Tobacco Documents Online

( THE TOBACCO INSTITUTE 1T?6 K STREET NOR~IWEST/WASHINGTON, D.C 20008 202/4574800 ~'~LLIAM KLO~FE2, J~ S~n Jur Vice President 20~/4~7~J6~ k October 31, 1978 Ernest Pepples, Esq. Vice President and General Counsel Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. 1600 West Hill Street Louisville, KY 40201 Dear Ernie: The enclosed current GASP statement, "Hire a NonsmokerS", provides a somewhat convenient list of asserted social costs which could be worked against. Are you fully briefed, perhaps by Dick Hadden, on the status of the ICOSI approach to this issue? I know that a social costs study has been recormnended, but do not know whether it is actually going forward. I do appreciate having the draft document you sent me last Friday. Its language seems a bit stilted by U. S. standards but it seems a step in the right direetion.~ Further on the matter of social costs, I think any study should contemplate a "worst case" analysis with respect to the health aspects. We know the adversary builds his case this way, and even though it is entirely hypothetical he may be faulted for relatively unsophisticated analysis which, if performed, would cut sharply into the magnitude of his case. On October 26, Joe Califano gave a speech to The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, in which he remarked that 40 million Americans, most of them with low incomes, had inadequate health insurance or none an all. Given the demo- graphics of smoking, even in a "worst case" analysis I suspect that claims about insurance costs are not even well based on the adversary's hypotheses. I also think that no "worst case" study can be shy about the subject of Social Security costs. The adversary claims smoking O N

Ernest Pepples, Esq. October 31, 1978 Page 2 reduces lifespan by eight years. Obviously he can be hoisted on that petard with a demonstration that by his standards, wrong as they may be, smoking saves us substantial s**ms in care and support for the elderly and retired population. Certainly this approach opens the way to charges of cynicism. But cold mathematics can, I think, reduce our vulnerability to that. And I'll bet that careful research done by persons who know their way through the labyrinths of demographics, actuarial and health cosE data will turn up some things sur- prising to all of us. Cordially, William Kloepfer, Jr. WKjr:mss ca: J.C.B. Ehrlnghaus, Esq.