Tobacco Documents Online

These are notes from the Tobacco Institute for briefing Philip Morris' Chief Operating Officer Bill Murray in 1988 to explain the Tobacco Institute's approach to secondhand smoke issues. The notes are rich in strategy information. They clearly indicate the industry's effort to move the focus of the secondhand smoke issue away from smoking restrictions and health and onto ventilation, saying "A program to eventually substitute ventilation legislation for smoking restriction legislation is under consideration at The Institute...any such program would have tp be part of a larger legislative program." The paper also reveals that the industry defeated a smoking ban in hospitals by introducing an amendment that "scared the hell out of" hospital administrators: "We defeated...a bill to ban smoking in all hospitals...we killed the bill by threatening to offer an amendment to the smoking bill to require hospitals to meet various ventilation rates in operating theaters, intensive care units and other hospital areas. This amendment scared the hell out of the hospital administrators and caused a split between the anti-smokers at the hospitals and the anti-smoking doctors who were pushing for the ban."

The notes also state the potential downside to the ventilation approach, saying a problem could be posed by "potential loss of business allies [due to the] (the sometimes costly nature of improved ventilation) and the hazard that smoking restrictions will be incorporated within ventilation/indoor AQ bills." The paper also boasts that in the state of Massachusetts the Institute managed to turn a smoking restriction on public trains into a "state's rights' issue."

The paper reveals that the industry set up The Beverly Hills Restaurant Association to fight a smoking restriction passed in that city:

"Staff set up the Beverly Hills Restaurant Assn...none had existed...Changed the subject on the [city] council...moved argument to one of ventilation instead of smoking restrictions to a degree..."

The briefing also demonstrates chilling effect of Institute actions to fight the public health measure in BH:

"An extremely expensive fight for us, but can pay dividents elsewhere in Southern California and perhaps around the country..."

This 1988 letter written on Philip Morris USA letterhead was introduced as a trial exhibit recently in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) trial against the industry. It indicates the purpose and bias of the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a group set up by the industry to conduct research on indoor air. Written by Thomas S. Osdene (Director of PM's Science and Technology Department) and sent to Samuel Chilcote (President of the Tobacco Institute) the letter states,

"I think many of us have conceptualized the ETS issue as a battlefield in which the arena is dominated by public relations and legal issues while the ammunition which is used happens to be science. It has been the purpose of CIAR, as well as its precursor, the ETS Advisory Committee, to provide ammunition in this fight."

The letter indicates Philip Morris' oppositional view of public health efforts to reduce disease caused by tobacco, and indicates the extent to which the company was willing to go to fight public health.