Tobacco Documents Online

These minutes of a 1987 meeting held between Philip Morris' (PM) European executives and John Rupp of Covington and Burling (industry attorney) discuss bringing strategy for fighting governments, public health authorities and scientific conclusion on the health effects of secondhand smoke (SHS) to Europe. PM lists "end goals" for the strategy: "Resist smoking restrictions" and "Restore smoker confidence."

Lofty pre-requisites needed to achieve the above goals are also listed:

"--Reverse scientific and popular opinion --Restore social acceptability of smoking --Preserve product liability defences." The first item above indicates PM's awareness that the accumulated scientific evidence about SHS had concluded beyond a doubt that SHS was harmful to health, and reveals the cigarette company's hubris on this topic. The last item, "Preserve product liability defences," suggests that PM believed it needed to create a body of scientific studies casting doubt on the health effects of secondhand smoke to preserve its own defenses against personal injury suits that could potentially arise over SHS exposure. This concern is reflected again on page 3 (Bates No. 2046754739), where PM cautions, "The product liability implications of what is said...in the course of media breifings and elsewhere must be borne in mind."

Later in the paper, PM discusses how to portray its relationship with a company called ACVA (Air Conditioning and Ventilation Associates Atlantic). ACVA was run by a ventilation engineer named Gray Robertson, who toured the U.S. giving seminars about indoor air quality. In these seminars, Robertson introduced the public and press to the notion of "sick building syndrome," a theory that blamed building occupants' health complaints on virtually all components except tobacco smoke (dust, cleaning chemicals, construction materials, poor ventilation, etc. ). Gray Robertson's tours and speaking engagements were paid for by Philip Morris.

PM needed to hide its affiliation with ACVA in order for their "indoor air expert" to maintain credibility. Thus these minutes say,

"ACVA must be perceived to be at arm's length from the industry, including in media briefings. Its role at most should be seen as yet another third party expert amongst others."

The document also makes clear that PM was the leader of worldwide efforts to obscure the link between secondhand smoke and health. Section #4 of the minutes, titled "Industry Coordination," states,

"It is preferable to build up a coordinated, international industry effort [to deal with the secondhand smoke issue]. Ideally this would be under the auspices of INFOTAB ...Nevertheless is was understood that PM must forge on and lead/act unilaterally whilst the industry coordination is being established individual markets."

A law enacted in France in 1991 (commonly referred to as the "Loi Evin") restricted some forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship. In 1993 French legislators considered tightening the Loi Evin to prohibit virtually all forms of tobacco advertising, with only very limited exceptions. The French legislature also proposed removing an exception that had permitted tobacco companies to continue to sponsor sporting events in France even after the Loi Evin had initially been enacted.

This proposal set off an alarm at Philip Morris. The company feared that if they allowed this measure to pass in France, the same type of restrictions would quickly spread to other European countries.

Not surprisingly, PM fought the measure. This report describes how Philip Morris France (PM) planned to manipulate the French government to preserve tobacco company sponsorship of sporting events.

Not unexpectedly, PM's strategy was multi-pronged: The company planned to use the deteriorating state of France's inner-cities (called "suburbs") to its advantage by offering the government what was, in essence, a bribe. PM planned to offer to build sporting facilities and purchase equipment for the poorer sections of French cities in exchange for the government inserting an exception into the new law that would continue to allow tobacco company sponsorship of sporting events:

"[PM will] offer sponsorship activities by tobacco companies [to the French government] as one solution for the severe urban problems."

Another tactic was to threaten French legislators by upsetting their "political equilibrium." PM says,

"[should Government officials move to restrict tobacco sponsorship of events] mobilization can take place and cause problems to the political equilibrium."

PM also proposed "using the problems of the inner-cities as a political cover" for politicians to insert an amendment favoring tobacco companies into a bill about the law.

Research by PM's Corporate Affairs department showed that manipulating French legislation through an Omnibus Bill was the way to go. PM preferred working through an Omnibus bill because they are introduced very late in the French legislative session, are usually rushed through parliament and laden with many different subjects, making discussion of individual measure in the bill very difficult. Omnibus bills thus avoid scrutiny by consumer groups and health authorities. In a section entitled "How to amend the Loi Evin," PM says,

"The easiest way to amend the Loi Evin to allow the sponsorship of motor vehicle competitions by the tobacco industry is to obtain the inclusion of an article dealing with this question in an Omnibus Bill. ..Omnibus bills have two advantages:

-- They are generally a long list of very different articles amending very different laws, and are therefore difficult to discuss.

-- They are generally voted during the last two days of parliamentary sessions, and are therefore not scrutinized by the press and public interest groups."

PM further says,

"[Omnibus bills] provide the Government with an opportunity to adjust laws voted previously without having to re-open a political debate. They provide an opportunity to placate special-interest groups without having to do it openly, or even to reverse the Government's previous position at the cost of minimal political exposure..."

The Plan also indicates PM cultivated strong allies within the French government, and implies the companies could control these public servants to their advantage, saying "It will...be necessary to mobilize MP's and Senators" to propose such an amendment.

This document shows how Philip Morris works to alter laws in ways that make the company's involvement difficult to detect, and purposely tries to keep health authorities and consumer groups from discovering and discussing what the company is doing in that regard.

This 1987 Philip Morris (PM) plan discusses recruitment of ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] witnesses in European countries (ones who can "campaign" on a "ticket" that points the finger in another direction, e.g., diesel fumes). It states that PM's objectives are to restore smoker confidence and preserve product liability defence. Lofty sub-objectives include "the reversal of scientific and popular opinion that ETS is harmful to health" and "restoration of the social acceptability of smoking." PM planned to do this by "developing expert opinion in order to influence and direct popular attitudes, political attitudes, professional institutions." The plan relates PM's intent to concentrate its anti-public health ETS efforts on Finland and Sweden.

This Philip Morris document (estimated date 1972) is a proposal to organize a scientific conference to discuss the gratification and benefits of cigarette smoking. The purpose of the conference was to "provide the scientific facts for a pro-cigarette public relations campaign." Eminent scientists would be invited to attend, and the conference was to be held in the middle of January, 1972 on the Island of St. Martin in the French Antilles. Invited scientists woulf be told "Philip Morris will pay all of your expenses." The document also states, "Conference proceedings to be published as a contribution to science."

PM's rationale for such a conference was:

"Scientists have been abundantly financed for the study of the adverse effects of smoking upon physical health. Scientists have not been supported for the study of the positive effects of smoking upon psychological well-being. Thus the public is hearing only why they should not smoke; they hear nothing in defense of smoking. The smoker is not being told that there are sound, scientific explanations for the satisfaction that he knows he gets from his cigarette. The conference will provide authoritative statements in support of smoking. "

Philip Morris planned this conference 8 years after the U.S. Surgeon General issued its first report definitively linked smoking with disease.

Shows organization of Nordic Smokers' Rights groups by Philip Morris and Burson Marstellar.

States, "The clubs must be encouraged to...select more members to be trained and acts as spokesmen... Continued co-ordination between the clubs to be arranged by 3-4 meetings yearly. Action [to be undertaken by]: PM and B-M. It is, however, vital to the clubs' integrety [sic] that they stay politically independent of the tobacco industry."

This 6 page planning document, found in the files of Ted Lattanzio (Director of Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs c. 1994), lists strategies and budgets for fighting public health efforts to end smoking in workplaces and public places. Page 4 describes a strategy for dealing with public knowledge about how childrens' health is disproportionately affected by exposure secondhand smoke: "Shift the debate on ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] and children to: Are our schools and day care centers making children sick?"

Tactics proposed for making the public believe that schools and day care centers are making children sick (instead of secondhand smoke) include:

"Feed available information to National School Board Association in D.C. Feed information to Oprah, et. al. Get sick children on the shows. Research newspaper clippings of parents who keep children at thome because of school environment--pass those on. Why? Shift the debate. Why is EPA not spending research dollars on solving school problem?? I have the research budget for next year--not very much is going to identify or solve the school problem. Get information to EPA Watch."

Philip Morris' estimated budget for the blaming program was $100,000.

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This October 22, 1999 memo by John F. Scruggs (Vice President of Federal Government Affairs at Philip Morris Management Corporation) and John Hoel (Director of Federal Tobacco Issues at PM Management Corporation) shows PM's strategic preparations for both win and lose scenarios resulting from the Supreme Court's 1999 ruling on whether FDA can regulate tobacco. It lays out PM's objective of developing an alternative FDA legislative strategy and discusses the inclusion of elements from PM's "Must Have" and "Must Not Have" list (a version of which, a "Should and Should Not Have" list, can be seen at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kxb22c00).

From the list it appears that PM seeks FDA regulations that:

1) do not interfere with tobacco marketing or promotions; 2) enshrine in federal law the tenets of the Master Settlement Agreement, an already-existing and mostly unenforced voluntary agreement drawn up largely by PM to get out from under multiple state lawsuits in 1997-98; 3) reinforces the public perception that smoking is a youth problem, not a societal problem; 4) Places the burden of informing the public about the hazards of smoking onto the FDA, thus removing substantial liability from the tobacco companies; 5) officially sanctions the current toxicity level of cigarettes; 6) Forces FDA to put its resources into manipulating cigarette ingredients and designing safer cigarettes, instead of allowing FDA the unfettered freedom to consider and implement a far wider range of innovations to reduce morbidity and mortality from smoking; 7) Forces FDA to place a high priority on the economic impact of tobacco, rather than making public health its highest concern regarding its actions dealing with tobacco, 8) Prevents FDA from requiring that cigarettes be made less appealing to smokers in any way; 9) Gives the industry a way to escape a regulation by claiming it causes or exacerbates a black market in tobacco (which history shows that tobacco companies create and stimulate at will to defeat legislation they don't like, like taxes) 10) Preserves the industry's freedom to manufacture and export domestic cigarettes to the extent they wish; 11) Helps slow the decline in domestic farm production of tobacco plants. PM's strategy in the lead up to the Supreme Court Decision consisted of developing two teams: one that would work on a plan to be pursued if the court ruled in the industry's favor, and the other to develop a scheme to pursue if the court ruled against the industry. The court eventually ruled in the industry's favor, concluding that only Congress could delegate the authority to FDA to regulate cigarettes.

The Scruggs-Hoel memo and PM's "Should Have/Should Not Have" list together describe the beginning of PM's FDA Regulatory Strategy Project to drive the enactment of FDA regulations favorable to the company. The scenario is being played out today as the U.S. House and Senate both consider simultaneous bills (S. 625 and H.R. 1108) that largely deliver to PM it core principles.

Shows Roy Marden of PM Corporate Affairs Department in charge of ally development for property rights groups.