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People who do presentations about tobacco to teenagers often get asked about the relative safety (or danger) of smoking clove cigarettes. Clove cigarettes, known as "kreteks" in Indonesia, became a fad in the U.S. in the early 1980s. They are still around today.
This June 18, 1985 Los Angeles Times article links the eugenol in clove cigarettes to an increase in hospitalizations among teenagers for respiratory distress.
Documents indicate that eugenol was an additive in tobacco cigarettes for many years.
Eugenol is derived from cloves. It serves as a weak anaesthetic and has been used by dentists as a pain reliever ("clove oil"). Eugenol is listed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as "Generally Regarded as Safe" (GRAS) when consumed orally, in unburned form. It is non-toxic in food, but toxic when administered directly to the airways.
Between March, 1984 and May, 1985, the U.S. Centers of Disease Control (CDC) recorded 12 cases of severe illness possibly associated with smoking clove cigarettes. In one case not cited by the CDC, a 17 year old Newport Harbor (California) high school student became short of breath after smoking a clove cigarette and eventually died of respiratory failure. His parents initiated a $25 million lawsuit against the sellers, makers and importers of the clove cigarettes, claiming they were negligent in supplying "dangerous and defective" cigarettes.
Eleven other patients were hospitalized with symptoms of pulmonary edema (blood and fluid-filled lungs), bronchospasm (constriction of the airways), hemoptysis (coughing up blood), nausea and vomiting.
According to the article, Dr. Frederick Schecter, a Whittier, California thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon discovered "a wealth of scientific studies have been conducted on eugenol," and said the chemical has been documented as toxic to cells and pharmacologically active on the central nervous system. He also said eugenol is "sensitizing" (meaning it can induce development of an allergy against itself) and has produced severe allergic reactions in dental patients, manifested by wheezing and shortness of breath.
Letter from Associated Film Promotions, Inc. to Sylvester Stallone re: agreement between Stallone and Brown and Williamson. Summarizes product placement and advertising agreement for Stallone's next five movies. Mentions payment of $500,000 for the service to include personal usage, support character usage and sign placement. Lists movies such as Rhinestone Cowboy, Godfather III, Rambo, 50/50, and Rocky IV.
This document appears to be a "think piece" about how to deal with consumer phone calls coming the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company's toll-free 1-800 number.
The writer grapples with the fact that B&W is continuing to manufacture a product that the company knows is harmful, and the particularly difficult calls coming into the 800 number as a result. For example, the writer mulls over ways to respond to a caller who tells them their family member has died as a result of smoking:
"How can we sympathetically respond, yet keep in mind B&W, to a person who calls to say their family member has passed away and they feel that the cause of death was smoking? The repsonse that we were given some time ago by legal that said, 'We're sorry you feel that way but we do not share your views. The purpose of the 800 number is not to debate social or health issues' seems harsh..."
The writer also lists some of the common questions that come in on the 800 number:
Which is more harmful, the tar or the nicotine?
Are lights and ultra lights less harmful than the full flavor style?
Do your cigarettes cause cancer?
Does your company have literature to help smokers quit?..
What are the ingredients--why can't you give them to me?
What chemicals are in our tobacco?
Should consumer reps sign any letter that has the potential to "bite us back" like fireballs?
How do you get someone who is intoxicated to hang up first?
Type of Document: Memorandum (Lorillard), Market Research Report From: M. Yellen To: M.J. Kramer, President and CEO Date: September 15, 1964 Subject: Lorillard Sales Position Site: http://www.lorillarddocs.com URL: http://www.lorillarddocs.com/getimg.asp?pgno=0&start=0&bool=01124257&docid=01124257/4265
Type of Document: Marketing document, report Title: Other Ways to Reach the Target Date: 10/02/89 Bates No. 507176999-7016 No. of Pages: 18 Site: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/ URL: Sorry, the way the RJR site is set up, I can't give you a URL. To find this document, go to http://www.rjrtdocs.com/, click on 'new Search' and enter as Combined Text the phrase 'Other Ways to Reach the Target' (without quotation marks). Only one document is returned, and this is it. Click 'view all pages' and grab a cup of coffee while it loads. Worth the wait. RJR introduced the Dakota brand as a competitor to Marlboro to compete for market share among younger smokers. This brainstorming document lists possible ways to market Dakota to this younger audience. We don't know which, if any, of these ideas may actually have been used, but the list itself is obviously the product of cigarette-marketing minds running absolutely free, and it offers valuable insight. Some of the suggestions on the list include: * Dakota 'Ice Cream Trucks' that drive through neighorhoods, play music and sample [give away free cigarettes] * Create a new flavor of ice cream called Dakota
Letter from an advertising company to the Vice President of Lorillard that appears to express great pride in children aspiring to smoke like their parents.
States that nicotine can lower the threshold to ventricular fibrillation, thus cause sudden death from cardiovascular disease.
This Philip Morris document, Top Secret Operation Rainmaker, proposes directions the industry should consider taking to try and reverse the decline of the social acceptability of smoking. It suggests that in order to "truly influence the media" that Philip Morris should "become" part of the media, by purchasing a major media outlet like Knight Ridder.
This is a sample of a previous Philip Morris "anti-smoking" campaign aimed at youth. It's essentially a finger-wagging ad that says "you're not old enough for this." Essentially taunts kids, and equates smoking with another adult "initiation ritual": smoking.
This document is a 1994 discussion of PM's plan to address smoking by minors, which turned into "Action Against Access." Goals for program include reducing the "number of hostile bills and regulatory efforts," "improving public recognition of our efforts" and "improving the press on minor's access."
The following quotes are taken from a letter written by the vice president of Marketing and Research at Flanigan Enterprises (an advertising company) and sent to Richard A. Kampe, president of RJ reynolds Tobacco Development Company (this document was an exhibit in the Mangini case, the 'case that rid the landscape of Joe Camel.') :
This is a Lorillard ad from 1952 for Kent cigarettes with 'the Exclusive Micronite Filter.' This filter was made of asbestos, which led to the recent sucessful lawsuit by a person who came down with mesothelioma, a unique form of cancer caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos: See the original document at: http://www.lorillarddocs.com/getimg.asp?pgno=0&start=0&bool=80687142&docid=80687142 Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office Grand Junction
Today's document reveals overall industry strategy to help defeat proposed bans on indoor smoking, and links this strategy's similarity to the one they sucessfully used to defeat efforts aimed at attaining fire-safe cigarettes: Title: Indoor Air Quality: Alternative Strategy Type of Document: Philip Morris Scietific Affairs Report Document Date: 1986 (no more specific date given) Author: N/A Recipient: N/A No.of Pages: 1 Bates No. 202581970 Site: Philip Morris http://www.pmdocs.com/ URL: http://www.pmdocs.com/getimg.asp?pgno=0&start=0&bool=2025818970&docid=2025818970
I typed in the wrong Bates No. on the last document, Indoor Air Quality: Alternative Strategy. It should be 2025818970 (on the PM site, http://www.pmdocs.com/ Sorry for the error. I believe the URL is good and should get you right to the document, though. Anne I typed in the wrong Bates No. on the last document, Indoor Air Quality: Alternative Strategy. It should be 2025818970 (on the PM site, http://www.pmdocs.com/
Sorry for the error. I believe the URL is good and should get you right to the document, though. Anne
This interesting series of correspondence was found while researching the tobacco industry's responses to the introduction of corporate programs to discourage smoking. The first document is an internal Philip Morris (PM) memo that discusses the Ford Motor Company's Cardiovascular Intervention Program. The goal of Ford's program was to encourage high-risk employees to modify their lifestyles to reduce risk of cardiovascular ailments. PM wanted to use Ford's program for research purposes of their own, and sent Dr. William L. Dunn to try and persuade the program's coordinator to operate the program in a way that would be more useful to PM.
Today's document shows the interest Philip Morris takes in the relationship between nicotine content of Marlboro cigarettes and sales. Instead of a quote, I am attaching a chart taken from the document that is an excellent visual. Type of Doc: Confidential Philip Morris memo Title: Observations on the Relationship of Nicotine Change and Sales Change in the Marlboro From: W.L.Dunn To: Dr. R.B. Seligman Date: May 14, 1975 Site: Philip Morris http://www.pmdocs.com URL: http://www.pmdocs.com/getimg.asp?pgno=0&start=0&bool=1003288771&docid=1003288771
The correct URL of the document with the PM chart of nicotine vs. sales is http://www.pmdocs.com/getimg.asp?pgno=0&start=0&bool=10000249*%20and%20chart&docid=1000024914/4920 Sorry for the error! ************************************************************** For more about the industry documents, visit http://www.tobaccodocuments.org To join this list, send a message to join.doc-alert@smokescreen.org To quit this list, send a message to leave.doc-alert@smokescreen.org
I'm sending an extra document today, since I'll be gone for a few days: This RJR document, Pilferage in Perspective, is a presentation whose purpose is to talk retailers out of the "knee jerk reaction" of moving their cigarettes out of reach of customers in response to pilferage. The document shows how retailers can, in most cases, make more profit if they allow their cigarettes to be stolen (due to the industry-paid "placement" or "slotting fees"). The document contains equations that demonstrate how slotting fees more than offset retailers' loss from theft. Note the example at the end of the document, which cites the average "Winn Dixie" grocery store as selling 450 cartons a month. The document demonstrates that this Winn-Dixie store can actually make a higher profit from tobacco if the owner accept up to a 6% pilferage rate--along with their slotting fees. A 6% pilferage rate (at the stated quantity of sales) equates to an average loss of 5,400 cigarettes each week-- or almost 290,000 cigarettes each year--from a single grocery store. If just one half of these cigarettes make it to kids who smoke ten cigarettes each, and just 1/4 of them go on to be regular smokers, then the pilferage from this single store will recruit over 3,000 new smokers each year. At an average smoking rate of 1 1/2 packs a day, each smoker stands to generate about $36,000 --or, if the group is taken in aggregate, many hundreds of millions of dollars-- for the industry, state and federal governments before they quit or die. All from just one store. This document can be valuable at public hearings for measures to eliminate self-service cigarette displays, if you take the math a little further and demonstrate the public health impact of the theft rates stated in the document. Document Title: Pilferage Presentation. Core Presentation. (another document contained within this one is called Pilferage in Perspective) Type of Document: Marketing Presentation Author: N/A Date: 9/12/85 Site: R.J. Reynolds, http://www.rjrtdocs.com/frames.jsp Bates No. 514348983 -9015 URL: Sorry, the way the site is designed I can't supply a URL for this document. But you can find it by going to the RJR site and entering as Combined Text the words Pilferage Presentation. Core Presentation. (just like that, with periods).
This Philip Morris internal presentation, A Smoker's Alliance, is a formative document for PM's "smokers rights" front group, the National Smokers Alliance (NSA), which PM created to help the corporation fight the spread of public health laws mandating clean indoor air.
Philip Morris plainly lays out the driving purpose of formation of the NSA:
"Financial impact of smoking bans will be tremendous. Three to five fewer cigarettes per day per smoker will reduce annual manufacturer profits a billion dollars plus per year." [page Four, Bates No. 2022839674]
PM laments that "past efforts to mobilize smokers have not have the desired impact," and that "many smokers are abdicating to social and regulatory pressures..."
PM says that funding for its new smokers rights group must come from broad sources so it won't reflect "just the self-interests of a tobacco manufacturer," despite the fact that the very formation of the group springs from exactly that. PM then suggests that all groups associated in any way with tobacco be tapped for funding: all major U.S. tobacco companies, leaf growers, distributors, and retailers.
The ideal leaders of PM's smoker organization would be "Former members of Congress (Senate or House)," "Former administration officials" or "a quasi-celebrity--show business or some other definition."
The goal was to create a seemingly independent "militant sector" of smokers who would protest measures Philip Morris didn't like and help defeat them
The following document was first revealed by Greg Conolly of Massachusetts Tobacco Control at a press conference in St. Paul, MN in 1998. It is an RJ Reynolds scientific report from 1989 describes how RJR's additives nicotine levulinate and levulinic acid enhance the binding capacity of nicotine in the brain by 20-50%. Other documents show RJR added these chemicals to Winston ultra lights. Type of Document: RJ Reynolds scientific report Authors: Patrick M. Lipello and Key G. Fernandes Date: Sept. 25, 1989 Starting Bates No. 508295794 Total No. of Pages: 27 Site: RJ Reynolds Document Site http://www.rjrtdocs.com URLs: [Note: I think I have found a way to bookmark documents on the RJR site now. I hope these URLs work--if not, this document can be found by entering as combined text the phrase 'Enhancement of Nicotine Binding to Nicotinic Receptors.') This is a lengthy report, so I will give you the most effective pages. The first page contains a succinct summary of the research: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=0 Quotes from the Summary: Nicotine levulinate and levulinic acid significantly increased the amount of L[3H] nicotine bound to nicotinic receptors in rat brain tissue. The observed increase ranged from 20-50%, with a mean value of around 30%...According to the model, levulinic acid binds to a...class of low-affinity receptors and increases the affinity of these receptors to nicotine. Page 20: A chart, titled Figure 2: Levulinic Acid Enhancement of [3H]-Nicotine Binding to Nicotinic Receptors in Rat Brain (page is Bates No. 508295813 -- this is useful as an overhead at presentations to demonstrate what this study is about): http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=20 Page 23: Figure 5 - Theoretical Model for Levulinate Enhancement of Nicotine Binding to Nicotine Receptors (the left pie chart represents nicotine binding without levulinate, the right pie shows the amount of enhancement of binding with the additive -- also makes a good overhead for presentations) (Page is Bates No. 508295817): http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=23 The following document shows that RJR scientific affairs evaluated nicotine levulinate as a cigarette additive in their Winston Ultra Light cigarettes: Type of Document: Interoffice Memorandum Title: Scientific Affairs Evaluation of Nicotine Levulinate as a Tobacco Ingredient Author: Dr. Scott Appleton Recipient: Jerry Lawson Date: 01/09/1987 Bates No. 506826449 No. of Pages: 1 URL: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=0 (if this can also be found by entering the Bates No. in the document ID field).
This R.J. Reynolds SECRET document reveals RJR's discovery that their competitors PhilipMorris' and Lorillard were using a chemical technique to "free base" nicotine in the smoke of Marlboro and KOOL cigarettes by manipulating the smoke pH. This chemical manipulation increased sales of those brands. Title: Implications and Activities Arising from Correlation of Smoke pH with Nicotine Impact, Other Smoke Qualities and Cigarette Sales Type of Document: Report w/ graphics Author: N/A Date: Oct. 2, 1973 Bates No. 509314122/4154 No. of Pages: 33 Site: RJ Reynolds document litigation site: http://www.rjrtdocs.com Try this URL, see if it works: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=0&ALL_RECORDS=1
This memo was written by Tom Hockaday of APCO Associates, a PR company employed by Philip Morris. APCO's web site states one of its corporate services is to "influence decisionmakers and shape public opinion by crafting compelling messages and recruiting effective allies." (http://www.apcoworldwide.com/content/services/index.cfm?id=8#coalition). The document lists individuals that could be approached to lend their names to pre-written, favorable-to-tobacco op-ed pieces on the subject of environmental tobacco smoke. One of the people APCO considered approaching was Peter Samuel, whose qualifications included the fact that he had "developed a book proposal to address unsubstantiated scares including alar, dioxin, DDT, ETS, asbestos and others." (Dioxin, the primary toxic component of Agent Orange, was found at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York and was the basis for evacuations at Times Beach, Missouri. Asbestos, a toxin and known carcinogen, causes the lung disease asbestosis and a cancer of the pleura called mesothelioma. DDT, a dangerous pesticide that can persist in the environment for up to 15 years, was banned in the United states in 1972.) Another candidate Hockaday approached said that his organization "would not lend its name to opinion editorials written by other sources," which indicates that APCO was shopping around for prominent people to lend their names--and their organizations' names--to pro-tobacco industry op-eds that were already written.
This confidential Philip Morris document lists the arguments that the tobacco industry "must cover" in hearings for public smoking bills. Note the arguments that smoking bans discriminate against women, the disabled and blue collar workers while favoring white male executives, and the argument that smoking bans on airplanes will cause a fire hazard, because it will drive smokers into smoking in dangerous ways and places to evade the ban.
Today's document is a print ad that was apparently published by the Tobacco Advisory Council in response to a ban on smoking on British flights in 1988 "Welcome aboard This Flight to Glasgow. Will All Smokers Kindly Extinguish Their Personal Freedom.
This document reveals the reason why the tobacco industry fights measures that provide the public with clean indoor air: reduced sales. It also discusses the industry's lobbying structure in the states, the difficulties the industry faces due to the efforts of the voluntary health organzations, and reveals results of the tobacco industry's own polls that show overwhelming (and steadily increasing) public support for smoke-free public places and workplaces.