Tobacco Documents Online

In this incredible speech (reprinted by the Tobacco Institute) the author (a noted syndicated journalist) actually labels public health efforts to warn the public that tobacco causes cancer as "terrorism." The speaker was a noted news commentator and columnist who had won two Emmy awards. He served as a CBS commentator and an NBC-TV Today Show business correspondent. For years he contributed to well-established and credible newspapers like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

It is fascinating in retrospect (with the detrimental health effects of tobacco now universally accepted as fact, and with our knowledge about how the tobacco industry acted in concert to cover this up) to read the words of this man and wonder, with his reach as a syndicated columnist and commentator, how much he damaged public health efforts to control tobacco.

This Philip Morris Europe (PME) interim scientific report shows that PME performed detailed testing to find out the quantities of dangerous and irritating chemicals that smoking of cigarettes puts into ambient air. A special airtight room was created just for the experiments: "Airtightness

It is extremely important that the experimental room be airtight to prevent smoke escaping or air entering during the experiments. Every possible precaution was taken to effectively seal the experimental room. All joints were sealed with silicone glue, the rivet holes were plugged with epoxide glue and a good seal was made at the door."

PME used a smoking machine to smoke beween 5 and 60 cigarettes in the room and then tested the air of the room for carbon monoxide, nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, aldehydes, and other dangerous or irritating chemicals. Some of the testing was done using two different methods to verify accuracy, and some tests were done twice.

Charts in the appendix of the document indicate that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air of the experimental room increased almost linearly with the number of cigarettes smoked. The ammonia concentration also increased in almost perfect linear fashion proportional to the number of cigarettes smoked. The same was true with hydrogen cyanide. The report states that the concentration of hydrogen cyanide in the room failed to decrease for over an hour after smoking ceased:

"Five, 15, 30 and 60 cigarettes...were smoked in the experimental room under standard smoking conditions...Measured HCN concentrations were found to be proportional to the number of cigarettes smoked over the investigated range....It was found that HCN concentrations in the room did not decay over a period of one hour."

The report also states,

"In all cases investigated concentrations [of the investigated chemicals] were proportional to the number of cigarettes smoked, all deviations being with the range of experimental errors."

So the more cigarettes that were smoked in an enclosed space, the higher the concentrations of chemicals were put into the air.

All testing was done in overseas labs in Europe.

This 502-page scientific report was done at INBIFO, Philip Morris's biological research lab in Europe, and was sent to Ragnar Rylander, a scientist who worked on contract for PM. It is an extensive report on mouse skin painting tests done to determine the carcinogenicity of secondhand (sidestream or "SS") smoke compared with that of mainstream ("MS") smoke. For the test, solids (or "condensate)" were derived from the particulate matter in both mainstream and sidestream smoke and painted onto the skin of 2,625 mice over an 80-week period to gauge the biological reaction. On page 12, Bates No. 2026051129, under "Condensates," the report states that

"The concentrations of the nitrosamines NNN, NATB, NNK, NAB, NPY, and DMNA were between 0.01 and 1.9 milligrams/liter for [mainstream smoke]and between 0.08 and 6.1 milligrams/liter for [sidestream smoke]. The main differences between [mainstream] and [sidestream smoke] were the higher concentrations: of NNK, NPY, and DMNA for [sidestream]."

It also states that,

"The sum of all PAH [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons] were 5-fold higher for [sidestream smoke] than for [mainstream smoke]."

and, on page 14, (Bates No. 2026051131) it states that "The number of mice with signs of intoxication was higher in the [sidestream] than in [mainstream] treated groups."

It also states that:

"The comparison of the mortality of [mainstream] and [sidestream] treated mice showed a statistically significantly higher mortality in the [sidestream]treated groups. This is considered to be biologically relevant."

The "Conclusions" section on page 22 (Bates No.2026051139) states that Sidestream Whole Smoke Condensate collected with an impaction trap (SWSC-I) showed 2 to 6 times higher skin tumorigenicity than Mainstream Whole Smoke Condensate collected in the same manner (MWSC-I). Here is the quote:

"SWSC-I assayed for complete tumorigenic activity, i. e., without DMBA pretreatment, showed a 2- to 6-fold higher skin tumorigenicity than MWSC-I."

The section entitled "Mortality" on Page 14 (Bates No. 2026051131) states that,

"The comparison of the mortality of the [mainstream] and [sidestream] treated CD1 and B6C3FI mice showed a statistically significantly higher mortality in the [sidestream] treated groups. This is considered to be biological relevant."

On Page 17 (Bates No. 2026051134), a section entitled "Skin Irritations" states,

"The comparison of skin irritations in [mainstream] and [sidestream] treated CD1 mice showed a statistically significantly higher number of mice with skin irritations in the [sidestream] treated groups. This is considered to be biologically relevant."

On Page 21 (Bates No. 2026051138) a section describing "Pathological Findings" states that,

"The relative skin tumor rate (b), was statistically significantly higher in

(1) [Sidestream treated mice] without and with DMBA pretreatment than in [mainstream treated mice] without and with DMBA pretreatment...These effects are considered to be biologically relevant."

NOTE: Some of the mice were pre-treated with an "initiator" (DMBA), a chemical that was believed to help tumors start forming, but which does not to promote them once they are formed.

The report, dated 26 October 1987, seems to show that Philip Morris had done biological testing on secondhand smoke and found that secondhand smoke was more biologically active than mainstream smoke.

This is yet another scientific report generated for Philip Morris by INBIFO on the effects of secondhand smoke exposure. The date of this report is unclear, but it references another study that was done at INBIFO in 1982, which places it after that date. It also states the date the "test substances" (cigarettes) were received at INBIFO (15 October 1982), placing the report near and after that date. This report, like the others done on this topic, was forwarded to Dr. Ragnar Rylander, who worked on contract to the Philip Morris tobacco company. In this experiment, one batch of rats were made to breathe various concentrations of secondhand smoke (given in a single "acute exposure" of 7 hours) and other rats were similarly exposed only to ammonia vapor. The objective was to "establish a dose-response relationship for the irritative capacity of sidestream cigarette smoke in comparison to pure ammonia vapor, which is supposed to be 1 of the main irritative factors in sidestream smoke."

The "Conclusions" section of the report states that diluted secondhand tobacco smoke is ten times more irritating than ammonia vapor alone:

"Inhalation of diluted sidestream smoke leads to strong short and long-term irritation...By and large, diluted sidestream smoke is 10 times more irritative than one would predict from its ammonia concentration."

The report concludes that "Ammonia is not the only irritative factor responsible for the relatively (as compared to mainstream smoke) high irritative capacity of sidestream smoke." It obligingly lists a few of the other chemicals in secondhand smoke which may be the cause of this high irritative capacity, specifically formaldehyde and acreolin which "seem to play an important role as far as the irritative capacity of sidestream smoke in concerned."

Page 21 of the report (Bates No. 2501592215) states the "test substances" used. The "cigarette code" is 2R1 and is a "standard reference" cigarette supplied by the Philip Morris. While no brand name is mentioned, the report does state that the 4,600 cigarettes used in the experiment arrived packed in "cartons with 200 cigarettes [of] 10 packages with 20 cigarettes/package," which is the same type of packaging used with their commercial brands.

The report indicates that by 1983 PM was in possession of detailed information describing the higher irritative characteristics of diluted secondhand smoke as compared to mainstream smoke.

Summarizes studies being conducted by CIAR in 1994. One description of the findings of a study on secondhand smoke exposure on the upper airways states, "Findings have indicated that controlled exposure to sidestream tobacco smoke causes symptoms of mucosal irritation and nasal conjestion. Nasal resistance increases, and is associated with a reduction of nasal volume throughout the nasal cavity including the narrowest anterior segment. These findings are apparent with exposure to STS at 15 ppm CO for one hour."

Now worthy of a museum, this British American Tobacco (BAT) company primer for employees called "SMOKING ISSUES- Claims and Responses" is a compilation of the twisted arguments the industry long used with the public to deflect hard questions about the linkage between smoking, disease and death. The frightening thing is that the document is estimated to have been written fairly recently, in 1994. Note the ease with which the tobacco company uses its age-old technique of casting doubt on claims of death and disease, and blaming the smoker for his illness:

"CLAIM 1

Smoking has been proven to cause disease.

RESPONSE:

There is still a controversy about smoking and health. Although there is a 'statistical association' between smoking and certain diseases, which means that smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, smoking has not be proven to actually cause the diseases. The cause could equally be one of the many other things that smokers do that makes them different from non-smokers. Smokers have been reported to have quite different lifestyles from non-smokers. For example, smokers have poorer, high-fat diets than non-smokers. It has also been suggested that this may explain the elevated risk of heart disease in smokers.

CLAIM 2

It is not credible simply to state that smoking does not cause these diseases.

RESPONSE

We are not saying that smoking does or does not cause these diseases; we are saying we do not know. (See also previous response.)

This manual represents the tobacco companies' longstanding, egregious stonewalling of public health efforts by denying the link between smoking and disease. One can barely begin to quantify the extraordinary damage such corporate actions have had on humanity.

This 205-page document from Philip Morris (PM) is a compendium of resources to help allies fight clean indoor air measures. It lists PM's restaurant objectives: "Preempt the need for legislated smoking restrictions," and "Develop allies in hospitality industry [in] opposing legislation to restrict/ban smoking." PM's objective for airlines is "Maintain smoking areas on airlines."

The document contains articles by PM's scientific allies and front groups that claim there isn't enough data available to determine whether secondhand smoke causes illness in nonsmokers, and that ventilation is the best solution to the problem of secondhand smoke. Also, similar to the document posted 26 September (entitled Restaurants and Smoking Restrictions, wherein industry consultant Peter Sparber suggested casting restaurant workers as carriers and spreaders of disease rather than the victims of secondhand smoke), this document contains articles with titles like "The Role of Aircraft in Transmission of Disease" and "Dissemination of Human Pathogens by Airline Travel" that, in effect, blame airplanes, flight attendants and passengers for illnesses that occur as a result of air travel. One statement in the report blames the airlines themselves for tobacco smoke pollution on airplanes:

"Tobacco smoke accumulation aboard aircraft is an indicator of inadequate ventilation. Airlines reduce fresh air intake to economize on fuel..."

Another statement cites unnamed "UK researchers" who concluded airline employees complain about secondhand smoke on their jobs because they may be "disgruntled about a totally unrelated matter":

"When two UK researchers looked at the technology of the aircraft cabin and addressed the human factor as part of the equation, they concluded: 'Industrial experience of Human Factors has on many occasions shown that complaints about an aspect of the work situation such as noise or temperature, become more frequent when the work-force is disgruntled about a totally unrelated matter."

PM's long-standing twin strategies of fighting smoking restrictions and claiming ventilation is the best solution to secondhand smoke stand in stark contrast to statements the company now makes on its domestic (U.S.) website:

"Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease... in non-smoking adults...Philip Morris USA believes that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places..." [PMUSA web site, 30 Sept 2003]

Perhaps most importantly, PM now quietly admits that ventilation really doesn't address the health problems posed by secondhand smoke:

"While not shown to address the health effects of secondhand smoke, ventilation can help improve the air quality of an establishment..." (Underlining emphasis added. Found in the last paragraph on the page on PM USA's current web site entitled "Policies, Practices and Positions -- Public Place Smoking." http://www.pmusa.com/policies_practices/public_place_smoking.asp

Interestingly, the above statement regarding ventilation does NOT appear on PM's International web site, http://www.philipmorrisinternational.com/

This 1982 Philip Morris (PM) memo was written after PM's Chief Executive Officer (Hugh Cullman) asked Thomas Osdene (Director of PM's research department) to investigate the biological effects of smokeless tobacco, and report back. After researching the literature regarding smokeless tobacco, Osdene wrote back to Cullman (in the cover memo for this report) saying, "I believe the correlation between use of [smokeless tobacco] and oral cancer is quite strong..." (PM Bates No. 2001207640). The body of the report states,

"Retrospective surveys have implicated snuff as a major risk factor in oral cancer particularly in females. The geographic distribution of this cancer correlates directly with geographical areas of widespread snuff use. The most conclusive studies have shown that approximately 90% of the women in the rural Southeastern United States who develop cancers of the buccal mucosa are snuff users."

* Histopathological studies have shown that snuff use is associated with a distinctive verrucose squamous carcinoma of the buccal cavity.

Thus this memo shows that in 1982 Philip Morris knew the extent of the carcinogenic threat chewing tobacco posed to users. (The company did not manufacture chewing tobacco.) They also were aware that nicotine-dependent people commonly used chewing tobacco as a substitute for smoking.

In this 1983 confidential Philip Morris (PM) memo, James Charles (Vice President of Research at PM) writes to Thomas Osdene (Director of Extramural Research at PM) to discuss how PM could attack a Public Health Service report called "Why People Smoke." The PHS report affirmed the view that tobacco use is a substance addiction disorder. *(See "Notes," below) Charles warns that the company cannot defend against claims of addictiveness based tolerance, saying tolerance to nicotine is a "well established fact",

"There is one caution that should be considered before attacking the document. This third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines substance dependance as...'requires physiological dependence, evidenced by either tolerance or withdrawal.' The key word is either. We can successfully defend the absence of withdrawal under controlled experiments, but we cannot defend tolerance. Tolerance to nicotine is a well established fact."

This 1972 Philip Morris Research Center (PM) scientific report was used as a trial exhibit in Minnesota, Florida, Missouri and Texas, and in the Broin case (the flight attendants' suit for injuries due to secondhand smoke exposure in aircraft cabins). It describes experiments done at Philip Morris that showed the number of cigarettes smokers smoke can be manipulated by varying the nicotine levels in cigarettes. The report confirmed a theory that smokers develop a "daily nicotine intake quota" and that they "tend to modify their consumption rate in order to maintain their normal quota."

The report states:

"Cigarette consumption rate, i.e., number of cigarettes smoked per day, was found to vary as a function of the nicotine delivery of these cigarettes. Specifically, as nicotine increased, cigarette consumption rate decreased. This finding supports the notion that smokers develop a daily nicotine intake quota and that when smoking cigarettes differing in nicotine delivery from that which they are accustomed they tend to modify their consumption rate in order to maintain their normal quota."

Internal Philip Morris spokesperson's guide detailing how to deflect "bad" interview questions linking smoking with disease, addiction, etc.

Tome edited by William Dunn, Jr. of PM: "A highly, distinguished group of behavioral scientists addresses itself to the issue that, despite a decade of dissuasion, 35% of the American adults continue to seek the gratification of smoking. Most tend to agree, that a pharmacological effect, probably mediated by nicotine, is sought under conditions that have an emotional meaning to the smoker: It is assumed that the emotional state is modulated or altered in some positive manner and evidence is provided to support this hypothesis. The authors attempt to delineate the underlying mechanisms and processes and offer, new and intriguing ideas to explain why people smoke..." Discusses neurochemical effects of nictoine upon the brain.

In this 1977 paper, Don Hoel of the tobacco industry's law firm Shook Hardy and Bacon argues against laws to require health warning labels on cigarette packages. Hoel argues that the public is already well-informed about smoking and health claims, and says that warnings on labels "may mislead the public":

"A warning which lists specific diseases supposedly associated with cigarette smoking could be interpreted in two different ways by the public: that smoking alone causes these diseases or that smoking always causes these diseases. Since neither interpretations is supported by scientific evidence, the warnings my mislead the public..."

Hoel further argues against health warning labels, saying

"[R]egulations that would...require the placement of health warning labels on cigarette packages and in advertising are inadvisable for several reasons. Experience has demonstrated that the declared goals of such regulations (i.e., to educate the public and to reduce sales) will not be met. Satisfactory factual language for warning labels has not been found, and misleading wording can only confuse the public. Attempts to single out one industry for such restrictive treatment are discriminatory and unnecessary...For all these reasons, efforts to...implement helath warning labels are inappropriate limitations of the freedom of the individual and should be avoided."

This wild Philip Morris brainstorming document is full of bizarre ideas about how to make cigarettes more appealing and marketable to consumers and how to design cigarettes to counter the social stigma of smoking. Ideas include making cigarettes that alter consciousness, administer an aphrodisiac, mimic certain drugs, emit insect repellant, control cholesterol intake, deodorize a room, control appetite, serve as a laxative, renew energy, and even--amazingly enough--cure cancer (although ironically this last one was one of the very few ideas that was later crossed off the list).

Page 3 contains a brief discussion of how to lure quitters back to smoking: "Someone suggested talking with quitters to discover how we might recover these consumers..." The document also discusses how to make the pack more attractive and useful. Ideas include: make the pack into a smoke detector (!), an alarm clock, a calculator, a "handy mirror," a "breatholyzer", or use microchips to make packs that play tunes, or tell smokers how many cigarettes remain in the pack. Another idea was for a "jolt" cigarette that offered extra-high nicotine. Other ideas included cigarettes that enhance athletic performance and increase lung capacity, or slow formation of wrinkles, a "taco-dorito"- flavored cigarette and a carbonated cigarette that would make the mouth all tingly.

The above ideas were generated by employees from Philip Morris Research & Development, Marketing and Sales departments. This document, while overtly aimed at cigarette design and marketing, also serves to reveal the wishful thinking of PM employees that they would prefer, if they had a chance, to make and market a product that was helpful, healthy, non-irritating and that actually had some kind of benefit for consumers.

This report on the effects of cigarette advertising on consumer behavior was commissioned by Imperial Tobacco and RJR-Macdonald of Canada. It was written by Joel B. Cohen, Ph.D. (Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Director, Center for Consumer Research) of the University of Florida. In the report, Dr. Cohen disputes the industry's oft-repeated claim that its advertising is aimed only at getting existing adult smokers to switch brands. Cohen says,

"The need to replace smokers who either quit or are casualties of smoking has led many to question cigarette industry claims that their advertising is intended primarily to encourage brand switching...the U.S. evidence indicates that the tobacco industry spends about $9 per person per day for advertising and promotion, and only 10% of smokers switch brands in an average year...Accordingly, such expenditure--purely for brand switching--would seem to be difficult to justify economically...." [Pages 3-4] In Section 1.40 Cohen poses the question, "Couldn't the advertising only make the particular cigarette attractive for existing smokers?" Response: "The answer is essentially 'No,'" and explains why this is the case.

Cohen ridicules the industry's claim that cigarette advertising would only appeal to adults who already smoke, saying,

"Nonsmokers, and particularly adolescents, cannot be made immune to advertising effects...[the industry's argument] is as if a magic curtain could be put in place to shield children, teenagers and others from the impact of these appeals. No convincing theoretical argument or empirical evidence has yet been introduced by the cigarette industry to demonstrate that otherwise effective advertising is mysteriously ineffective for adolescents who have yet to become smokers. Until such evidence is provided, this proposition cannot be taken seriously." [Page 8]

Thus it appears that RJR-Macdonald and Imperial hired an advertising expert who concluded that the companies' most common arguments about the reach and effects of their advertising cannot not possibly be true.

Philip Morris' proposal to organize a scientific conference about the benefits of smoking to "provide the scientific facts for a pro-cigarette public relations campaign" (see Doc-Alert posting of 7 Feb. 2005) was borne out. In January, 1972 PM convened a gathering of scientists on the island of St. Martin in the French Antilles "to reflect upon human cigarette smoking behavior." Dr. William Dunn of Philip Morris Research Center wrote, "It was hoped that such a conference would redirect the scientific community's interest to the fundamental motivation question" about smoking, and "correct for a dearth of interdisciplinary cross talk among those conducting research on smoking." The official sponsor of the conference was the Council for Tobacco Research-USA (CTR). The gathering was located in a warm tropical locale during the dead of winter, and PM picked up all the expenses for participants to attend. The roster of scientists attending was impressive. A conference objective was to re-direct the scientific focus on smoking onto the behavior of the smoker, and away from the dangers of tobacco use. To help disguise the true goal of the conference to the participants, PM changed the originally-proposed title ("A Scientific Conference on the Benefits of Smoking") to"Smoking Behavior: Motives and Incentives."

After the conference, Dr. Dunn wrote a somewhat flowery summary of the proceedings that extolled the virtues of cigarettes. This document contains the now-famous words, "Think of the cigarette pack as a storage container for a day's supply of nicotine...Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine...Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine..." http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/2024273959-3975.html

Presented during the conference was an entirely new hypothesis about smoking, which proposed that smokers self-select themselves in an unconscious effort to modify a genetic glucose metabolism deficiency with nicotine. [Tobacco Institute Newsletter #83, 1 Oct. 1973, 500081795 at -1800]. The conference also examined the attempt of an entire town to quit smoking (Greenfield, Iowa, during the filming of the 1969 movie Cold Turkey, starring Dick Van Dyke--see Doc-Alert posting http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/140507.html) and concluded that the people of the town had a high failure rate and that few people remained quitters after the experiment.

To spread ideas generated during the conference into the global scientific and medical community, PM compiled a 312-page book from the proceedings, published and distributed it to medical schools, clinics, hospitals and research institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad. (The book can be seen at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ywl94f00). A review of the book in the American Psychiatric Association's publication Contemporary Psychology noted that it conspicuously avoided the word "addiction," pointed out that the word was mentioned only three times in the entire book and that and two of these times were in reference to alcohol and morphine. The review writer also noted the "obvious omission" of any discussion about medical developments regarding smoking, attributing it to the fact that the conference was industry-sponsored. The book review was entitled "All the Dirt About the Filthy Weed," which did not sit particularly well with members of the tobacco industry (The review can be seen at http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/2060489392-9422.pdf ).

The document referenced in this posting is a 31-page excerpt of the book.

This is the text of a speech given by noted journalist and editorial commentator Jeffrey St. John at the Tobacco Institute's winter meeting in 1980. Mr. St. John equates public health efforts to educate people about the dangers of smoking with terrorism:

"...[I]n the last decade and a half, an ominous development has surfaced in American society. I call this development The New Terrorism...This New Terrorism campaign first surfaced with the publication on January 11, 1964, of the U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking. Since then, for over 15 years, the American public has been subjected to an attack against not only tobacco as an agent for causing cancer in human beings, but this campaign has indicted a vast array of products produced or used by the American industrial system and linked to the disease. The nation, as a result, has become almost neurotic that everything they eat, use or wear can cause cancer..."

Mr. St. John further portrays public health efforts around tobacco as the clandestine pursuit by a "powerful elite" to attain a totalitarian regime by terrorizing citizens with fears of death and disease:

"What we have witnessed, therefore, in the last decade and a half since the release in January 1964 of the U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking is something far more insidious than the disease of cancer. We have, in my judgment, seen the rise of a political movement that has used pseudo science, combined with propaganda, for the purposes of creating a movement with vast political power to regulate, regiment and control the lives of both producers and consumers by a bureaucratic power elite...This powerful elite, made up mostly of lawyers, has managed in a short decade and a half, to achieve its power largely by the use of terror: terrorizing the media, politicians and the electorate by playing on the natural human fear of dreaded diseases like cancer, heart disease and other lethal illnesses..."

This document shows the point of view the Tobacco Institute sought out as subject matter for a keynote speech at an important meeting, and gives us insight into the attitudes held by the Industry itself towards public health authorities like the U.S. Surgeon General.

This 1979 memo reveals a link between low-tar cigarettes and increased fire-causing propensity in cigarettes. The author, Helmut Wakeham (Vice President and Director of Research & Development at Philip Morris) reveals that the higher porosity of paper used in "low tar" cigarettes actually increases the ignition propensity of the cigarette, since it results in more of the cigarette burning between puffs, and in the cigarette giving fewer puffs overall. Because of this, cigarette smoking machines (used by the Federal Trade Commission) would get less smoke per cigarette, and thus lower tar and nicotine readings.

Wakeham admits that the company has ignored this relationship, saying

"...it has come to be assumed that an ignition prevention cigarettes in the sofa or mattress situation would be one which would also extinguish in the ash tray...In the interest of consumer acceptability we have striven for cigarettes which would continue to burn in the latter case without regard to the former."

Wakeham states the company's internal stance that "...the rapid burn low delivery is preferred by the consumer even though the ignition potential may be greater." The memo suggests doing internal testing to find out if it would be possible to make a lower ignition propensity cigarette without altering the tar and nicotine numbers.

Shortly after this memo was written, in 1980, a Tobacco Institute spokesperson dismissed the importance of low ignition propensity cigarettes, saying "We might cut down on an insignificant number of people dying in fires," but that [low ignition propensity] cigarettes would have higher outputs of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide. He added that because of this, "We would be increasing the number of people who would contract lung and heart disease." This was a stunning admission at the time of the link between smoking and disease. [http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2028659868-9869.html at -9869, The Courier Journal, June 12, 1980]

This document is key in understanding why Philip Morris is secure in going from actively pursuing the youth market to declaring, extensively and through ubiquitous advertising campaigns, that the company doesn't want kids to smoke. In 1991, Carolyn Levy (then of PM's Marketing Research department) contracted with a company called Rapaille Associates to study the emotional reasons why people smoke, presumably so the company could better leverage these emotions in advertising and promotions. Rapaille interviewed people about their first experiences with smoking. (Many of the people he interviewed reported that these experiences occurred when they were between 4 and 9 years old). Rapaille noted that typically the first experience with smoking involved seeing an admired adult do it, feeling that that they were excluded from the activity, and that they strongly wanted to be included. Rapaille ultimately linked smoking with adult initiation rituals, risk taking, bonding with peers and the need for kids to feel like they belong to a group and can partake in an "adult activity." The study states

"The first imprinting of smoking is that adults do it, and I'm excluded...A critical element at this stage is the fact that the individual is on the 'outside,' excluded..."

The report makes recommendations to PM's marketing department based on these findings:

"Recommendations based on the Archetype:

Stress that smoking is for adults only Make it difficult for minors to obtain cigarettes Continue having smoking perceived as a legitimate, albeit morally ambiguous adult activity. Smoking should occupy the middle ground between activities that everyone can partake in vs. activities that only the fringe of society embraces. Stress that smoking is dangerous. Smoking is for people who like to take risks, who are not afraid of taboos, who take life as an adventure to prove themselves. Emphasize the ritualistic elements of smoking, particularly fire and smoke. Emphasize the individualism/conformity dichotomy Stress the popularity of a brand, that choosing it will reinforce your identity AND your integration into the group. This explains why PM supports--and advertises widely that it supports-- restricting sales cigarette sales to minors and moving cigarettes out of reach of kids. Aside from the now well-known political advantages that PM's "youth smoking prevention" programs confer, this explains why PM feels comfortable in advertising its "kids shouldn't smoke" campaigns. The company knows that the more they can project a finger-wagging, forbidden-fruit, "adults-only"-type message about smoking, the more they will stimulate kids to smoke.

Carolyn Levy, the PM scientist who headed the Archetype Project (and who had experience studying both addiction and youth marketing), was appointed the first head of PM's youth smoking prevention department in 1993.