Anne Landman's Collection
Happy New Year, You Greedy Killers.
Abstract
From 1984-86 the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company ran a widespread print advertisement campaign aimed at convincing the lay public that a controversy existed about whether secondhand tobacco smoke posed any harm to the non-smoker. RJR's ads ran in publications like Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Washington Post, to name a few. The ads themselves sparked significant controversy, drawing fire from individuals and health organizations, as well as praise from smokers. RJR's document database contains numerous letters from people angry about these ads, or from people who wrote to correct the company or describe situations where either they or their family members had been harmed by, or suffered from exposure to secondhand smoke. In today's document, someone who suffers adverse health effects from secondhand smoke exposure has scrawled an angry answer to RJR on a copy of the ad and mailed it back to the company. Following (in the "Quotes" section) are both the text of the ad and the writer's response.
Fields
- Notes
Today, through its web site, RJR still denies secondhand smoke can have any health effect on adult nonsmokers. Its website only suggests exposure to tobacco smoke should be minimized for infants and young children (http://www.rjrt.com/TI/TIsecondhand_smoke.asp)
- Quotes
[Text of RJR's ad:]
PASSIVE SMOKING: An Active Controversy
Periodically the public hears about an individual scientific study which claims to show that "environmental tobacco smoke" (ETS) may be harmful to non-smokers. These reports usually receive sensational media coverage. Yet, three times within two years, groups of distinguished experts have gathered to review not just one study but the whole body of evidence on this subject. In all three cases, scientists came to similar--and far less sensational--conclusions.
Yet the media have remained almost silent.
In March 1983 there was the "Second Workshop on Environmental Tobacco Smoke" in Geneva, Switzerland. In May 1983 there was the "Workshop on Respiratory Effects of Involuntary Smoke Exposure in Bethesda, Maryland.
And, most recently, in April 1984, leading experts from around the world gathered in Vienna for a Symposium, "Passive Smoking from a Medical Point of View."
After this symposium was over, the presidents of the two organizing groups issued a press release summarizing their findings.
The summary said, "the connection between ETS and lung cancer has not been scientifically established to date." It also said "there is a high probability that cardio- vascular damage due to [ETS] can be ruled out in healthy people." And it went on to say, "Should lawmakers wish to take legislative measures with regard to [ETS], they will, for the present, not be able to base their efforts on a demonstrated health hazard from [ETS].
Perhaps the media would say they cannot be blamed for devoting little attention to what some would consider "non-news." But we at R.J. Reynolds are concerned about the effects such one-sided coverage may be having on the public.
For today, many non-smokers who once saw cigarette smoke merely as an annoyance now view it as a threat to their health. Their growing alarm is being translated into heightened social strife and unfair anti-smoker legislation.
We believe these actions are unwarranted by the scientific facts--and that it is rhetoric, more than research, which makes passive smoking an active controversy.
[Text of what person wrote around and alongside ad:]
Happy New Year, you greedy KILLERS. You sure have a creative PR department. You lie as much as the felons I see each day in court. If it's so harmless how's come I feel like VOMITING after spending an hour in a nice closed roomful of it? Your lies continue to sicken me, but only half as much as your GREED.
Sincerely,
Billie Meyers
- Company
- R.J. Reynolds
- Author
- Meyers, B.L.
- Recipient
- Long, Gerald H. (RJR Director, 1979-88; President '82-86)Chief Operating Officer of RJ Reynolds, 1982-83, CEO of RJR 1984-86, served on Tobacco Institute Executive Committee, 1984-87. Replaced Ed Horrigan as president of RJR's domestic tobacco business.
Document Images
