Tobacco Documents Online

This 29-page Philip Morris (PM) strategy document outlines the company's assessment of the spread of smoking restrictions worldwide. It sums up what these measures mean to the company's long-term viability and lays out the company's strategies to fight smoking restrictions globally. PM's use of the term "consumption restrictions" reflects the point of view that public smoking laws are little more than obstacles that cut the company's profits. The document reveals that PM viewed itself as isolated and the sole driving force behind the industry's efforts to fight smoking restrictions: "PM appears to be driving the industry both issue-wise, dollar-wise and political wise...PM cannot count on the 'Industry'...PM will need to develop and deploy resources to save itself." PM verifies the effectiveness to public health of workplace smoking restrictions when it complains that FACT: --Bans/Restrictions affect consumption: --20% quit rate w/ U.S. workplace bans. Regarding opposition from governments and public health authorities on the issue of secondhand smoke, PM says:

"This is a formidable, worldwide adversary...Unless restrictions are stayed, business operations will be irreversibly, negatively impacted...It could be over unless we reach the media...Unless we act, the regulators will win."

PM summarizes many of the strategies that the company is still using today:

--"Change/Damage control of public perception." [Today: "We've changed."] --"Develop Proactive legislative/Regulatory agendas (Throw bombs)." [Today: Tort reform, preemption] -- "Re-shift the debate (i.e., [indoor air quality] bans = intolerance..." [Today: Choice, economics, too much government intervention] --"Increase/nurture third party allies..." [Today: restaurant associations, casinos, NCSL]. -- Find/Develop new themes (i.e., humorous, tolerance, etc.) [Today: "Accommodation", "Hospitality."] One strategy in particular on PM's list was to "Develop/communicate the real situation on risks [of secondhand smoke] relative to children." The company's pursuit of this strategy was documented in the March 7, 2005 issue of the journal Pediatrics, just released this week. The journal revealed that Philip Morris commissioned an article that was published in a respected pediatric epidemiology journal in 2001 which discounted the significance of research showing a link between exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The article was subsequently cited in at least 19 other scientific papers, misleading physicians, their patients and researchers about the risk to babies of secondhand smoke exposure. The full article in Pediatrics about PM's activities on this count can be seen at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/115/3/e356

This 1993 letter from John Rupp (of the industry's law firm Covington and Burling) to Sharon Boyse of British American Tobacco describes the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a scientific front group set up by the industry to help deflect smoking regulations across the Rupp, apparently trying to sell BAT on joining CIAR, emphasizes the credibility benefits of CIAR and how CIAR has thus far been able to deflect accusations regarding the taint of industry funding. Rupp says "a number of CIAR-funded projects have contributed significantly to the industry's ongoing efforts to oppose unwanted smoking restrictions." Rupp mentions the work of Roger Jenkins and says it has "been used repeatedly by industry consultants and others to counter excessive claims made by our opponents."

This presentation describes the global tobacco industry's European front group "Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment," or ARISE. ARISE was funded primarily by Philip Morris, Rothmans, R.J. Reynolds, British American Tobacco and their food and drink subsidiaries like Kraft, Miller Beer and Nestle. The group was created as a direct response to the 1988 U.S. Surgeon General's report that compared the process of becoming addicted to nicotine to the processes of becoming addicted to heroin and cocaine. This public comparison of nicotine to heroin and cocaine statement sent up red flags in the global tobacco industry, who responded by forming ARISE (without letting the public know they were behind the formation of ARISE).

Page 5 of the presentation is entitled "How ARISE arose!" and says,

"In 1988 the U.S. Surgeon General said: 'Nicotine was as addictive as heroin or cocaine." The industry responded. A group of academics was identified and called together to: review the science of substance abuse, separate nicotine from these substances, act as a forum for scientists who think objectively."

ARISE participants were put forth as sociological experts who purportedly addressed the "science of 'pleasure." They stated that when people are pleased, their cortisol levels drop, and the immune system becomes more effective. When a person fails to experience pleasure, their immune system becomes depressed which leads to "increased disease levels including cancers, heart disease, ulcers and infections." Activities like drinking tea, eating chocolate, shopping and smoking tobacco, they rationalized, caused pleasure and hence enhanced good health. Participating in pleasurable activities like smoking, they claimed, thus gave people personal control over their lives which in turn reduced stress and improved health.

ARISE attacked the comparisons of nicotine to heroin and cocaine, railed against "forcing a 'uniform healthy society,'" and proclaimed that nicotine enhanced performance. They aligned smoking with use of food and drink, and activities like spending time with family, having sex and shopping. ARISE toured Europe generating newspaper headlines like

"HEALTH SCARES ARE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH" http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zhq37e00

"NINE THINGS MORE PLEASURABLE THAN SEX" http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/eko32e00

"HEALTH PURITANS ACCUSED OF RUINING QUALITY OF LIFE" http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/cld34e00

"PURITANS 'TRY TO RUIN QUALITY OF LIFE' " http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pqc96e00

"THE EC AS A KILL-JOY PURITANS ARE DESTROYING PEOPLE'S ENJOYMENT OF LIFE" http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/oyh29e00

ARISE participants held conferences, published books, toured several continents, generated media events, newspaper articles, made video news releases, press releases, and wrote letters to the editor.

It was not disclosed that ARISE was formed and funded by the tobacco industry, or that the industry paid for extensive public relations campaigns for the group from 1988-99.