This 1994 report to the Philip Morris (PM) Board discusses the onslaught of public health actions to regulate tobacco that occurred in the U.S. under the Clinton administration. It also discusses a television news show (An ABC News' "Day One" segment) that claimed that Philip Morris spiked cigarettes with nicotine to keep smokers addicted.
While the entire document is of interest, one portion near the end discusses the tobacco industry's inside view of the particular threat that accrues when smoking is focused upon as an addiction rather than a "choice."
In 1994, David Kessler (then -commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or FDA) asserted that nicotine was an addictive drug intended to affect the structure and function of the body and that therefore cigarettes should be regulated by the FDA. This document conveys why PM executives considered references to the addictiveness of smoking to be a major threat:
"...The most serious concern that I have is that the adverse media attention...being leveled at the industry may ultimately impact on jurors' attitudes about our defense in product liability cases...But even if jurors do not believe that we 'spike' our products, they could nevertheless adopt a more skeptical attitude in the future toward our principal defense--personal liability...If he [Kessler] were to declare that nicotine in cigarettes is addictive and must be regulated, that action could affect the way in which jurors approach the issues of addiction and choice."
[Italicized emphasis added]
Widespread belief that smoking is a normative personal choice rather than an addiction is central to the industry's ability to continue to defend itself in liability suits. This portion of the document shows that the notion of smoking as "free choice" is undermined when smoking becomes widely viewed as nicotine addiction, which is actually a diagnosable disorder.