Tobacco Documents Online

In this 1989 Corporate Affairs speech, John Dollisson of Philip Morris (PM) warns that the Asian-Pacific anti-tobacco league has just been formed and discusses how this threatens PM's business in the region. Dollisson outlines the strategies and resources that PM will use to defeat the efforts of this group and successfully continue pushing its products into Asian-Pacific countries. Dollisson warns that

"Asia is now the priority target for the world anti-tobacco movement. We should remember that as U.S. cigarette exports to Asia account for close to 70% of our volume and 97% of our profits....The implications for our business...should this league be successful, are significant."

[Italicized emphasis added.]

Dollisson outlines strategies to help PM gain more influence in the region with governments and the public. He also reveals that several other tobacco companies joined with PM to fund an expansion of PM's successful "Whitecoat Project" into Asia. The purpose of the Whitecoat project was to recruit and train scientists who would help PM (and other tobacco companies) foster and preserve confusion on the health issues associated with secondhand smoke:

"PM, RJR and B&W agreed to fund a network of ETS scientists in Asia. Candidates have been identified in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines and Thailand. JTI's support is being sought to expand the program to Japan...At the end of a training session [by late June] we will have a core of 10 scientists who are fully trained on the issues, ready and prepared to make a contribution by way of writing articles, briefing government officials and so forth. Their first task will be a press conference in Hong Kong."

Dollisson also reveals the use sports sponsorships to build allies and gain influence in the Asian region, and boasts about how PM has already been successful at staving off public health measures in several Asian-Pacific countries:

"...To date the region has been successful at fighting off anti-tobacco proposals. It is essential that we defeat or substantially water down the [Council on Smoking and Health] Proposals in Hong Kong to ensure that it is not used as a precedent for the region."

This 1997 Philip Morris (PM) Corporate Affairs Plan discusses PM's activities in Asia. Page 5 (Bates No. 2074188965) lists PM's "Regional Opponent Groups," which include health groups in Malaysia, Taipei, Thailand, India and Hong Kong. Included on the list are the World Health Organization and Rural Doctors in Thailand. The document laments a low smoking incidence in Hong Kong and looming further restrictions:

"...And in Hong Kong, where the smoking incidence is 17 percent (among the lowest in the world), the FDA's assertions and PM USA's proposals to address youth smoking are now cited as a basis for further restrictions [on tobacco]..."

The document also describes the real reasons PM sponsors the arts in Asia: to gain access to senior government officials (from Page 19, Bates No. 2074188979):

"The Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Awards--an art competition involving sevel ASEAN markets that provides Corporate Affairs and management with direct access to senior government officials in each country and [has] given us strong relationships at the ASEAN Secretariat..."

The document shows that secondhand smoke issues were a priority in Asia, and that PM strove to hide its authorship of materials regarding secondhand smoke so as to get a better reception:

[From Page 38, Bates No. 2074188998]:

"The ETS book, although written and worked on entirely by Philip Morris, was issued in the name of the Asia Tobacco Council. As a result, it has been used extensively by the industry in many countries--which certainly would not have been the case had it gone out only under the Philip Morris byline."

It also shows PM's boasting of control over the media [also from Page 38],

"Earlier in the year, when the Asia Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco held its annual meeting in Bangkok, we monitored the event... We were also able, discreetly, to manage much of the media reporting of the Conference."

This 11-page Philip Morris (PM) document outlines the company's strategies to fight public health restrictions on secondhand smoke in hospitality, transport and workplace venues. The estimated date of the document is 1989, but it tracks very closely with the strategies PM uses today to fight regulation of secondhand smoke. Authorship is inferred from references to Philip Morris within the text. The document was found in a Philip Morris file called "Workplace Kit" in the area of employee Aurora Gonzalez, who was a member of PM's ETS Work Group. Page one of the document states that "specific goals" of PM are to "maintain the controversy" about secondhand smoke, to "pre-empt further public smoking restrictions" and "demonstrate to general public...that tobacco smoke is a minor contributor to the quality of indoor environments."

Yet another objective is to "Maintain research activity...to provide support for our positions." The document then discusses how PM must stay behind the scenes to accomplish their objectives. The methods described are the same ones PM still uses today to fight public health regulation of secondhand smoke:

"In most markets it is difficult to attain the overall objective directly as Philip Morris. Therefore, we have developed...allies/coalitions which in turn communicate our messages...The goal is to reach decision makers or those who can favorably influence decisions regarding public smoking environments."

Likewise, the "key messages" PM's lists for use with hospitality groups are still in use today:

"Legislated smoking restrictions/bans in the hospitality trade are undesirable.

• Such legislation can have negative impact on business.

• Owners and operators --not government-- are in the best position to determine what arrangements best accommodate their patrons preferences."

The document discusses strategies to pre-empt workplace bans on smoking, recruit and work through hospitality groups, and lists "key messages" to be used with each group to fight smoking restrictions. One key message is that "Tobacco smoke is a minor contributor to the indoor air environment." Another is designed to take the focus off of tobacco smoke entirely: "Expand the workplace smoking issue to a discussion of overall indoor air environment."

Yet another strategy calls for Philip Morris employees to begin infiltrating and influencing local community groups:

"Encourage appropriate Philip Morris personnel to become active members of local Chambers of Commerce, personnel management associations, business management associations and community groups. Utilize their forums, e.g., meetings and newsletters, to communicate key messages."

Also note the careful manner in which PM crafts its statement regarding the health effects of smoking on board aircraft,(minimizing but not completely ruling out the potential for harm from passive smoking):

"Health effects from exposure to tobacco smoke aboard aircraft are highly unlikely."

This 1988 Philip Morris document, marked "Personal and Confidential" describes PM's "ETS Project" [Environmental tobacco smoke project] for the European Economic Community (EEC), Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia (EEMA). The author is David H. Remes, an attorney with the tobacco industry law firm of Covington and Burling, which carried out PM's International ETS Consultant Program (also known as the "Whitecoat Project"). Remes describes the objective of PM's ETS Program clearly:

"The objective of the PM EEC/EEMA ETS Project is to prevent the imposition of smoking restrictions in the EEC/EEMA regions based on the asserted health hazards of ETS to nonsmokers."

Remes describes the difficulties involved in the project:

"As long as anti-smoking forces can maintain a suspicion of risk [of the health effects of ETS], regulatory authorities and the general public are likely to choose to err on the side of caution and support smoking restrictions."

That regulatory authorities would err on the side of caution in public health issues regarding smoking was apparently undesirable to PM.

Remes lays out another problem facing PM, specifically that no one except members of the tobacco industry believes that tobacco smoke is harmless, and that therefore they will have to develop information that says ETS is harmless:

"The argument against smoking restrictions based on the existence of 'controversy' on the ETS health issue also is unlikely to prove persuasive because it is so reminiscent of the industry's argument on the primary [smoking and] health issue, which virtually no-one outside of the industry accepts. Thus, the industry will have to establish affirmatively that ETS presents no significant health risk to non-smokers."

Remes further describes a mission of the project: "to provide the scientific ammunition with which to meet threatened smoking restrictions in that market."

This 1985 speech by John Dollisson (Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Philip Morris Asia) demonstrates how PM's efforts to mislead and confuse people (particularly smokers) on the relationship between smoking and disease reached PM's highest executive levels at their corporate offices around the world, even as late as 1985. Viewed through the lens of historical retrospect, a speech like this ought to be a museum piece, as the callous denials of this Philip Morris' executive (even to the point of practically joking) show an astounding lack of sensitivity to the pervasiveness of human suffering and destruction this company alone was causing. Some passages from Dollisson's speech:

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I find it somewhat ironical that I am to talk about smoking and health while next door the Colonial Mutual Life and the Great Eastern Life Insurance companies are discussing smoking life insurance policies!"

"...Statistical associations cannot establish cause and effect...What anti-smokers have done is to turn good data into poor science. They use statistics like the drunkard uses a lamp post-- more for support than illumination; and remember statistics are like a bikini costume--what they reveal is interesting, what they conceal is of vital importance!"

"...One thing you can say about smoking is that it causes statistics...Remember that the vast majority of people die in bed, therefore should you ban sleep?"

"...The medical profession and the scientific community have not been responsible...It is time for some lateral thinking...more attention should be addressed to those smokers who don't get the so-called tobacco related diseases and to non--smokers who do get these diseases."

In February 1993 Philip Morris held an "ETS World Conference" at the Macklowe Hotel in New York City. According to a pamphlet about it, the event appears to have been primarily for Philip Morris employees worldwide: http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?if=avpidx&DOCID=2023544793/4810

The following document is a follow-up memo about the corporate objectives and strategies for dealing with secondhand smoke issues apparently put forth at the meeting, along with assignments as to who was to handle which tasks.

Tasks listed include:

"Development of a global coalition against 'junk science' as a parallel to PM USA coalition now underway...

Shift concern over ETS to slippery slope argumentation and/or tolerance...

How to package comprehensive improvements in ventilation to forestall tobacco specific bans...

Shifting debate from ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] to IAQ [indoor air quality]...

[I]dentifying other risk parallels...cellular phones, chlorinated water; identify currently regulated carcinogens for which acceptable levels have been set...

...Shift concern over ETS in the workplace from the health issue to one of annoyance.

...Shift the concern over ETS in restaurants from bans to accommodation.

...Develop an 'ETS Task Force' with global PM representation to develop strategies to combat smoking restrictions.

People very high up in the company were involved in the conference, including Steve Parrish (VP of External Affairs and General Counsel at PM USA), Clare Purcell (Manager, Legal Issues, PM USA), Mary "Mopsy" Pottorff (Manager, PM Corporate Scientific Affairs), Matthew Winokur (Director, Corporate Affairs, PM International), and Robert Pages (Director, Science and Technology, PMUSA).

This one-page Philip Morris (PM) document from 1987 shows how the company preys on smokers' health anxieties and lack of information about about tar and nicotine to boost their market for "light" cigarettes:

"The mild/lights segment is the fastest growing segment in the Hong Kong market... ...There is definitely a growing health consciousness in the market due to regular Government anti-smoking campaign. However, consumers currently have a poor knowledge of tar and nicotine. Research shows that Lights = Mild = Less Harmful... Government's anti-smoking pressures will intensify ... This may further increase smokers' health concern and it is very likely that the mild/lights segment will continue its rapid growth..."