Tobacco Documents Online

In a strong denial of the public health role of the World Health Organization and the global health threat caused by their tobacco products, this Philip Morris International (PM) internal memo from Geoffrey Bible speaks of the "extraordinary influence" the World Health Organization has on government and consumers saying, "we must find a way to diffuse this and re-orient [the WHO's] activities to their prescribed mandate." Bible further discusses how PM can use its vast resources (like technology and access to food) to influence governments to turn against the WHO: "In addition, we need to think through how we could use our food companies, size, technology and capability with governments by helping them with their food problems and give us a more balanced profile with the government than we now have against WHO's powerful influence."

Bible mentions that a WHO initiative, a levy on tobacco sales in Victoria and South Australia to buy out tobacco sports and cultural sponsorships, "is a very effective strategy that we must stop."

Bible also speaks of "destroying" government attempts to regulate maximum constituent levels (MCL's) of toxic chemicals cigarette smoke, and links Philip Morris to the set-up of the smokers rights group Forest as well as a seemingly "independent" group called Libertad, which PM used to influence legislation. Bible proposes extending Libertad from France and Australia into other countries "so as to become a major influence in the formation of public policy."

This 1991 Philip Morris (PM) internal report outlines PM's strategic plans for combating the proliferation of smoking bans in Europe, particularly voluntary bans in workplaces and restaurants. It reveals a desperate company utterly unaware of the absurdity of many of its own contradictions. Rather than seeking out or acknowledging the truth about the health effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), one of PM's objectives with regard to ETS science was to "Maintain the debate on the primary [health]issue and ETS."(from Page 2). Other goals were to "Minimize total smoke bans in European companies" and "position PM as a reasonable company and a credible source of information."

Despite wanting to position itself as a "credible source of information," Page 17 reveals that PM planned to commission "counter-surveys," whose pre-determined results would emanate from a different (presumably more credible)source:

"For example, if the [World Health Organization] claims that 75% of the people want smoking bans on international flights, we can counter with our own survey. Since the polling firm would be responsible for the dissemination, the poll would gain credibility."

PM realized that smoking bans were, in truth, popular enough that without the tobacco industry's interference, such bans would soon become widespread: "Left to chance, many companies will adopt the most restrictive type of smoking policies..." PM obviously felt it could not leave such matters to chance, yet one of the company's media strategies to fight the ETS issue was to "Promote the desires of employees to decide for themselves" about whether to ban smoking or not (from Page 3).

PM also targets airlines and trains: "Research shows that most people will accept smoke bans on short plane and train rides...PM must fight for its consumers' right to smoke on long plane and train rides." (From page 12)

Positioning itself as the height of rationality, Page 25 of the report urges a calm dialogue on the ETS issue. PM urges that "Relations between smokers and non-smokers must be guided by dialogue and tolerance." Yet fostering widespread social discontent was also on the other end of PM's to-do list: the same page states that an objective of PM's ETS Communication Plan was to "create a public backlash" (against the decreasing acceptability of smoking (from page 18). Part of PM's plan also included "Establish[ing] SRG's [Smokers Rights Groups] as counterpart of Anti-groups" (from page 25).

In this document, PM also establishes itself as the ultimate actor in the industry's struggle to de-fuse the damaging ETS issue, declaring that if other sectors of the industry fail to take action, PM itself will jump in:

"This plan is complete and ambitious...All aspects covered in this plan must be addressed in each market, but not necessarily by PM. Whenver possible, these issues should be handled by the industry. Nevertheless, in the absence of industry action, PM will fill the void."

Perhaps the necessary outcome of these contradictions is PM's ultimate failure, despite all these desperate measures, to stop the world from advancing towards a smoke-free society.

This Philip Morris (PM) document outlines strategies and tactics for fighting legislated and voluntary smoking restrictions in Italy, Holland, Spain and Germany in 1993. It reveals PM's intentions to undermine and overturn an existing Dutch law restricting smoking ("Strategies: To overturn the Dutch short-haul train smoking ban before its planned implementation on January 1, 1994" p. 2501140159). It shows that PM created smokers rights groups in Europe and worked through them to clandestinely oppose smoking restrictions ("Develop Smokers' Rights Group," and "Mobilize Smokers Rights Group against ban," pages 2501140160 and 2501140159, respectively). It shows that PM was a leader in organizing opposition to smoking restrictions in Europe ( "...Work through NMA's" [National Manufacturing Associations] to overturn Dutch train smoking ban, to defeat smoking restriction initiatives in Germany, etc.).

The document also proposes a list of possible strategies PM could use to orchestrate an economic attack on the French airline Air France for its decision to ban smoking on all its European flights under 2 hours starting January 1, 1993:

"- Have smokers in EC cancel reservations on basis of the ban.

- Mobilize PM travel agents and allies against ban. - Mobilize Smokers' Rights Groups. - PM companies boycott of Air France. - Initiate cigarette industry boycott of Air France."