Tobacco Documents Online

This confidential Philip Morris document lists the arguments that the tobacco industry "must cover" in hearings for public smoking bills. Note the arguments that smoking bans discriminate against women, the disabled and blue collar workers while favoring white male executives, and the argument that smoking bans on airplanes will cause a fire hazard, because it will drive smokers into smoking in dangerous ways and places to evade the ban.

This 1993 telex was written by Matthew Winokur of Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs. In the telex, Winokur suggests suggests that all PM employees (and employees of other tobacco companies) who travel on British Airways (BA) should receive with their tickets a blank piece of paper and instructions telling them to use the paper to submit a written complaint to BA about the lack of smoking seats on their flights. The idea was to create the impression that a large number of customers are unhappy with a smoking ban.

Winokur states,

"If PM and our allies all do this, we could create the impression that passengers...are in fact not pleased with the ban. This will go head on with the ban....What do you think? This could create a real volume of letters..."

The following telex, yet another from Matthew Winokur of Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs, further describes Philip Morris' (PM) efforts to harass British Airways (BA) over its 1993 decision to make all of its European flights of 90 minutes or less smoke-free.

In this telex, Winokur considers the feasibility of a boycott against BA. Winokur inquires how much money PM spends flying its employees BA each year to "assess whether its enough to make BA wince at the though of losing us." Another only glitch was that well before BA announced its smoke-free flights, PM signed an agreement with United Airlines to discount flights for their PM employess based on volume. PM subsequently told their employees to travel United Airlines whenever possible. Realizing that if BA knew about this, it would be pointless to threaten a boycott, Winokur still tries to find a way to make it work. He asks that PM make the reasons for switching arilines appear "ambiguous" in the hopes they could claim it was because of the change to smoke-free flights:

"Also, PM just signed contract with United Airlines for discounting based on volume and requires all company travel on UA where possible. This will reduce impact of our BA spend. I've asked from henceforth that our reasons for switch be made ambiguous in the hopes we can suggest to BA that its smoking policy was reason. But the fact is the contract pre-dates BA's announcement by a few weeks."

PM also was having difficulty rounding up support from other British and European tobacco companies for its boycott of British Airways:

"Spoke with Jacqueline Smithson [Corporate Affairs head for Rothman's International]...often BA is carrier of choice or only reasonable carrier. That, plus personal interest in opting for BA by employees because of mileage program means she was not totally optimistic about company boycott.

The Rothman's corporate affairs representative also made a the statement that reflects how common smoking restrictions were becoming, and how the industry was feeling their power restricted as a result:

"She noted that a boycott approach also may not sit well as previous similar efforts have left mgmt with view that pretty soon 'we'll have boycotted ourselves out of using any vendors if they adopt negative policies toward smoking...' "

Winokur also noted that cooperation for Gallahers (tobacco company) was "hopeless."