Tobacco Documents Online

This 1985 speech from Philip Morris (PM) reveals much about PM's corporate manipulation of governments, the media and even smokers. According to the document, PM's relationship with newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch (a long-time member of Philip Morris' board) went a long way towards erasing anti-tobacco coverage from newspapers around the world:

"...Another area we intend to exploit more fully is the ad agencies and media proprietors....As regard the media, we plan to build similar relationships to those we now have with Murdoch's News Limited with other newspaper proprietors. Murdoch's papers rarely publish anti-smoking articles these days...."

PM also cultivated "favorable press" about secondhand smoke by organizing journalists conferences where PM "educated" reporters on how to write "balanced" articles on secondhand smoke issues:

"...Turning now to primary and passive smoking...To get more favorable press, we are contemplating organizing another journalists' conference similar to the one we put together in Madrid for Latin American journalists in 1984."

In PM's evaluation of their enemies and their allies, the PM official who gave this speech acknowledged that the medical profession and government health ministers were their "formidable adversaries," and even acknowledged that most smokers wished they could stop smoking:

"I think we have to face up to the reality that the smoking and health lobby is winning. The anti-smoking zealots are becoming more vociferous, more experienced, better organized, and generally more effective. The medical profession is a formidable adversary. Health ministers sincerely believe smoking is bad. And, more important than all of this, is the fact that smokers wished they didn't smoke.

Perhaps we can't ever shift the balance back in favor of the industry but we have to keep trying..."

Despite acknowledging that most smokers would like to quit, rather than sympathize with this, PM believed they needed to use their control over smokers to organize them to help protect the tobacco industry:

First we must work harder at getting smokers to help the industry. If we are to have any success at changing the climate of opinion, we have to get the smokers more on our side, or at least enough of them to start to make a difference.

This 1995 budget for Philip Morris'(PM) Worldwide Regulatory Affairs office lists the company's activities to fight public health-tobacco control efforts around the globe during that year and what it cost PM to carry out these activities. It lists PM's consultants by name and/or company, tells how much PM budgeted to pay them, and lists the countries where PM applied this interference.

PM's activities included persuading restaurant owners, airport officials and employers around the world that they needed too install new ventilation equipment instead of banning smoking entirely, developing strategies and programs to protect smoking in the workplace, subsidizing construction and renovation of airport smoking lounges, working to prevent and pre-empt smoking restrictions, "slowing down the spread of smoking bans on international [airline] carriers," promoting acceptance of indoor air quality standards that would allow smoking, funding front groups like ARISE (Associate for Research in the Science of Enjoyment) and TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), funding of public relations groups like the Dolphin Group and Burson Marstellar to push their agenda, and much more. According to this document, in 1995 PM planned to implement the above activities in Brazil, Costa Rica, Japan, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Finland, Czech Republic, Korea, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Columbia, Poland, Norway, Gulf Council Countries (GCC), Argentina, United States and Australia.

PM's total budget for these activities in 1995 was over $17 million, which does not include legal costs for 1995, which are listed on Page 20 of the document. The total cost of legal assistance to PM's Worldwide Regulatory Affairs Department in 1995 was $25,785,000, which includes the costs of lawsuits against the ABC Television Network, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and legal work on cigarette issues like ingredients disclosure and ignition propensity. The law firm of Shook, Hardy and Bacon alone was budgeted to make over $7.3 million from Philip Morris in this single year.

In this 1990 speech by John Dollison (Vice President of Philip Morris' International Corporate Affairs Department) before a marketing conference, Dollison clearly describes public health as PM's opponent in a "guerilla war. " He describes public health officials as "snipers" who have "laid their minefields," and even makes biblical references to the fight: "Our opponents sit and wait, watching our every move, every new product and every new marketing project... Like the proverbial lion in the Bible, they are poised to devour us whenever we give them an opportunity, and sometimes even when we don't....Today we are engaged in a "war" against our industry... The kind of war we are engaged in is a guerrilla war.. the most difficult kind of all. Our enemy might not be invisible but it often seems that way. Their tactics are to hit and run and then hit again...They have positioned their snipers and laid their minefields it is the job of Corporate Affairs to discover where these threats are,and to warn you."

In a bold and revealing description of PM's under-the-radar corporate tactics, Dollison boasts about how PM created and completely controlled a supposedly "independent" coalition called "The Committee for Freedom of Commercial Expression" in Denmark to oppose a tobacco ad ban directive. Dollison boasts about how this coalition was able to convince no less than the Danish Ministry of Health into opposing a tobacco ad ban, lists other countries where PM has used this secret tactic, and proposes that PM expand this tactic further to other countries:

"In Denmark, for example, we have created a coalition known (in English) as the Committee for Freedom of Commercial Expression...we were able to recruit more than 50 prominent Danes...The group has conducted media briefings, participated in debates, and written articles and conducted and publicized an opinion poll...Members of Government (including the Minister of Health) now regularly...consult with coalition members...The coalition was instrumental in securing the commitment and public declaration of the Minister Of Health to oppose an advertising ban...And, finally, the functioning of the coalition is managed at arms length - distanced from P.M., although completely controlled by P.M....We have set up similar coalitions in Holland, New Zealand and EEC for sport. Many more are required..."

Dollison also describes how voluntary, self-imposed "advertising codes" (which, he admits, make no more concessions than PM has already made in most countries in which they operate) help deflect further restrictions on tobacco advertising:

"What I am talking about is a list of self-imposed [advertising] constraints which will enable us to more plausibly claim the high moral ground in future controversies and, not least, to more easily manage and possible triumph in future crises...Such a regime, effectively implemented and sold, I believe, have the inestimable advantage of repositioning Philip Morris in the world-wide debate over the rights and wrongs of tobacco. It would gain us support from those with no affection for our enemies but who also harbour deep suspicion of our motives and methods. It would give us just that little bit more breathing space, just that little bit more room to maneuver. Believe me, we need it."

This six page document is a surveillance report on the public health infrastructure in Argentina and Brazil in the late 1980's, and the abilities of these countries to engage in tobacco control activities.

The author is Theodore Sterling, a statistician with Simon Fraser University in Canada, who was a tobacco industry consultant hired to present the tobacco industry's point of view at indoor air quality symposia during the late 1980's.

Sterling assesses the government and public health infrastructure of each of these countries, along with smoking prevalence and attitudes towards tobacco, and then recommends effective strategies to undermine nascent public health efforts against tobacco in these countries.

Sterling says that in Brazil, the "possibility might exist of a unified public health motivated attack on smoking. It would seem to me therefore that some attention ought to be paid to counteract the kind of exaggeration about smoking effects met with in more advanced countries..."

Among other strategies, Sterling suggests that the tobacco industry establish relationships and build alliances with public health organizations and "occupational health investigators." "Such contacts," he says, "could be initiated by offering help and assistance to South American research institutions and bringing a small number of South American investigators to North America where they could...become knowledgeable on smoking related problems." He also suggests offering help with computer systems and offering a Brazilian epidemiologist the opportunity "to spend a year at Vancouver."

In this 1992 British American Tobacco (BAT ) document from the Health Canada collection, BAT talks about the development of new cigarette markets. It shows how BAT takes advantage of cigarette smuggling to benefit the company and to help establish new brands in a country. The term "DNP" stands for "Duty Not Paid," and refers to smuggled cigarettes.

An excerpt from Page 37 shows how BAT feels entitled to a "rightful percentage" of DNP trade, saying the company cannot prevent smuggling and so the "requirement is to MANAGE DNP to the overall benefit of the BAT Industries Group..."

The report also shows how BAT uses smuggling to undercut other cigarette companies. (In the following excerpt, N-P refers to Nobleza Picardo, the tobacco company of Argentina and a member of the BAT group. Souza Cruz is Brazil's largest tobacco company):

[From Page 38]:

"As discussed with you in late June, N-P [Nobleza Picardo, tobacco company of Argentina] under my direction will now enter the DNP market albeit with reluctance AND based on the repeated rejection of our proposal by Souza Cruz. N-P cannot accept continued erosion of its [share of market] without some response. This strategy is not without political risk..."

The following quote shows how BAT introduces a new brand into a country through the black market first, to establish a market, then brings the brand in through legitimate channels in order to advertise it:

"A small volume of Duty Paid exports would permit advertising and merchandising support in order to establish the brands for the medium/long term, with the market being supplied initially primarily through the DNP channel."

Page 26 contains a discussion about the potential of certain brands in Brazil, and indicates that BAT targets the "very young" and "lower classes" to try to compete with Marlboro:

"Hollywood could be positioned as a Marlboro for the very young, lower classes, as the brand and its communication have much in common with Marlboro..."

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch served for several years on Philip Morris' (PM) board of directors. This relationship served PM well, as indicated by this document which shows that information that could negatively affect the tobacco industry's bottom line was routinely withheld from Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide:

"As regards the media, we plan to build similar relationships to those we now have with Murdoch's News Limited with other newspaper proprietors. Murdoch's papers rarely publish anti-smoking articles these days."

Thsi week marked the public release of a film called "Outfoxed," which examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. (www.moveon.org) This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.

A book about newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch: The Making of a Media Empire, by William Shawcross) credits Murdoch with nothing less than having "invented the modern media empire." A synopsis of the book on Amazon.com says (of Murdoch's extensive ownership of media outlets worldwide),

"Now [Murdoch's] reach includes two thirds of the Earth's population."