro and Parliament or sharply reduced. We do this not because we think it is harmful but simply because those who are in a better position to know than ourselves suspect it may be harmful." Four months later he wrote "that law and morality coincided . . . Act on the doctrine of uncertainty and get the benzpyrene (sic), etc., out of the cigarettes." Lincoln later became PM vice president of research. (AP)

1958-02-20: REGULATION: Blatnik Commission report is delivered to Congress. "The cigarette manufacturers have deceived the American public through their advertising of filter-tip cigarettes . . . Without specifically claiming that the filter tip removes the agents alleged to contribute to heart disease or lung cancer, the advertising has emphasized such claims as 'clean smoking,' 'snowy white,' 'pure,' 'miracle tip,' '20,000 filter traps,' 'gives you more of what you changed to a filter for' and other phrases implying health protection, when actually most filter cigarettes produce as much or more nicotine and tar as cigarettes without filters. . . The Federal Trade Commission has failed in its statutory duty to 'prevent deceptive acts or practices' in filter-cigarette advertising."
False And Misleading Advertising (Filter-tip Cigarettes). Twentieth Report By The Committee On Government Operations
Very shortly afterwards, Blatnik's commission was unceremoniously dissolved.

1958-06: DOCUMENTS: "REPORT ON VISIT TO U.S.A. AND CANADA," 17th of April to 12th May 1958," by H. R. Bentley, D. G. I. Felton, and W. W. Reid, produced by B.A.T. Company, Ltd. 3 British-American Tobacco Co. scientists, after visiting the United States and discussing smoking research with 35 tobacco industry scientists and officials, write: "With one exception (H.S.N. Greene), the individuals whom we met believed that smoking causes lung cancer if by 'causation' we mean any chain of events which leads finally to lung cancer and which involves smoking as an indispensable link. In the U.S.A. only Berkson, apparently, is now prepared to doubt the statistical evidence and his reasoning is nowhere thought to be sound."

1959-11: HEALTH: Dr Burney publishes an article in JAMA confirming the position of the Public Health Service on cigarettes' causitive relation to lung cancer. According to Luther Terry, "Still, the subject received little scientifc and public attention."

1959-Fall: The "Vanguard Issue." Vanguard was a tobaccoless smoke introduced in the Fall of 1959. The product's creator, Bantop Products Corporation of Bay Shore, Long Island, immediately ran into problems advertising it. Bantop claimed the tobacco industry conspired to prevent its "Now Smoke Without Fear" ads. In the New York metropolitan area, for example, only one newspaper would accept the ads. (ASG)

1959: Industry pressures the New York City Transit Authority to order Reader's Digest to remove from the subways ads promoting an article titled "The Growing Horror of Lung Cancer."

The Sixties
By now, the distribution of free cigarettes at annual medical and public health meetings has stopped.

1960: LEGISLATION: FEDERAL HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES LABELING ACT (FHSA) of 1960 Authorized FDA to regulate substances that are hazardous (either toxic, corrosive, irritant, strong sensitizers, flammable, or pressure-generating). Such substances may cause substantial personal injury or illness during or as a result of customary use.

1960: BUSINESS: Pall Mall becomes the nation's top-selling brand. It's reign runs from 1960 to 1966.

1960-01: LEGISLATION: FTC tells cigarette manufacturers to stop "tar derby" advertising and cease referring to improved health effects of filters. (Bates # 03553092)

1960-04-04: LITIGATION: Pritchard v. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company begins. When it was time to deliberate, Federal Judge John L. Miller tells the jury, "The court is of the opinion that no substantial evidence has been offered to support a verdict against the defendant on any theory of negligence, and that fair-minded men could not differ as to the conclusions of fact to be drawn from the evidence... The jury is directed to find a verdict in favor of the defendant Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, and against the plaintiff, Otto E. Pritchard." The case was sent back to Miller on appeal. The jury found on November 9, 1962 that the smoking of Chesterfields was the cause of or one of the causes of cancer in Pritchard's right lung, but denied damages to Pritchard on the assumption of risk theory.

1960: Bernays Repents. ASH praises Bernays for his efforts to inform the public about the dangers of smoking. Bernays writes, "had I known in 1928 what I know today I would have refused [George Washington] Hill's offer."

1960:08:02: LITIGATION: Green v. American Tobacco Co. Decision. Lawyer/Doctor Larry Hastings is first to win a liability suit against tobacco for causing death. Miami Federal District Judge Emett Choate asked the jury to consider (1) Was cancer primary in the lung? (2) Did this cause his death? (3) Did the smoking of Lucky Strikes cause his cancer death? In all three instances, the 12-man jury voted "yes." The fourth interrogatory asked, "Did the cigarette company have knowledge of the harmfulness?" The jury said, "no." Therefore, no money was awarded. In retrial, judge tells jury to side with defendant if the product did not endanger an important number of smokers. Jury does.

1960-10: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Lartigue v. L&M/RJR.

1961: HISTORY: The Tobacco Institute stages a celebration of the 350th anniversary of America's first tobacco crop. The festival features Pocahontas and a cigar-smoking John Rolfe.

1961-06-01: POLITICS: The presidents of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association submit a joint letter to President Kennedy, pointing out the increasing evidence of the health hazards of smoking and urging the President to establish a commission. The result will be the landmark 1964 SG report.

1961: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Overseas Division is renamed Philip Morris International.

1961: CANADA: SPORTS: Imperial Tobacco sponsors the Players 200, the first international motorsport race in Canada. It is won by Stirling Moss.

1962: US imposes economic embargo on Cuba.

1962-03-07: UK: First Report of the British Royal College of Physicians of London: Smoking and Health,.

1962: STATISTICS: Per-capita consumption of cigarettes stands at 12 per day among adult Americans

1962: LEGISLATION: KEFAUVER-HARRIS DRUG AMENDMENTS TO THE FOOD, DRUG AND COSMETICS ACT requires that drugs must be proven effective and safe before sold and manufacturers are to registered with the FDA.

1962: Bob Newhart Satirizes Sir Walter Raleigh. "The Bob Newhart Show" played on NBC- briefly. In one episode, Newhart played an Englishman getting a phone call from Sir Walter Raleigh in the Americas. The Sir Walter Raleigh bit is preserved on a record album. From: http://www.bob-newhart.com/Frames/comedy.html:

"Are you saying "snuff," Walt? What's snuff? You take a pinch of tobacco (starts giggling) and you shove it up your nose! And it makes you sneeze, huh. I imagine it would, Walt, yeah. Goldenrod seems to do it pretty well over here. It has some other uses, though. You can chew it? Or put it in a pipe. Or you can shred it up and put it on a piece of paper, and roll it up - don't tell me, Walt, don't tell me- you stick in your ear, right Walt? Oh, between your lips! Then what do you do to it? (Giggling) You set fire to it! Then what do you do, Walt? You inhale the smoke! You set fire to it! Then what do you do Walt? You inhale the smoke! Walt, we've been a little worried about you...you're gonna have a tough time getting people to stick burning leaves in their mouth...."

1962: BUSINESS: Philip Morris begins picturing a cowboy in scenes depicting recognizable American landmarks, with the new slogan, "Marlboro Country."

1962:01: SG Luther Terry submits to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Abraham A. Ribicoff, a formal proposal for the establishment of an Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health to report to the Surgeon General.

1962:06: Surgeon General Luther Terry announces the formation of the Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health.

1962:06: LEGISLATION: Sen. Moss (D-UT) introduces a measure to give the FDA the power to police content, advertising and labeling of cigarettes.

1962-07: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Ross v. PM

1962-07-27: Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health chosen by representatives from government, medicine and tobacco. From Luther Terry: On July 27, 1962 my staff and I met with representatives of the various medical associations and volunteer organizations, the Tobacco Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission, and the President's Office of Science and Technology. These representatives were given a list of 150 eminent biomedical scientists (none of whom had taken a major public position on the subject of smoking and health) from which we expected to appoint a committee of about ten members. The attendees were given the opportunity to delete from the list anyone to whom they objected, and they were not required to give reasons for their objection.

1962-11: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Pritchard v. L&M (and agin in 1968)

1962-11-09: The 10 members of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health have first meeting.

1963: LEGISLATION: FDA expressed its interpretation that tobacco did not fit the "hazardous" criteria stated of the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (FHSA) of 1960, and withheld recommendations pending the release of the report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health.

1963: LITIGATION: 7 tobacco liability suits are filed

1963: LEGISLATION: Philip Morris hires Abe Fortas, Lyndon Johnson's personal attorney and powerful lobbyist. Fortas was the senior partner of law firm Arnold, Fortas and Porter. According to "A Smoking Gun," the law firm was

chosen by the six major tobacco companies (R.J. Reynolds, American Tobacco, Brown and Williamson, Liggett and Myers, P. Lorillard and Philip Morris) to form a committee of lawyers to solidify industry togetherness. The committee met almost daily, planning for every possible contingency, and carefully forming the industry argument for the FTC hearings. When the issue of labeling came before Congress, it was this group who wrote the testimony, conducted the search for friendly witnesses, and even supplied questions that its Congressional allies could ask opposing witnesses.

The effort, aided by the lobbying of ex-Senator Earle C. Clements led to the preemption of the FTC by Congress. The Cigarette Labeling act not only gave the industry weak, generalized labels, but preempted litigation by letting the industry argue that the labels had given smokers sufficient warning, and that they undertook smoking at their own knowledgeable risk. As Fortas said at a DOJ meeting in June, 1964, "The companies want legislation. . . . . A requirement that packages be labeled would be helpful in civil litigation." Fortas may also have played a large role in keeping then-President Johnson out of the fray. Fortas later became Johnson's choice for the Supreme Court (1965-1969).

1963-08: LITIGATION: Zagurski v. American Tobacco filed in Federal District Court, Connecticut Lung cancer

1963: LITIGATION: KC, MO. Local, 20-lawyer firm, Shook Hardy Bacon, wins John Ross case (filed in 1954) for Philip Morris. SHB goes on to become virtually synonymous with tobacco litigation.

1963: BUSINESS: Philip Morris dispenses with tattooed sailors, et. al., and settles on the cowboy as the sole avatar of the Marlboro Man, featuring him exclusively in scenes of the American West. From: Marlboro Man at 50 -- Icon or illusion?" by Jim Courier, San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2005:

The "real" West was discovered by Neil McBain, a Burnett art director scouting rustic settings for a Camay soap ad in 1963. At the 6666 Ranch in Guthrie, Texas, McBain swooned at the sight of Carl "Bigun" Bradley, a foreman who smoked Kools, and hired him on the spot. As the first cowboy Marlboro Man, Bradley earned less than $10,000 a year, never gave up cowboying and later drowned in a stock pond while breaking a horse. His Kools were found dry on the bank.

1963: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys the Odells' Burma-Vita (Burma Shave) and absorbs it into its American Safety Razor division. PM discontinues the roadside signage in favor of NFL football TV ads. By 1966, virtually all 7,000 sets of signs had disappeared; many lamented the loss of this unique Americana.Philip Morris sells the division to an investor group in 1977.

1963-07-17: LITIGATION: B&W's General Counsel ADDISON YEAMAN writes in a memo, "Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms." Yeaman was concerned about the upcoming Surgeon General's report, and was writing of "the so-called 'beneficial effects of nicotine': 1) enhancing effect on the pituitary-adrenal response to stress; 2) regulation of body weight."

1963: INDONESIA: PT Hanjaya Mandala (HM) Sampoerna is established

1963: Consumers Union's "Report on Smoking and the Public Interest"

1964: STATISTICS: There are 70 million smokers in the US, and tobacco is an $8 Billion/year industry. (Joseph Ben-David, Reporter on Smoking and Health, April-May, 1963)

1964: BUSINESS: MARKET SHAREE: Pall Mall, the nation's top-selling brand, captures nearly 15 percent of the market.

1964: Tobacco industry adopts voluntary advertising guidelines.

1964: LITIGATION: 17 tobacco liability suits are filed

1964: Tobacco industry writer suggests tobacco control advocates have psychiatric certification that they are not sufering from pyrophobia and suppressed fear of the 'big fire' or atom bomb

1964: BUSINESS: LIGGETT Joins TIRC

1964: BUSINESS: TIRC changes its name to the Council for Tobacco Research-USA, Inc. ("CTR").

1964: BUSINESS: MARLBORO Country ad campaignbegins featuring the slogan, "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country." Marlboro sales begin growing at 10% a year.

1964: JAPAN: Emperor Hirohito begins the tradition of giving out cigarettes to his staff on his birthday.

1964: National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health, the first national antismoking coalition, is formed.

1964-01-11: 1st Surgeon General's Report linking smoking and lung cancer: Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service

See the CDC's History of the 1964 Surgeon General's ReportSee the full list of SG reports here

1964: MEDIA: Even after the Surgeon General's report, New York Post editors were immediately rebuked if they “allowed a hint that there was a link between smoking and cancer to appear in the paper,” because Post owner Dorothy Schiff smoked a pack of Kools per day.

1964-01: REGULATION: Sen. Maurine Neuberger (D-OR) introduces bill giving FTC authority to regulate cigarette advertising and labeling. Also, the FTC begins rule-making to require health warrning on cigarette packs and in advertising. (Bates # 03553093)

1964-02-07: The AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN accepts a $10 million grant for tobacco research from six cigarette companies. The AMA shelves its previous plans to issue a report on smoking's relationship to cancer; the official AMA word on smoking and health won't be issued for another 10 years.

1964-02-09: Beatles debut on "Ed Sullivan," along with a Kent Micronite Filter ad. The ad starring Paul Dooley is removed from the 2004 DVD of the show. A Pillsbury ad is substituted.

1964-02-28: The AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN supports the tobacco industry's objection to labeling cigarets as a health hazard, writes in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, "More than 90 million persons in the United States use tobacco in some form, and, of these 72 million use cigarets... the economic lives of tobacco growers, processors, and merchants are entwined in the industry; and local, state, and the federal governments are recipients of and dependent upon many millions of dollars of tax revenue."

1964-03-19: Rep. FRANK THOMPSON Jr. (D-NJ) charges that the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN has entered into a deal with tobacco-state congressmen to gain their votes against Medicare.

1964-04: BUSINESS: The tobacco industry announces its Cigarette Advertising Code.

1964-06-23: Rep. Orem Harris, chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, begins hearings on warning labels.

1964-09-10 to 10-15: BUSINESS: Sir PHILIP ROGERS and GEOFFREY TODD, senior officials of the BRITISH RESEARCH COUNCIL arrive in US on month-long fact-finding tour. Their reports will not be seen by the public until 10/2/96.

1965: CONSUMPTION: Smokers: 42.4% overall; Males: 51.9%; Females: 33.9%; Whites: 42.1%; Blacks: 45.8% (CDC) 29.6 percent of people who had ever smoked had quit as of 1965.

1965: TOBACCO CONTROL: Public Health Services (PHS) establishes the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health.

1965: TOBACCO CONTROL: UK: Parliament bans cigarette advertising on TV.

1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: TIRC sets up secretive, lawyer-directed SPECIAL PROJECTS division.

1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PREGNANCY: A study by the TIRC finds that pregnant women who smoke have smaller babies and are more likely to give birth prematurely.

1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: B&W's "PROJECT JANUS" begins issuing scientific reports on the health effects of smoking, about 30 substantial reports by 1978.

1965: BUSINESS: The tobacco industry's Cigarette Advertising Code, announced in the Spring of 1964 to minimize the FTC's ad restrictions, takes effect. Drawn up by the Policy Committee of Lawyers, its administrator is respected ex-NJ-governor Robert B. Meyner, who was given authority to fine violators up to $100,000. The code banned advertising and marketing directed mainly at those under 21 years old, and ended advertising and promotion in school and college publications. No violations or fines were ever levied

In 1983, the Tobacco Institute published a pamphlet entitled "Voluntary Initiatives of a Responsible Industry." The pamphlet noted that "in 1964, the industry adopted a cigarette advertising code prohibiting advertising, marketing and sampling directed at young people."

1968-11. BUSINESS: 'Bravo' (lettuce based) cigarettes go on sale. Reports vary on the Texas-based Bravo's demise--some say the cigarettes were off the market by 1968, some think as late as 1972. They returned, manufactured in a Georgia plant, in 1997.

1965: SMOKEFREE: Florida enacts the first statewide preemptive legislation, after a dozen communities adopt clean indoor air ordinances. As of 2003, over 30 states have such legislation.

1965-08-01: UK: Government bans cigarette advertisements on TV

1965: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American's share of the market sank from 35% in 1965 to 17.8% in 1971. By 1978 they were down to 12%.

1965: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the follwoing Surgeon General's Warning on the side of cigarette packs: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." . .

1965-05: LITIGATION: Weaver v. AT filed in State Court, Missouri Lung cancer

1965-07-31: UK: Cigarette advertising on British TV is banned.

1965-09: BUSINESS: JAP,AN: Japan Tobacco begins providing free cigarettes to elderly residents of nursing homes on the "Respect for the Aged Day" holiday. The practice becomes a tradition.

1965-12-17: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: CTR's Ad Hoc Cmte sets priorities; Alvan R. Feinstein is awarded $5,600 CTR "Special Projects" grant.

Category A: Projects essentially of "adversary" value. These are considered to have a relatively high priority.
Category B: Research having a generally defensive character.
Category C. Basic research." " Bates #: 2017025366/5370 ( http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=2017025366/5370)

1966: Philip Morris' "Project 6900" investigates the carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke, often using animal experiments. A semi-annual report on the project reports that, ""gross lung pathology can be induced by smoking cigarettes."

1966: Congress votes to send 600 million cigarettes to flood disaster victims in India

1966: ARIZONA: Ornithologist Betty Carnes starts Arizonans Concerned About Smoking. Some consider this the beginning of the movement nationwide. Carnes is credited with convincing American Airlines to create the first non-smoking sections on airplanes in 1971, as well as Arizona's 1973 first-in-the-nation statewide smoking-control law.

1966: PROPAGANDA: "It Is Safe To Smoke" by Lloyd Mallan. "The scientific facts in the smoking vs. health controversy--and a startling, straight-forward conclusion." Mallan visits scientist after scientist, all of whom tell him smoking's not really dangerous, but just in case it is--the charcoal filter (then used on Lark cigarettes) would the best protection. The dedication reads: This book is for Rose Tinker Mallan, my lovely non-smoking wife, who worries with renewed emphasis every time she reads another scare headline in the newspapers "linking" cigarette smoking with disease, and for my son Lloyd Jeffrey, who fiendishly smokes the wrong kind of cigarette.

1966: BUSINESS: RJR's filter-tip Winston becomes top-selling cigarette in the US

1966: FASHION: Designer Yves Saint Laurent introduces "le smoking," a tuxedo for women.

1966: CONSUMPTION: JAPAN: Smoking hits peak: 49.4 percent of adults -- and 83.7 percent of men -- are smokers.

1966-01-01: Health warnings on cigarette packs begin

1966-05: LITIGATION: Thayer v. L&M filed in Federal District Court, Michigan Lung cancer

1967: 2nd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review

William H. Stewart's Surgeon General's Report concludes that smoking is the principal cause of lung cancer; finds evidence linking smoking to heart disease

1967: First report concerning the adverse effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on children's health is published. (Cameron P. The presence of pets and smoking as correlates of perceived disease. J Allergy. 1967;40:12-15)

1967: The first attempt to market king-length cigarettes to women fails when the American Tobacco Company advertises its new Silva Thins with the slogan: "Cigarettes are like girls. The best ones are thin and rich." 25 [Lerner, S., "Tobacco Stains," Ms. , November/December 1996] Source: Mediascope http://www.mediascope.org/pubs/ibriefs/ws.htm

1967: Federal Trade Commission releases the first tar and nicotine report.

1967: FCC applies TV Fairness Doctrine to cigarette ads

Stations broadcasting cigarette commercials must donate air time to smoking prevention messages.

1967: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) releases the first report on tar and nicotine yield in cigarette brands.

1967: SCIENCE: Dr. Auerbach gives 86 beagles tracheotomies in order to pump smoke into their lungs.

1967: BUSINESS: Philip Morris reorganizes to create three internal operating divisions within Philip Morris Incorporated: Philip Morris Domestic, Philip Morris International, and Philip Morris Industrial.

1967: BUSINESS: Joseph F. Cullman, 3rd, is appointed chairman and CEO of Philip Morris Inc.

1967-01-16: PROPAGANDA: Hawthorne Books publishes "It Is Safe to Smoke."

1967-02-28: PROPAGANDA: Dehart Hill & Knowlton hold a press conference for Lloyd Mallan's "It _Is_ Safe to Smoke" Bates # 502643635

1967-06: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Zagurski v. American Tobacco

1967-10: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: "Tobacco Abstracts," a trade publication which offers relevant citations and abstracts to world literature on nicotiana drops the section titled "Health". The announcement was as follows: "(NOTE: Health section will be omitted from now on.)" No further information was offered. (LB)

1967: PROPAGANDA: "It Is Safe To Smoke" by Lloyd Mallan is taken off the market by Hawthorne publishing after the initiation of a congressional investigation into allegations the book was financed by the tobacco industry.

1968: 3rd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1968 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review

1968: NCI Monograph No. 28: Effect of filter cigarettes on lung cancer risk. Toward a Less Harmful Cigarette. Bross, I.D. Wynder, E.L., Hoffmann, D. (Editors.).

1968. TOBACCO CONTROL: Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is formed to serve as a legal action arm for the smoking prevention community. (CDC)

1968. BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Virginia Slims brand, aimed at women

1968. LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 43, switches from L&M to Virginia Slims and Parliaments.

1968: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Domestic changes its name to Philip Morris U.S.A.

1968: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. operating revenues top $1 billion.

1968. BUSINESS: American Tobacco begins buying into Britain's Gallaher's

1968. MOTOR SPORTS: Colin Chapman's Team Lotus becomes the first Formula One team to accept tobacco sponsorship. The Lotus 49 cars are painted in the colors of the "Gold Leaf" cigarette brand.

1968-02: PAKISTAN: Pakistan Tobacco Board is established through an ordinance (Pakistan Tobacco Board Ordinance No: 1 of 1968), to promote the cultivation of tobacco, manufacture and export of tobacco and tobacco products .

1968-01: PROPAGANDA: "To Smoke or Not to Smoke--That Is Still the Question," by Stanley Frank, a widely read sports writer, appears in True Magazine. To call the public's attention to the article, the Industry ran a contemporaneous ad in 72 markets, announcing the article's publication. On March 3,, a similar but shorter article appeared in the National Enquirer entitled "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk / 70,000,000 Smokers Falsely Alarmed." written by "Charles Golden" (a fictitious name commonly used by the Enquirer.) The real author was Stanley Frank. Two million reprints of the True Magazine article were distributed to physicians, scientists, journalists, government officials, and other opinion leaders with a small card which stated, "As a leader in your profession and community, you will be interested in reading this story from the January issue of True Magazine about one of today's controversial issues. -- THE EDITORS" The actual sender was the TI, through Tiderock.. It was subsequently disclosed through investigations by Wall St. Journal reporter Ronald Kessler and the FTC that author Frank had been paid $500 to write the article, by Joseph Field, a public relations professional working for Brown and Williamson. [Frank also received $2,000 for the article from True.] Brown and Williamson reimbursed Field for that amount. By the time the True article was published, Frank was an employee of Hill and Knowlton.

1968-03-03: PROPAGANDA: National Enquirer publishes "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk".

1968-10: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Pritchard v. L&M

1969: 4th Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1969 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review Confirms link between maternal smoking and low birth weight

1969: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, which amends the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act to require the following warning: "The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health." The 1969 act also includes the phrase: "(b) No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act." This proviso helps absolve the industry in many court cases, most recently in Pennsylvania's Carter case (1/27/03).

1969: Taxes: North Carolina Gov. Bob Scott, succeeds in ramming through NC's first cigarette tax: 2-cents-per-pack, the lowest in the nation.

1969: SCOTUS: U.S. Supreme Court applies the Fairness Doctrine to cigarettes, giving tobacco control groups "equal time" on the air to reply to tobacco commercials

1969: National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) endorses phasing out of cigarette ads on television and radio.

1969: SMOKEFREE: Ralph Nader asks the FAA to ban smoking on airlines as annoying and unhealthy for nonsmokers, and as a fire danger; John Banzhaf III, founder of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), also begins to pressure regulators to mandate separate smoking and non-smoking sections on domestic flights.3 The FAA never responded to these petitions, citing lack of evidence that tobacco smoke was harmful in the concentrations experienced on aircraft.

1969: SMOKEFREE: Pan American Airlines creates the first nonsmoking sections on its jumbo jets; United Airlines did the same two years later. ("Lost Empire," http://extras.journalnow.com/lostempire/tob26a.htm_

1969: REGULATION: FCC issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette ads on TV and radio. Discussions, both in Congress and in private between legislators and tobacco companies, result in cigarette advertisers agreeing to stop advertising on the air in return for a delay in controls on the sale of cigarettes.

1969: BUSINESS: Philip Morris gains a controlling interest (53%) in the Miller Brewing Company (nee 1855), then only the 7th largest brewery.

1969. BUSINESS: American Tobacco drops "tobacco" from parent; American Brands, Inc. is established with headquarters in Old Greenwich, CT, as parent company of American Tobacco Co.

1969. BUSINESS: Reynolds Tobacco introduces "Doral" brand. It will be re-introduced in the "value" segment in 1984.

1969. BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco drops "tobacco."

1969. MOTOR SPORTS: WINSTON CUP racing is born when NASCAR driver Junion Johnson suggests to RJR they sponsor not just a car, but the whole show.

1969: DOCUMENTS: A Philip Morris memo from researcher William Dunn to Dr. Helmut Wakeham, Philip Morris' director of research and development, warned against referring to tobacco as a drug. Dunn wrote, "I would be more cautious . . . do we really want to tout cigarette smoke as a drug? It is, of course, but there are dangerous FDA implications to having such conceptualization go beyond these walls."

1969: SMOKEFREE: UK: National Society of Non-Smokers calls for smoking ban in public places. Mr Browne of the Department of Health and Social Security writes to Mr Shergold at the Civil Service Department's Welfare Advisers Office, "[T]his society is particularly militant, even fanatical, and they write incessantly to various departments on the theme of abolishing smoking in practically every type of place imaginable." (Financial Times, 2005-01-04)

1969-12: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Thayer v. L&M

The Seventies

Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised product in America
Magazines and newspapers stop covering the issue in depth

1970: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 19%.

1970: BRAND CONSUMPTION:

RANK	BRAND	BILLIONS SOLD
1	Winston	81.86 billion
2	Pall Mall	57.96 billion
3	Marlboro	51.37 billion
4	Salem	44.1 billion
5	Kool	40.14 billion

1970: CONSUMPTION: Smokers: 37.4% overall; Males: 44.1%; Females: 31.5%; Whites: 37%; Blacks: 41.4% (CDC)

1970: CONSUMPTION: American cigar consumption peaks at about 9 billion a year.

1970: LEGISLATION: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. Introduced in 1969, the legislation amends the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act to require the following warning: "The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health." The 1969 act also includes the phrase: "(b) No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act."

1970: TOBACCO CONTROL: Clara Gouin founds the first GASP group in MD. Her father died of lung cancer and emphysema. The group tried to get established groups to endorse goals but was not successful.

1970: TOBACCO CONTROL: World Health Organization (WHO) takes a public position against cigarette smoking. (CDC)

1970: SMOKEFREE: Singapore bans smoking in cinemas, theaters and buses.

1970: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Roper Researchers tell Philip Morris, True answers on smoking habits might be difficult to elicit in the presence of parents. . . We recommend interviewing young people at summer recreation centers (at beaches, public pools, lakes, etc.)

1970: BUSINESS: Cigarette industry voluntarily agrees to display "tar" and nicotine data in all advertising.

1970: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires the remaining 47 percent of Miller it does not own from De Rance Foundation in Milwaukee.

1970: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. becomes a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.

1970: BUSINESS: UST moves its HQ from NYC to Greenwich, CT.

1970-02-18: Great American Smokeout is born on "Smokeout Day." Massacusetts smoker and guidance counselor Arthur P. Mullaney and some Randolph High School kids come up with the idea of setting aside one day when everyone in town would quit smoking and donate to a scholarship fund what they would have spent that day on cigarettes. Arthur P. Mullaney challenged the citizens of Randolf, MA, to give up cigarettes for the day and donate the saved money to a high school scholarship fund. Mullaney coined the term Smokeout.

1970-03: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: "The Mouse House Massacre" A major research project on smoking and emphysema is dismantled. Former scientist Joseph E. Bumgarner told in a deposition how he and 25 other members of Reynolds' biological research division in Winston-Salem, N.C., were abruptly ordered to surrender their notebooks to the company's legal department and then were fired. .

1970-03-31: LEGISLATION: President Nixon signs a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971

1970-04: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Weaver v. AT

1970: REGULATION:: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health."

1970-04-01: LEGISLATION: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 (passed in 1970), banning cigarette advertising on television and radio and requiring a stronger health warning on cigarette packages: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health."

1970-07-01: SMOKEFREE: TWA becomes first airline to offer no- smoking sections aboard every aircraft in its fleet. http://www.scripophily.net/tranworairin2.html

1970-12: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: RJR closes down its "mouse house" facility in Winston-Salem, NC..

1971: 5TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General

1971: Surgeon General proposes a government ban on smoking in public places.

1971: Helen Story founds the second GASP group in Berkeley due to problems with smoking in classrooms.

1971: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Philip Morris purchases the Institut fur Industrielle und Biologische Forschung GmbH, or INBIFO, a biological research facility in Cologne, Germany.

1971: BUSINESS: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco becomes R.J. Reynolds Industries

1971: SMOKEFREE: UNITED AIRLINES is the first major carrier to establish seperate sections for smokers and nonsmokers

(ASH: http://www.ash.org/victories.html ANR: http://no-smoke.org/document.php?id=334 (Note discrepancy with "Lost Empire" data that Pan Am was the first, in 1969.)

1971: UK: Second British Royal College of Physicians of London Report: Smoking and Health Now Refers to cigarette death toll as "this present holocaust."

1971: UK: Cigarette Smoking and Health--Report by an Interdepartmental Group of Officials finds that, all things considered, tobacco use brings in more money than it costs in health and disability. Report is unknown to the public until the Guardian publishes an account on May 6, 1980.

1971: SPORTS: RJR sponsorship of NASCAR's NASCAR Grand National Division begins.

1971: SPORTS: Virginia Slims Tennis begins, with Billie Jean King a prime promoter. Philip Morris' Women's Tennis Assn. tour will continue until 1994.

1971-01-02: REGULATION: TV: Cigarette ads are taken off TV and radio as Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 takes effect. Broadcast industry loses c. $220 Million in ads (Ad Age, "History of TV Advertising"). The last commercial on US TV is a Virginia Slims ad, aired at 11:59 PM on the Johnny Carson Tonight show, Jan. 1, 1971. The ad featured Veronica Hamel, later seen on "Hill St. Blues." See stills at: http://www.batnet.com/ghostship/VS/VS_TV_ad/comercial.html

1971-01-02: TOBACCO CONTROL: With the end of tobacco ads on TV, so too end the anti-tobacco ads demanded by the Fairness Doctrine.

1971-01-03: Joseph Cullman, then Chairman of the Board of Philip Morris, Inc., is interviewed on CBS' Face the Nation. The interviewers asked Cullman if he was aware of a massive study [which] showed that babies of smoking mothers were had a greater incidence of low birth weight than non-smoking mothers, that smoking mothers had an increased risk of stillbirth and infant death within 28 days of birth. Cullman said he was aware of the study and its results. He said, "Some women would prefer having smaller babies." Another exchange:, "Well, I think, Mr. Ubell, in this case your premise is wrong. I merely have to refer to the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee report; that report stated categorically that cigarettes are not addictive.
UBELL: I didn't say that they were addictive. I said that nicotine is a drug, within the meaning of a term of drug, meaning a chemical --
MR. CULLMAN: It's more important for the industry to take the word of the Surgeon General's committee; they said that cigarettes are not addictive. . . the Surgeon General's committee largely exonerated nicotine as a health hazard of any consequence to the public. I have to lean on that. After all, the Surgeon General's committee met for nine months or longer, and they concluded that nicotine is not a hazard to health.>

1971: UK: Tobacco manufacturers voluntarily put health warnings on cigarette packs.

1971-04: Cigarette manufacturers agree to put health warnings on advertisements. This agreement is later made into law.

1971-12-23: Nixon Administration declares "War on Cancer"

1972: 6TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General

Surgeon General's Report addresses "public exposure to air pollution from tobacco smoke" and danger of smoking to the unborn child. 1972-01-29: SMOKEFREE: Washington Post reports on unpublished FAA/NIOSH study ("Health Aspects of Smoking in Transportation Aircraft" 1971) that found that

"43 per cent of all airline passengers think smokers should be separated from nonsmokers on airplanes. . . . The FAA-PIIS study found that smoking was not a health hazaard in commercial airplanes, tile passenger survey Indicated that far more people than expected are bothcred hy their neighbors' smoking while on air trill. . . . Four airlines--American, United, Pan American and Trans-World--voluntarily set up smoking aml nonsmoking sections. They received awards for this last year from the D:C. Medical Society. . . . But 15 per cent felt that all smoking should be totally banned on airplanes."

http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/1002698170B-8171.html

1972: LEGISLATION: Tobacco advertisements, direct mail and point-of-sale material are all required to carry health warnings

1972: MIT Professor David Wilson founds MASH an affiliate of ASH.

1972: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires 100 percent of Mission Viejo Company, a community development and home-building firm.

1972: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc.'s revenues top $2 billion.

1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro becomes the best-selling cigarette in the world

1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro Lights introduced, promising lower tar and nicotine.

1972: INDUSTRY SCIENCE: "In 1967, five persons in the U.S. officially died of bunions. One died of headache. One died of emotional instability!" -- Tobacco Institute Backgrounder, 5th in a series of "background papers on the smoking and health controversy." Bates # TIMN 0078551 http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/tdo/view.cfm?CitID=13981

1972: DOCUMENTS: RJR research scientist Claude Teague writes in a memo, "the tobacco industry may be thought of as being a specialized, highly ritualized and stylized segment of the pharmaceutical industry." Significantly, he added that,"Tobacco products, uniquely, contain and deliver nicotine, a potent drug with a variety of physiological effects. . . Happily for the tobacco industry, nicotine is both habituating and unique in its variety of physiological actions, hence no other active material or combination of materials provides equivalent 'satisfaction..'"

1972-05: BUSINESS: Tobacco Institute memorandum from Fred Panzer (VP) to TI President Horace R. Kornegay, Panzer describes the industry's strategy for defending itself in litigation, politics, and public opinion as "brilliantly conceived and executed over the years" in order to "cast doubt about the health charge" by using "variations on the theme that, `the case is not proved.'" The memorandum urges more intensive lobbying, and advocates public relations efforts to provide tobacco industry sympathizers with evidence "that smoking may not be the causal factor [in disease]." Until now, the industry has supplied symmpathizers with "too little in the way of ready-made credible alternatives."

1972-05-24: DOCUMENTS: PM scientist Al Udow writes memo stating that rival brand Kool had the highest nicotine "delivery" of any king-size on the market. "This ties in with the information we have from focus group sessions and other sources that suggest that Kool is considered to be good for 'after marijuana' to maintain the 'high' or for mixing with marijuana, or 'instead." He wrote that Kool's high nicotine is a reason for its success, and that "we should pursue this thought in developing a menthol entry. . . The lessened taste resulting from the lowered tar can be masked by high menthol or other flavors. Many menthol smokers say they are not looking for high tobacco taste anyway. . . A widely held theory holds that most people smoke for the narcotic effect (relaxing, sedative) that comes from the nicotine. The 'taste comes from the 'tar' (particulate matter) delivery. . . . Although more people talk about 'taste,' it is likely that greater numbers smoke for the narcotic value that comes from the nicotine."

1972-07: ADVERTISING: Ms. Magazine begins regular publication. Editors decide to accept tobacco advertising if they include health warnings. Philip Morris'brands do, but editors object to the "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" Virginia Slims campaign, as it makes smoking a symbol of women's progress. Philip Morris pulls all its brands. Gloria Steinem wrote in 1990: " Gradually, we also realize our naivete in thinking we could decide against taking cigarette ads. They became a disproportionate support of magazines the moment they were banned on television, and few magazines could compete and survive without them; certainly not Ms., which lacks so many other categories. By the time statistics in the 1980s show that women's rate of lung cancer is approaching men's the necessity of taking cigarette ads has become a kind of prison."

1972-09: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Boston, MA: Gary Huber's "Tobacco and Health Research Program, aka "The Harvard Project" begins, the result of a $2.8 million grant to Harvard, the largest ever for a University. It will run until 1980, generating 239 medical publications, including 27 books and 54 peer-reviewed scientific papers ("Civil Warriors," pp. 288-89)

1973: 7TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1973 Finds cigar and pipe smokers' health risks to be less than cigarette smokers, but more than nonsmokers.

1973: SECRET DOCUMENTS: A Gallup poll commissioned by Philip Morris finds only 3 percent of Americans are familiar with the Surgeon General's 1964 report on the dangers of smoking.

1973: SMOKEFREE: Nixon Administration Surgeon General Dr. Jesse Steinfeld is fired after angering tobacco executives by urging restrictions on secondhand smoke.

1973: SMOKEFREE: Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) requires all airlines to create nonsmoking sections, and bans smoking in aircraft lavatories, as a result of a tragic fire in an airliner bathroom waste bin that caused a crash killing 124 people. http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i30 This is the first federal restriction on smoking in public places.

1973: SMOKEFREE: Arizona becomes the first state (in modern times) to pass a comprehensive law restricting smoking in public places. The law forbids smoking in public places like elevators, libraries, indoor theaters and concert halls, and buses.

1973: SMOKEFREE: Federal Government mandates that smoking in bed be forbidden in prisons.

1973: REGULATION: Congress enacts the Little Cigar Act of 1973, amending the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act to ban TV and radio advertising of little cigars.

1973: SPORTS: Marlboro Cup horse racing begins.

1973: SPORTS: Tennis' "Battle of the Sexes." Billie Jean King, wearing Virginia Slims colors, and Virginia Slims sequins on her chest, defeats Bobby Riggs.

1973: SCIENCE: RJR report on success of PM's Marlboro and B&W's Kool brands states, "A cigarette is a system for delivery of nicotine to the smoker in attractive, useful form. At normal smoke pH, at or below 6.0, the smoke nicotine is...slowly absorbed by the smoker. . . As the smoke pH increases above about 6.0, an increasing portion of the total smoke nicotine occurs in free form, which is rapidly absorbed by the smoker and...instantly perceived as a nicotine kick."

1973: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' Tobacco Research Center in Richmond is dedicated.

1973: Jesse Helms, former director of the News and Programs for the Tobacco Radio Network, is elected to the US Senate. He will become a powerful tobacco defender in Congress.

1973-02-08: Department of Health, Education and Welfare issues a charter for the Tobacco Working Group (TWG), which makes it a formal and multidisciplinary group consisting of researchers from academia, the government, and the tobacco companies. The group had actually begun meeting informally in 1968 to discuss generally research related to smoking and health, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease {1400.01} . The 1973 charter specifies that the purpose of the group was to "identify the criteria and prescribe methods for the development of a less hazardous cigarette, and other methods to decrease the smoking hazard" Glantz, The Cigarette Papers

1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR director of marketing and planning R.A. Blevins Jr writes in a memo that free nicotine, advertising expenditures and cigarette size of Winstons and Marlboros all affected market share "independently and collectively," but that "the variability due to 'free nicotine' was significant and its contribution was over and above that of advertising expenditures and [cigarette size]."

1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR senior scientist Frank Colby sends Blevins a memo suggesting that the company "develop a new RJR youth-appeal brand based on the concept of going back--at least halfway--to the technological design of the Winston and other filter cigarettes of the 1950s," a cigarette which "delivered more 'enjoyment' or 'kicks' (nicotine)." Colby said that "for public relations reasons it would be impossible to go back all the way to the 1955-type cigarettes."

1974: 8TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1974

1974: SPORTS: UST creates the Copenhagen Skoal Scholarship Awards Program for student athletes (in conjunction with the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Assn.)

1974: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 49, switches to True cigarettes.

1974: ADVERTISING: FRANCE: Joe Camel is born. Used in Poster for French ad campaign for Camel cigarettes.

1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Harrogate lab in England is closed down.

1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PM pollsters try to find out why competing brands like Kool were slowing Marlboro's growth among young smokers.

1974: BUSINESS: Johnny Roventini retires after a 40-year career as Philip Morris pitchman.

1974: BUSINESS: Philip Morris opens the world's largest cigarette factory on Commerce Road in Richmond, VA.

1974: CANADA: The Canadian Council on Smoking and Health is formed. Charter members include the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Lung Association. The Non-Smokers' Rights Association is also formed. (NCTH)

1974: US Trade Act. The threat of punitive tariffs, as provided under Section 301, will be used to force Asian markets considered to have "unfair" or "discriminatory" trade restrictions to open up to U.S. tobacco companies' products and advertising.

1974-01-07: Monticello, Minnesota decides to go non-smoking for a day, in a "D-Day" (Don't Smoke Day) organized by Lynn Smith. The event goes statewide in November, and in 1977 goes national--the first Great American Smokeout.

1974-07-15: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Family Practice News covered Alvan R. Feinstein's address to the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians with this headline: "Smoking Link to Lung Ca[ncer] Termed Diagnostic Bias." The article reads "The more cigarettes a person says he smokes, the more likely he is to be checked by his physician for lung cancer. Thus, cigarette smoking may be contributing more to the diagnosis of lung cancer than to the disease, said Dr. Feinstein of Yale University." Bates #: TITX 0002372 ( http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/tdo/view.cfm?CitID=127054)

1974-11: Entire state of Minnesota decides to go non-smoking for a day: "D-Day" (Don't Smoke Day).

1975: 9TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1975

1975: 3rd World Conferfence on Tobacco or Health: New York, NY

1975. Department of Defense stops distribution of free cigarettes in C-rations and K-rations.

1975. UK: Government and industry agree on advertising curbs. Ads will no longer suggest cigarettes are safe, popular, natural or healthy, nor will they link smoking with social, sexual or business success. The restrictions are followed by 3 decades of what some consider the most creative and memorable ads in history:

Hamlet cigars launches a humorous series in which life's trials are soothed by a Hamlet to the strains of Bach's "Air on a G String."
Surreal Benson & Hedges ads feature a sequence of unrelated objects -- a helicopter, an iguana, a sardine can and a pack of B&H cigs--travelling through the Arizona desert.
Gallaher's Silk Cut features a series of strikingly-photographed images of purple silk being cut in various ways.

1975. REGULATION: Italy bans smoking in schools, hospitals, cinemas, theaters, museums, libraries and public-transport waiting rooms.

1975. REGULATION: INDIA mandates tobacco health warnings.

1975: THAILAND bans smoking on city buses.

1975. BUSINESS: RJR's low tar/nicotine "NOW" cigarette released.

1975. BUSINESS: American Brands assumes control of Britain's Gallaher

1975: BUSINESS: PM's Marlboro overtakes Winston as the best-selling cigarette in the U.S.

1975: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' net earnings top $200 million.

1975-08-01: REGULATION: MINNESOTA Clean Indoor Air Act, the nation's first statewide anti-second-hand smoke law goes into effect to protect "the public health and comfort and the environment by prohibiting smoking in public places and at public meetings, except in designated smoking areas." It is the first law to require separation of smokers' and nonsmokers.

1975-08-26: REGULATION: Madison, Wisconsin passes an ordinance limiting smoking, the first community in the nation to do so; the effort was led by Margo Redmond of GASP.

1976: While campaigning for president, Jimmy Carter told a North Carolina audience he hoped his administration would make smoking "even more safe than it is today," implying it was already pretty safe. (PROCTOR Testimony, 2004)

1976: CONSUMPTION: US has its highest per capita smoking rate - 2,905 cigarettes (The Tax Burden on Tobacco, Historical Compilation Volume 35, 2000)

1976: 10TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Selected Chapters from 1971 through 1975 Reports

1976: REGULATION: Federal Election Committee resolves charges that high-ranking RJR executives were funneling illegal campaign contributions to Republican presidential candidates from 1964 through 1972. The monies were said to have been paid in the form of personal gifts as high as $10,000 each from individual corporate officials, who were repaid from an off-the-books "slush fund," drawn from RJR's overseas customers. No jail terms, no fines: Charles B. Wade, Smith and Peoples had to resign; Alex Galloway, a former chairman who was also implicated during the internal investigation, had retired in 1973. . . Lawyers threatened lawsuits if the exact details of the scandal got out.

1976: LITIGATION: Norma Broin, a 20-year-old non-smoking Mormon, gets a job as a flight attendant for American Airlines (Broin vs. Philip Morris, et.al.)

1976: SOCIETY: Formation of the Cigarette Pack Collectors Association and first of its conventions. (LB)

1976: LITIGATION: Donna Shimp sues New Jersey Bell Telephone for not protecting her from second-hand smoke. Ruling in her favor, the judge said, "if such rules are established for machines, I see no reason why they should not be held in force for humans."

1976: BUSINESS: Philip Morris exceeds $4 billion in revenues.

1976: MARKET SHARE: Philip Morris' share of the U.S. cigarette market increases to 25.1%; the international tobacco company's share increases to 5.1%.

1976: UK: TV: Peter Taylor's Death in the West--The Marlboro Story made by Thames Television is shown.

1976-05-29: REGULATION: Resignations of Wade, Smith & Peoples becomes public.

1976-07-23: UK: BUSINESS: BAT Industries is formed when Tobacco Securities Trust Company Limited (TST) merges with British-American Tobacco Company Limited (BATCo).

1976: SOCIETY: The Tobacco Institute provides funds to the Smithsonian Institute for the creation of a one-tenth scale model of the colonial ship Brilliant. The first cargo carried by the Brilliant was tobacco in 1775. (LB)

1977: 1st Great American Smokeout

1977: REGULATION: Berkeley, California became the first community in California to limit smoking in restaurants and other public places.

1977: CANADA: 1st National Non-Smoking Week

1977: UK: Royal College of Physicians of London third report: "Smoking or Health."

1977: BUSINESS: RUSSIA: Philip Morris signs a licensing agreement with Licensintorg, representing the Soviet tobacco industry.

1977: BUSINESS: BAT acquires overseas business of Lorillard, including the Kent brand.

1977: Irene Parodi, suffering lung and other problems from secondhand smoke, leaves her job with the US Dept. of Defense in San Bruno, CA. Her claims for disability and workers' compensation are denied. In 1982, the US Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules workers sickened by secondhand smoke must be accommodated or given disability.

1978: 11TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking, 1977-1978

1978: A Roper Report prepared for the Tobacco Institute concludes that the nonsmokers' rights movement is "the most dangerous development yet to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred."

The original Surgeon General's report, followed by the first "hazard" warning on cigarette packages, the subsequent "danger" warning on cigarette packages, the removal of cigarette advertising from television and the inclusion of the danger warning in cigarette advertising, were all "blows" of sorts for the tobacco industry. They were, however, blows that the cigarette industry could successfully weather because they were all directed against the smoker himself. The anti-smoking forces' latest tack, however-on the passive smoking issue-is another matter. What the smoker does to himself may be his business, but what the smoker does to the non-smoker is quite a different matter....six out of ten believe that smoking is hazardous to the nonsmoker's health, up sharply over the last four years. More than two-thirds of non-smokers believe it; nearly half of all smokers believe it. This we see as the most dangerous development yet to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred . . . The strategic and long run antidote to the passive smoking issue is, as we see it, developing and widely publicizing clear-cut, credible, medical evidence that passive smoking is not harmful to the non-smoker's health

1978: MEDIA: Rupert Murdoch buys the New York Post from Dorothy Schiff. Sells it in1988. Becomes a Philip Morris board member in 1989. In 1993, he reacquires the Post.

1978: BUSINESS: SWITZERLAND: INFOTAB is established as a non-profit international association (original name: ICOSI - International Committee on Smoking Issues) by BAT, Imperial, Philip Morris, Reemtsma, R.J. Reynolds and Rothman's International.

INFOTAB is now in regular contact with tobacco industry groups in 28 countries...Our strategic objective is to help the industry around the world prevent unreasonable restrictions on its operations and help smokers preserve their freedom to choose whether or not they will smoke and where they will smoke, within the bounds of mutual courtesy...There will also be an emphasis on early-warning information to help the industry anticipate potential issues and anti-smoking initiatives.

1978: BUSINESS: UK: Gallaher launches "Pure Gold" Benson & Hedges campaign.

1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris obtains the international cigarette business of the Liggett Group Inc.

1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires 97 percent of the Seven-Up Company

1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris announces plans to construct a new 26-story corporate headquarters building in midtown Manhattan, across from Grand Central Station.

1978: BUSINESS: For the 25th consecutive year Philip Morris posts record revenues ($6.6 billion) and profits ($409 million).

1978: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell becomes CEO of Philip Morris, taking over from Joe Cullman. Maxwell will remain CEO until 1991.

1978: BUSINESS: BAT buys Appleton Papers from National Cash Register.

1978: AUSTRALIA: Philip Morris, Rothmans and WD & HO Wills set up the Tobacco Institute

1978: Tobacco companies fight a CA referendum on statewide smoking restrictions with a group called "Californians for Common Sense." Though 68% support the referendum, CCS spends $6.6 million lampooning the anti-smoking movement as a nagging Big Brother out to deny personal freedoms. The referndum fails.

1978: USA: A tobacco trade journal reports that "cigarette purchases are 2.5 times as great when an in-store display is present compared to when no advertising or display treatment is employed", and that cigarette sales drop when parents shop with their children. (Tobacco International, 22 Dec 1978, p. 33). (LB)

1978-03-28: JAPAN: First tobacco control group formed. "Kenen-ken kakuritsuo wo mezasu hitobito-no kai" (Association of People Seeking to Establish the Right to Shun Tobacco Smoke, or "Action for Nonsmokers' Rights") is launched in Tokyo. The smoking rate among men was 75%; by 2008, the rate had dropped to 40%.

1979: 12TH Surgeon General's Report: Smoking and Health: A Report of the Surgeon GeneralDr Julius B. Richmond, first reviews health risks of smokeless tobacco.

1979: CONSUMPTION: 37.5% of men are smokers; 29.9% of women are smokers. (SG report "Women and Smoking," CDC, 2002)

1979: State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America, Worcester MA, issues a 41 page report titled, "Mortality differences between smokers and non smokers." The abstract reads: "Cigarette smokers are subject to a mortality risk significantly higher than that of non smokers. These differences are real; they emerge at early durations, contrary to what may earlier have been believed. They are not deferred to older ages; they are statistically significant at anyreasonable level."

1979: REGULATION: Minneapolis and St. Paul become the first U.S. cities to ban the distribution of free cigarette samples. (Dan Freeborn, MN Star-Tribune)

1979: DOCUMENTS: A BAT memo said, "We also think that consideration should be given to the hypothesis that high profits additionally associated with the tobacco industry are directly related to the fact that the customer is dependent up on the product . . . We are searching explicitly for a socially acceptable addictive product." On the other hand, the memo warned, "one must question both the ethics and practical possibilities of society/medical opinion permitting the advent of a new habituation process ... "

1979: TOBACCO CONTROL: Australian activist group BUGAUP (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions) is formed, and begins re-facing tobacco and alcohol billboards.

1979: TOBACCO CONTROL: MA: The Clean Indoor Air Educational Foundation begins. It will later (1992) become the Tobacco Control Resource Center.

1979: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. revenues top $8 billion; net earnings top $500 million.

1979: FIRES: A residential fire started by a cigarette kills five children and their parents in Westwood, Massachusetts, in the congressional district of Representative Joseph Moakley. Moakley began a 20-year quest to mandate a fire-safe cigarette. He introduces legislation that would requite the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to regulate cigarettes as a fire hazard. His efforts culminate, after his death, in the federal Joseph Moakley Memorial Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 2002 (H.R. 4607).

1979-01: MEDIA: Mother Jones magazine publishes "Why Dick Can't Stop Smoking." According to MoJo in 1996, As a professional courtesy, Mother Jones gave tobacco manufacturers advance notice of the cover story so they could pull their ads from the issue. Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and others responded by canceling their entire commitment: several years' worth of cigarette ads. In a show of corporate solidarity, many liquor companies followed suit. See: http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/1996/03/bates.html

1979: ADVERTISING: Tobacco Institute launches ad campaign against nonsmokers'-rights movement.

1979: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE:

Filter cigarettes account for 90% of U.S. cigarette sales
#4: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 11%. Only half ATC's cigarette volume have filters

1979: BUSINESS: Top 20 Brands Sold:

Brand (Company) Billions of cigarettes (1979)
1. MARLBORO (Philip Morris) 103.6
2. WINSTON (R. J. Reynolds) 81.0
3. KOOL (Brown & Williamson) 56.7
4. SALEM (R.J. Reynolds) 53.2
5. PALL MALL (American) 33.9
6. BENSON & HEDGES (Philip Morris) 27.8
7. CAMEL (R.J. Reynolds) 26.3
8. MERIT (Philip Morris) 22.4
9. VANTAGE (R. J. Reynolds) 20.7
10. KENT (Lorillard) 19.3
11. CARLTON (American) 15.0
12. GOLDEN LIGHTS (Lorillard) 13.2
13. TAREYTON (American) 12.2
14. VICEROY (Brown & Williamson) 11.7
15. TRUE (Lorillard) 11.5
16. RALEIGH (Brown & Williamson) 11.3
17. VIRGINIA SLIMS (Philip Morns) 10.5
18. NEWPORT (Lorillard) 9.8
19. PARLIAMENT (Philip Morris) 7.7
20. L & M (Liggett) 7.5
1979-11: CUBA: Outbreak of tobacco mildew devastates Cuban crop; Cubans believe the CIA intentionally introduced the disease

Source: Business Week December 17,1979.

The Eighties

1980: 13TH Surgeon General's ReporT: The Health Consequences of Smoking for Women: A Report of the Surgeon General

1980: CONSUMPTION: Smokers: 33.2% overall; Males: 37.6%; Females: 29.3%; Whites: 32.9%; Blacks: 36.9% (CDC)

1980: LITIGATION: Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission of New York. US Supreme Court sets guidleines for the regulation of commercial speech:

1. For an ad to be protected by the First Amendment, the advertsing must be lawful, and not misleading
2. Given that, for an ad to be banned, the state's interest must be "substantial;"
3. The ban must "directly advance" the state's interest; and
4. The ban must be no more extensive than necessary to further the state's interest

1980: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 11%.

1980: BUSINESS: Philip Morris revenues approach $10 billion.

1980: Green Mountain Herbs, Inc. introduces "Affaire" brand herbal cigarettes. Imported from England, they are a blend of eight: different herbs.

1980-12: SMOKEFREE: TWA and Pan Am abandon a seating configuration in which smokers and nonsmokers are seated across the aisle from each other; from now on, smokers will be seated in rows behind nonsmokers.

1980: ENTERTAINMENT: Superman II: Lois Lane lights up. In fifty years of comic book appearnces, Lois Lane never smoked. For a reported payment of $42,000, Philip Morris purchases 22 exposures of the Marlboro logo in the movie; Lois Lane, strong role model for teenage girls, gets a Marlboro pack on her desk and begins chain smoking Marlboro Lights. At one point in the film, a character is tossed into a van with a large Marlboro sign on its side, and in the climactic scene the superhero battles amid a maze of Marlboro billboards before zooming off in triumph, leaving in his wake a solitary taxi with a Marloro sign on top. The New York State Journal of Medicine even published an article titled "Superman and the Marlboro Woman: The Lungs of Lois Lane." Thoughout the 80s, "Superman II" is frequently re-run on TV in prime time.

1980: Tobacco companies fight a 2nd CA referendum on statewide smoking restrictions; this time the front group is called "Californians Against Regulatory Excess." As in 1978, the referendum fails.

1980: SPORTS: CANADA: Imperial Tobacco, through Du Maurier, begins sponsoring men's and women's tennis.

1981: 14TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- The Changing Cigarette: A Report of the Surgeon General

1981: Federal Trade Commission concludes that health warning labels have had little effect on public knowledge and attitudes about smoking.

1981: "A formalized "Blueprint for Action," drafted in 1981 by more than 200 smoking control "experts" attending a National Conference on Smoking OR Health, is often identified as the catalyst for a dramatic change (in anti-smoking activity."-- "The Anti-Smoking Movement"

1981: CONSUMPTION: Annual consumption peaks at 640 billion cigarettes, 60% of which are low-tar brands.

1981: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses a lobe of her right lung to cancer; continues to smoke cigarettes.

1981: LITIGATION: CBS Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen accuses Brown & Williamson of engaging in a lurid advertising campaign to get young people to smoke. Jacobsen based his claim on a controversial "Illicit pleausre campaign" proposed by the Ted Bates agency.

1981 Massachusetts GASP files suit against BAY Transit authority for not enforcing smoking restrictions.

1981: REGULATION: Brown & Williamson markets Barclay cigarettes, claiming that Barclay was “99% tar free” and emphasizing its 1 mg tar rating. Barclay contained a unique filter design that included air channels within the filter. Shortly after the introduction of Barclay, both Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds notified the FTC that the unique design of Barclay produced low machine tar yields, however, actual smokers would block or collapse the air channels. An appeals court in FTC v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation came to a split decision. B&W redesigned the cigarette.

1981: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell, 57, becomes CEO of Philip Morris (1981-1991), succeeding George Weissman

1981: Insurance companies begin offering discounts for nonsmokers on life insurance premiums

1981: Stanton Glantz at UCSF receives a copy of " Death in the West"

1981: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: 1981 PM study investigates the link between pricing and smoking levels

Dick Schweiker was proposed as Secretary of DHHS (a conservative) and a relatively unknown surgeon by the name of C. Everett Koop was proposed as SG. The latter was considered an ultraconservative and darling of the far right because of his public stand on abortion. Jesse Helms was Koops sponsor in the Senate. Schweiker rescued the Office on Smoking and Health from

1981-01: The Hirayama Study. Takeshi Hirayama, chief of epidemiology of the Research Institute at Tokyo's National Cancer Center, and his associates studied for fourteen years 92,000 nonsmoking wives of smoking husbands to learn what their risk was of contracting lung cancer, compared to a similarly sized control group married to nonsmokers. Nonsmoking wives married to axsmokers or current smokers of up to fourteen cigarettes a day showed a 40 percent elevated risk of lung cancer over wives married to nonsmokers; those married to husbands smoking fifteen to nineteen cigarettes a day had a 60 percent higher risk; and those whose husbands smoked a pack or more a day had a 90 percent heightened risk. The findings were savaged by letters to the BMJ (by, among others, Theodore Sterling, whose projects received $5M in CTR funds between 1973 and 1990),-- and by the Tobacco Institute in full page ads all across the US. Meanwhile, Brown and Williamson documents show that, although the tobacco industry was publicly attacking Hirayama's paper, several of its own experts were privately admitting that his conclusions were valid. B&W counsel J. Wells said both German and British scientists paid by the tobacco industry had reviewed the work and "they believe Hirayama is a good scientist and that his non-smoking wives publication is correct."15 (J. Wells, Re Smoking and Health - Tim Finnegan, Memo to E. Pepples, 1981, 24 July) Non-smoking wives of heavy smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer: a study from Japan (BMJ, V. 282: pp. 183-185, 17 January 1981

1981-02: David Stockton's Office of Management and Budget "zeroes out" the Office on Smoking and Health in its FY 82 budget. Health and Human Services Secretary Dick Schweiker battles Stockton and the White House to get half the funding restored.

1982: 15TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- Cancer: A Report of the Surgeon General

1982: CONSUMPTION: 624 billion cigarettes were sold in the US this year, the most ever.

1982: BUSINESS: Harrods' (department store) name goes on a a cigarette; this is one of the first instances of tobacco companies "renting names" of other companies (See "Harley Davidson" cigarettes) (LB).

1982: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Credit Corp. is incorporated.

1982: BUSINESS: Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. is founded.

1982: BUSINESS: RJR begins a research program into the effects of nicotine. The program will eventually morph into the spinoff in 2000 of "Targacept," focusing on Central Nervous System diseases.

1982: BUSINESS: BATUS Retail Group buys Marshal Field's department stores.

1982: HEALTH: Surgeon General's Report (Koop) finds possibility that second-hand smoke may cause lung cancer.

1982: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses her right lung to cancer; continues to sneak cigarettes.

1982: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the No Net Cost Tobacco Program Act, requiring the government's Commodity Credit Corporation, which pays for the government tobacco purchases, to recover all the money it spends on the price-support program. Now taxpayers no longer pay for losses incurred by the program, though they still pay about $16 million a year in administrative costs to run it

1982: Dallas hotelier Lyndon Sanders opens the Non-Smokers Inn; By 1990 an economic slump forced the Non-Smokers Inn to change its policy -- and its name.

1982-01-01: CHINA: The China National Tobacco Corporation is founded.
The State Tobacco Monopoly (STM) controls tobacco production, distribution and sales. It becomes the country's single biggest taxpayer in 1987. As of January, 2003, STM operates 123 cigarette plants with annual output of 500 billion yuan. It employs about 500,000 workers and produces 38 per cent of the world's cigarettes.

1983: 16TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Cardiovascualr Disease; A report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of coronary heart disease

1983: MARKET SHARE: Philip Morris U.S.A. gains market share for the 21st consecutive year, to reach 34.4 percent, overtaking RJR to become the #1 tobacco co. in the US in sales. For the 30th consecutive year, Philip Morris announces record revenues ($13 billion) and earnings ($904 million).

1983: BUSINESS: US Tobacco introduces Skoal Bandits -- a starter product, with the tobacco contained in a pouch like a tea bag.

1983: BUSINESS: UK: Ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi creates its first product-free Silk Cut advertisements, the most successful tobacco-ad campaign ever.

1983: LITIGATION: Cipollone suit filed; Rose finally quits smoking.

1983: REGULATION: San Francisco passes first strong workplace smoking restrictions, banning smoking in private workplaces

1983: USA: BUSINESS: The creative director of a New York advertising agency spoke of working on tobacco advertisements, "We were trying very hard to influence kids who were 14 to start smoking". (Medical J of Australia, 5 March 1983, p.237). (LB)

1983-06-06: MEDIA: Newsweek runs "Showdown on Smoking" (http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/view.cfm?docid=503744468 -4478&source=SNAPRJR&ShowImages=yes, a 4 page article on the nonsmokers' rights movement. Despite months of TI input, the removal of the item from Cover Story status, and the deletion of 3 sidebars (on health effects, political donations/industry lobbying, and a poor business prognosis), TI felt, "the article contains sufficient errors and indicatons of superficiality and poor research so as to leqave an anti-smoking bias in readers' minds." Issues of Newsweek before & after carried 7-10 pages of cigarette ads, but the June 6 issue carried none. According to Larry C. White's Merchants of Death, the estimated loss of revenue as a result of publishing the article: $1 million.

1983-07-15: UK: Allen Carr quits smoking. He will later become Britain's greatest stop-smoking guru, writing the best-selling, "Easy Way To Stop Smoking".

1983-07-16: A theater in Newton, Massachusetts, runs a KOOL advertisement prior to the Saturday matinee screening of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," resulting in an August, 1983 FTC complaint filed by Action for Children's Advertising, Inc.

1984: 17TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, A Report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of chronic obstructive lung disease.

1984: The 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act is amended to require that one of the four warning labels listed below appears in a specific format on cigarette packages and in most related advertising.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

1984: The Advocacy Institute, which pioneered the use of electronic media for tobacco control advocacy through the creation of the Smoking Control Advocacy Resource (SCARCNet), is founded

1984: UK: British Medical Association uses black edged postcards to notify MPs of smoking related deaths

1984: CESSATION: FDA approves nicotine gum as a "new drug" and quit-smoking aid. This was the first quit-smoking aid. Previously, smokers could get only advice on how to quit smoking.

1984: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone dies of lung cancer at 58.

1984: REGULATION: Tobacco industry is required to turn over a general list of cigarette additives annually to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Smoking and Health. The List is then locked in a safe. Disclosure to any David Yen (YD), the renowned anti-tobacco warrior who devoted half his life to promoting public health, died Sept. 6 of coronary thrombosis at 82.

1984: The Cigarette Safety Act of 1984 establishes a technical study group (TSG) to determine whether it was technically and economically feasible to make a fire-safe cigarette.

1984: TOBACCO CONTROL: TAIWAN: David Yen founds the John Tung Foundation

1984: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell becomes president and CEO of Philip Morris Inc.

1984: BUSINESS: The Bakery, Confectionary and Tobacco Workers International Union (BC&T) and the Tobacco Institute joined forces by establishing the Tobacco Industry Labor Management Committee. The purpose is to "contribute to greater cooperation among the various segments of the tobacco industry, in order to improve job security and economic development through public education and research address problems facing the tobacco industry". (LB)

1984: BUSINESS: International Tobacco Growers' Association (ITGA) is founded by Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the U.S.A., Malawi and Zimbabwe.

1984: SPORTS: Champion Diver Greg Louganis almost represents American Cancer Society at Olympics, but there is a conflict with Mission Viejo Realty Group, owned by a subsidiary of Philip Morris. See:

1984-03: MEDIA: THE SATURDAY EVENING POST stops accepting tobacco advertising. The magazine was threatened with a partial advertising boycott by non-tobacco divisions of tobacco companies in response to the decision. ("Smoking and Health Reporter", 1985, p3). The Post's publisher is Cory SerVaas, MD.

1984-04-15: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Another "Mouse House Massacre." The Philip Morris labs at which nicotine researchers Victor DeNoble and Paul Mele worked are abruptly shut down.

1984-09-25: Tobacco Institute and the National Association of State Boards of Education announce an anti-youth smoking campaign, "Responsible Living Program," which includes the TI/NASBE'-produced booklets, "Helping Youth Decide" and "Helping Youth Say No: A Parents' Guide to Helping Teenagers Cope with Peer Pressure." There is very little mention of tobacco in either book. The booklets offers no specific health reasons for urging youths to exhibit patience before undertaking an adult custom like smoking.

1985: 18TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- Cancer and Chronic Lung Disease in the Workplace: A Report of the Surgeon General

1985: HEALTH: Lung cancer surpasses breast cancer as #1 killer of women.

1985: Stanford MBA student Joe Tye's 5 year old daughter becomes so delighted with a Marlboro billboard, she begins squealing with delight and says, "Look Daddy, horsies!" Tye later founds STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco).

1985: LITIGATION: Brown & Williamson sues CBS and Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen for libel for his 1981 commentary. B&W wins a $3.05 million verdict--the largest libel award ever paid by a news organization.

1985: UK: The Bradford City fire, started by a cigarette, kills 40 people.

1985: LEGISLATION: WASHINGTON's preemptive Clean Indoor Air Act is passed."The Washington Clean Indoor Air Act" prohibits smoking in government facilities, museums and office buildings but allowing it in restaurants, bars, bowling alleys and casinos.

1985: BUSINESS: The corporate framework of Philip Morris Inc. is restructured and Philip Morris Companies Inc., a holding company, becomes the publicly held parent of Philip Morris Inc.

1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys food and coffee giant General Foods (Post's cereal, Jell-O, Maxwell House Coffee for $5.6 billion.

1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris net income tops the $1 billion mark, reaching $1.26 billion.

1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris begins publishing Philip Morris Magazine (1985-1992)

1985: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries buys food products company Nabisco Brands for $4.9B; renames itself RJR/Nabisco.. Ex-Standard Brands/Nabisco head Ross Johnson takes control of company.

1985: BUSINESS: A tobacco trade journal reports on the job of the tobacco "flavourist" and chemist. One job of the flavourist is to "ensure high satisfaction from an adequate level of nicotine per puff". One job of the chemist is "to ensure adequate levels of nicotine and tar in the smoke". (World Tobacco, March 1987, pp. 97-103).

1985: TOBACCO CONTROL: Actor Yul Brynner does TV public service announcement urging people to stop smoking. He said," "Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke. Whatever you do, don't smoke." Sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

1985: TOBACCO CONTROL: Iceland institutes a near-total ban of smoking in public.

1985: SOCIETY: Ritz-Carlton Boston hosts a cigar-smoker private dinner party for 20 gentlemen. It soon becomes a regular event in Ritz-Carltons across the country..

1985: Minnesota enacts the first state legislation to earmark a portion of the state cigarette excise tax to support smoking prevention programs.

1985: PEOPLE: Cuban President Fidel Castro stops smoking cigars.

1985-01-17: BUSINESS: B&W lawyer J. Kendrick Wells writes "Re: Document Retention" memo in reference to "removing the deadwood."

1985-08-32: REGULATION: Aspen, CO, institutes 50% smoking ban. Smoking areas must be separately ventilated.Some consider this the first restaurant smoking ban.

1986: 19TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, A Report of the Surgeon General (C. Everett Koop) finds smokeless tobacco to be cancer-causing, and addictive.

"Based on the current report, the judgment can now be made that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke can cause disease, including lung cancer, in nonsmokers. It is also clear that simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same airspace may reduce but cannot eliminate nonsmoker exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The report also reviews an extensive body of evidence which establishes an increased risk of respiratory illness and reduced lung function in infants and very young children of parents who smoke."

1986: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds opens its Tobaccoville plant outside Winston-Salem, NC; it was the world's largest cigarette factory at the time.

1986: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries, Inc. becomes RJR Nabisco Inc.

1986: BUSINESS: Philip Morris sells off Seven-Up International to PepsiCo.

1986: BUSINESS: Spurred by the General Foods business, Philip Morris revenues increase more than 50 percent to $25.4 billion, while net earnings reach $1.5 billion.

1986: BUSINESS: Ex-Philip Morris CEO GEORGE WEISSMAN, begins reign as chairman of Lincoln Center (NYC).

1986: CUBA: Fidel Castro stops smoking cigars for health reasons.

1986: USA: The CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE of the Library of Congress wrote a 19 page document titled "The proposed prohibition on advertising tobacco products: A constitutional analysis". It concluded that (a) commercial speech does not have the same protection under law as non-commercial speech, (b) Congress had the authority to regulate tobacco advertising and (c) Congress had the authority to completely prohibit tobacco advertising under the conditions set in the Central Hudson case and/or the Posadas case. (LB)

1986: UK: BUSINESS: IMPERIAL GROUP is purchased by HANSON TRUST PLC

1986: LITIGATION: U.S. Tobacco wins SEAN MARSEE trial in Oklahoma, the only smokeless-tobacco liability case ever tried. Marsee was a track athlete who began using smokeless tobacco at 12. He contracted cancer of the tongue, which spread to his lymph nodes. He died in 1984 at 19.

1986: CANADA: The Nonsmokers' Rights Association releases A Catalogue of Deception -- a report detailing violations of almost every part of the tobacco industry's voluntary marketing code. The association also places full-page ads in newspapers calling on the government to treat tobacco the same way they'd treat any other lethal, addictive product. (Smoke & Mirrors, 1996)

1986: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Industry ETS Seminar Cancelled amid charges of deception on sponsorship.

Sorell Schwartz, a Georgetown pharmacologist and tobacco industry consultant, secured funding from two tobacco companies and other sponsors for a seminar on the science of ETS at Georgetown in June 1986. Included among the speakers were several authors of the National Academy of Sciences and U.S. Surgeon General's reports on passive smoking, then being written. Most of the moderators were members of Schwartz's industry consulting team, the "Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group." Through inadvertence, Schwartz says, he failed to have an assistant notify speakers that the conference was sponsored in part by cigarette companies. For other technical reasons, he also failed to print this information in the program. The American Lung Association protested vehemently and asked Georgetown to cancel the meeting. . . Georgetown did not yield to the Lung Association, but Schwartz decided to cancel "on my own.' In a later pamphlet, the Tobacco Institute describes all this as "a direct threat to scientific integrity' and an "attempt to stifle free speech and academic freedom."

1986: Mr. Potato Head Quits Smoking. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop asks Hasbro to stop including a pipe as a Mr. PH accessory. Mr. Potato Head became the official "spokespud" for the American Lung Society and the Great American Smoke-out.

1986: US breaks down Japan's cigarette import barriers. In July, US Senator Jesse Helms backs up a USTR threat to investigate unfair trade practices against Japan unles

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