Tobacco

Starr Returns to His Roots

by Sheldon Rampton — August 5, 2001 - 11:00pm

Now that he is done prosecuting Bill Clinton, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr has gone back to work as an attorney for the tobacco industry. On Monday he represented Philip Morris in Los Angeles, asking a judge to overturn a jury's $3 billion punitive damage award to a smoker with incurable lung cancer.

Main Source: 
Reuters, August 6, 2001

Slam the Can for Dare to Care a Hoax for Smokes

by Sheldon Rampton — August 3, 2001 - 5:16pm

The Weber Shandwick PR firm created "Slam the Can for Dare to Care," a basketball-themed food drive designed to put a charitable face on the Brown & Williamson tobacco company. "The 16 B&W employees donating the largest number of canned goods during the two-and-a-half week collection period participated in a series of wacky basketball contests at a downtown shopping mall, with the winner receiving two tickets to the NCAA championship games," Shandwick stated in The Holmes Report, a PR industry trade publication. Shandwick declared the program an "unqualified success. ...

Main Source: 
http://www.holmesreport.com/holmestemp/story.cfm?edit_id=1021&typeid=4

Phillip Morris Says It Regrets Death Study

by Laura Miller — July 25, 2001 - 11:00pm

Steven C. Parrish, who is senior VP/corporate affairs at Philip Morris Cos., has apologized for a company-funded report calling cost savings from smokers' early demise one of the "positive effects" of cigarette consumption. According to O'Dwyer's PR, Parrish said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that it was a "terrible mistake" as well as wrong. "To say it's totally inappropriate is an understatement," Parrish said.

Main Source: 
O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 26, 2001

Smoking Can Help Czech Economy says Philip Morris

by Laura Miller — July 15, 2001 - 11:00pm

The Wall Street Journal reports: "Philip Morris Cos. officials in the Czech Republic have been distributing an economic analysis concluding that cigarette consumption isn't a drag on the country's budget, in part because smokers' early deaths help offset medical expenses. The report, commissioned by the cigarette maker and produced by consulting firm Arthur D. Little International, totes up smoking's 'positive effects' on national finances, including revenue from excise and other taxes on cigarettes and 'health-care cost savings due to early mortality.'"

Main Source: 
Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2001

Justices Say States, Cities Can't Limit Tobacco Ads

by Laura Miller — June 28, 2001 - 11:00pm

The same five US Supreme Court Justices who last year ruled that the FDA didn't have the authority to regulate tobacco products as drug delivery devices (and who then chose George Bush as President) preempted yesterday States from protecting children from cigarette advertising. The five conservative Justices (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy & O'Connor) ruled that regulations restricting tobacco advertising within 1000 feet of school and playgrounds were preempted by federal law and violated the tobacco industry's right to free speech.

Main Source: 
Press Release, June 28, 2001; LA Times, June 29, 2001

Tobacco Lobby Powerful Presence in State Legislatures

by Laura Miller — June 27, 2001 - 4:00pm

The British Medical Association's journal "Tobacco Control" recently published Michael Givel and Stan Glantzs' article entitled: "Tobacco lobby political influence on US state legislatures in the 1990s." This article examines in great detail from previously secret tobacco cartel documents obtained through litigation, how the powerful tobacco cartel has exerted considerable political influence over tobacco control and public health legislation in all U.S. state legislatures in the 1990s.

Main Source: 
http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/10/2/124

Keep America Beautiful and Cigarette Litter

by Sheldon Rampton — May 20, 2001 - 11:00pm

Keep America Beautiful is probably the best-known litter awareness group in the United States, yet they have flatly refused to touch the issue of cigarette litter, the most prolific form of litter in the world. KAB has a joint program in cooperation with Philip Morris that blames the cigarette litter problem on a lack of ashtrays -- a way of spinning the issue that Philip Morris favors. Some Philip Morris employees have even boasted that more public ashtrays serve as a subtle advertisement for the popularity of their product.

Main Source: 
http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?PageName=KAB

Honor Among Thieves

by Sheldon Rampton — February 21, 2001 - 11:00pm

Margery Kraus of APCO Worldwide has been named "International PR Professional of the Year" by PR Week magazine - a fitting honor to a woman whose company specializes in the worst sleaze the industry produces -- from helping the tobacco industry promote "sound science" to orchestrating a phony "grassroots" campaign for "tort reform" as a way of making it harder f

Main Source: 
APCO news release, February 22, 2001

Corporate Goodwill or Tainted Money?

by Sheldon Rampton — February 8, 2001 - 11:00pm

Philip Morris is spending more to publicize its good deeds than it's spending on the good deeds themselves. Last year, the company spent $115 million on charity and $150 million on these TV ads. So if Philip Morris is so concerned about giving back to the community, why doesn't it take the $150 million spent last year on ads and give that to charity?

Main Source: 
ABC News, February 8, 2001

The Tobacco Industry's Successful Efforts to Control Tobacco Policy Making in Switzerland

by Sheldon Rampton — January 16, 2001 - 11:00pm

This study shows how the tobacco industry manipulated opinions in Switzerland, nurturing "controversy" over the link between smoking and disease using regular media briefings and scientific meetings with carefully chosen scientists who would publicly support the industry

Main Source: 
Chung-Yol Lee and Stanton Glantz, in Galen II, January 2001
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