Tobacco Documents Online

Statement of Position; Footnoted and With Bibliography

Abstract

This Tobacco Institute position paper was originally drafted by the Institute in 1967 during the debate over tar and nicotine labeling, but it applies strongly today to the idea of 'lights' and 'low-tar' labeling by the companies. The document is also important in light of Philip Morris' renewed interest in broadcasting TV advertisements. PM's use of the phrase "there is no safe cigarette" in its television ads without also stating that there "is no safer cigarette" is blatantly misleading.* As the document puts it

"It has been said that there is no risk of misleading and perhaps endangering the smoker by requiring tar and nicotine labeling, because of the warning of potential hazard. True, the smoker may be reminded that the cigarette is not absolutely safe. But he may well conclude that the cigarette is substantially safer. Indeed, that conclusion is virtually inescapable, since the very reason for the proposed labeling of tar and nicotine content is to encourage reduction of that content, thereby purportedly making the cigarette ‘safer’."

The document is stridently written and brimming with denials and obfuscations about the link between smoking and disease, as well as denials about the need to alert people to this link through appropriate labeling.

Fields

Notes

* A statement that "light" cigarettes are not safer than other types of cigarettes does appear on Philip Morris website in a relatively non-prominent spot at http://www.pmusa.com/health_issues/low_tar_cigarettes.asp It states: "PM USA does not imply in our marketing, and smokers should not assume, that lower-yielding brands are safe or safer than full-flavor brands. There is no safe cigarette. "Medium," "mild," "light" and "ultra light" cigarettes are no exception. Health warnings are required on all of our brands, irrespective of their tar and nicotine yields. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stated that "smoking 'low tar' or 'light' cigarettes does not eliminate the health risks of smoking. If you're concerned about the health risks of smoking, stop smoking ... There's no such thing as a safe smoke."

Thank you to an anonymous subscriber for pointing out how this document applies to ongoing legal cases over "light" and "ultralight" cigarettes.

Quotes

[From Page TIMN0257792]:

(b) Zealots have vastly overstated their case against cigarette smoking.

(1) Smoking can Cardiovascular Disease.

The Surgeon General's Advisory Committee did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that smoking causes cardiovascular diseases. That lack of evidence has been blandly ignored by those zealots who include cardiovascular diseases in their claims that smoking causes hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The Surgeon General's Advisory Committee said in 1964 that the basic causes of coronary heart disease were obscure. The nicotine in cigarettes, a traditional whipping boy, was said by the Committee not to cause degenerative disease nor to be an important health hazard. Those statements are as true now as they were then. Then, as now, certain factors other than smoking were thought to predispose to that disease. Stress, familial background, individual personality traits (a "coronary-prone personality" has been described), occupation, city life, obesity, diet...and lack of exercise have all been mentioned. Whether smoking is on of these many factors that may be related to coronary disease remains to be determined...

[Beginning around Page TIMN0257828]:

“Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Public Health Service and the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture concluded in 1965 that the labeling of tar and nicotine yields should not be required. There has been no new scientific proof justifying any change in this position. For many years the Federal Trade Commission, supported by the Public Health Service, consistently took the position that any statement of tar and nicotine content in cigarette labeling and advertising would not be meaningful...Stripped to its essentials, the argument favoring nicotine content labeling is that a smoker will be able to compare brands with respect to relative nicotine content and to choose the one having less nicotine. The suggestion is that less nicotine is somehow "safer;" and this is the message that unavoidably will be conveyed to the smoker by any such required labeling. But there is no acceptable evidence that the amounts of nicotine absorbed by the smoker are harmful. To the contrary, the consensus is that these amounts are not harmful. Therefore, there is no scientific basis for assuring the smoker that cigarettes with less nicotine are somehow "safer"...Their belief that cigarette smoking was "guilty as charged" doubtless gave rise to expectation that the proof would shortly be forthcoming to show how this was so. That such proof does not today exist may well explain their frustration. It does not, however, excuse resurrection of the long since discredited assertion that reduced tar means added safety, when there is not a trace of new proof to support either the assertion or the rejected hypothesis upon which it was originally based. There is no scientific method to determine whether a difference between ‘tar’ content of any two brands would be meaningful – or how much of a difference might be significant...Additionally, if it were assumed that smoking causes disease, any tar and nicotine labeling requirement might not be only misleading but dangerously so. A smoker would assume that lower ‘tar’ and nicotine content means ‘safer’ cigarettes. Accordingly, a smoker could be lulled into a false sense of added safety by labeling which indicates reduced tar and nicotine content, when ‘harmful’ ingredients have not been reduced at all. A smoker may compare two packages of cigarettes and choose one on the ground that its tar and nicotine content is less than the other…he is receiving a possibly false assurance of safety, because there is no way of knowing whether the difference between the two cigarettes is at all significant. Even if one were to assume that reduced tar and nicotine content made cigarettes safer, no one knows how much reduction would be meaningful. In both examples, the result may well be to persuade a smoker either to continue a given level of smoking or to increase that level of smoking because the cigarettes that he has chosen are somehow ‘safer’…It has been said that there is no risk of misleading and perhaps endangering the smoker by requiring tar and nicotine labeling, because of the warning of potential hazard. True, the smoker may be reminded that the cigarette is not absolutely safe. But he may well conclude that the cigarette is substantially safer. Indeed, that conclusion is virtually inescapable, since the very reason for the proposed labeling of tar and nicotine content is to encourage reduction of that content, thereby purportedly making the cigarette ‘safer’. But inadequate data, or unsupported opinions, or the louder repetition of those opinions, do not demonstrate health significance. What has not been demonstrated is any way of answering the critical questions: Do ‘tar’ and nicotine have any effect on health at all? If so, how much of a tar or nicotine reduction has health significance? If so, how much lower in tar and nicotine content must one cigarette be than another to have ‘less harmful effects’?

Company

Tobacco Institute

Author

Tobacco Institute

Recipient

Tobacco Institute

Region

United States

Litigation

Minnesota

Type

STATEMENT/TESTIMONY

Subject

low yield cigarette

Low Yield Cigarettes (Products)

advertising activity

advertising campaign

advertising message