Tobacco Truth Documents

HLTH246: The U.S. Tobacco Epidemic

Department of Behavioral and Community Health Instructor, Azieb Kidanu, PhD, MPH, CHES

Lecture Overview: Tobacco Legacy Documents – Truth Documents

Truth Initiative Funding

Tobacco Legacy Documents / Truth Documents

“Truth” discovered in industry documents

Research on Industry Documents

University of California, San Francisco Truth Tobacco Industry Documents – Funding from MSA

• The Master Settlement Agreement terms created and currently fund Truth Initiative, an organization dedicated to speaking, seeking and spreading the truth about tobacco through education, tobacco control research and policy studies, and community activism and engagement.

• Truth Initiative in turn funded the creation and maintenance of the tobacco documents library.

• Initially, 40 million pages of documents were provided by the tobacco companies to the National Association of Attorneys General which, in turn, gave them to the UCSF Library to seed the first version of the archive. Since that time, UCSF has collected documents directly from the industry document websites and has added collections of documents from other sources.

• In 2002, a research grant was given to the UCSF Library to obtain copies of all documents in the Guildford Depository (in Europe) and create a publicly available digital library.

SOURCE: Legacy Library History

Document Collection • The digital library allows comprehensive, user-friendly,

full-text searching. • Internal documents of the tobacco companies and their

trade organizations that were a party to the Master Settlement Agreement as well as documents from other litigation or companies not party to the settlement. • American Tobacco • Brown & Williamson • Lorillard • Philip Morris • R. J. Reynolds • Council for Tobacco Research • Tobacco Institute

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

Document Collection • Type • Tobacco industry video and audio tapes including recordings of focus

groups; internal corporate meetings; letters, memos, emails and research reports; strategic, political and organizational plans; organizational charts; lists of consultants; invoices and copies of checks paid; testimony in courts and before legislatures; advertising, marketing, media and public relations strategies; depositions of tobacco industry employees, government hearings, corporate communications, and commercials.

• Authors • Company scientists, consultants, lawyers, top executives, other

employees; and also by outside organizations associated in many ways with the tobacco industry, such as public relations companies, advertising and law firms, and research laboratories.

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

Document Collection

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • Smoking and Health • As early as the 1950s, the tobacco companies conducted their own

research with animals that demonstrated the cancer-causing effects of tobacco.

“Obviously evidence accumulated to indict cigarette smoke as a health hazard is overwhelming. However, the evidence challenging that indictment is scant.”

R.J. Reynolds senior scientist, 1962Bates no. 504822823/2846

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents

• “Light” and “Mild” Cigarettes • Tobacco companies new for many years that the “light” or “mild”

cigarettes, which promised less tar and nicotine in response to smokers’ worries about health, were in fact being smoked more often and more intensely by smokers to compensate for the lower nicotine.

“... all ventilated cigarettes produce higher deliveries during human smoking than during machine smoking ... [emphasis in original].”

Philip Morris,1990 Bates no. 2022220257/0260

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • Properties and Effects of Nicotine and Addiction • Scientists working for the tobacco companies knew from their own research that nicotine was

addictive and was the reason why smokers hard time quitting. • They also knew that nicotine delivery/absorption to the brain could be increased through

additions of certain chemicals to tobacco products

“Think of the cigarette pack as a storage container for a day’s supply of nicotine. ... Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine.”

Philip Morris chemist, 1972 Bates no. 2046787966/7982

[T]he entire matter of addiction is the most potent weapon a prosecuting attorney can have in a lung cancer/cigarette case. We can’t defend continued smoking as “free choice” if the person was “addicted.”

Tobacco Institute executive, 1980 Bates no. TIMN0097164/7165

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • How to Deliver Potent Levels of Nicotine to the Smoker • Scientists working for the tobacco companies knew from their own research how

to deliver the most amount of nicotine per product.

“… which may be used to increase smoke pH and/or nicotine ‘kick’ include: (1) increasing the amount of (strong) burley in the blend, (2) reduction of casing sugar used on the burley and/or blend, (3) use of alkaline additives, usually ammonia compounds, to the blend, (4) addition of nicotine to the blend, (5) removal of acids from the blend, (6) special filter systems to remove acids from or add alkaline materials to the smoke.”

R.J. Reynolds senior scientist, 1973 Bates no. 502193199/3228

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • Other ingredients, both naturally occurring in and added to tobacco • Cigarettes are MORE than tobacco leaves rolled up in paper. • The modern cigarette is the most highly engineered product meant to be taken into the human body. • Cigarette companies used chemicals to increase the addictiveness of nicotine, chemicals to disguise the

harsh taste of nicotine, chemicals to widen the lung passages for faster absorption of the smoke, chemicals mask the taste, chemicals to add “flavor” and sweetness.

• Sugar, cocoa, and licorice especially appeal to young people beginning their experiments with smoking. To make smoke less objectionable to non-smokers, chemicals are added to mask smell, irritability and visibility of the smoke.

[U]se the FLITE technology to inject various flavors into the blend. These flavors would be new and unconventional. ... Two flavors which were discussed as options were Root Beer and Brazilian Fruit Juice, both of which tend to appeal to the younger generation while being rejected by their parents.

British American Tobacco, anonymous, circa 1988 Bates no. 400649145/9146

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • Tobacco industry advertising, marketing or promotion of cigarettes • Marketing experts in the tobacco companies knew the basic math: current smokers quit or

die; therefore, new smokers are always needed.

“To ensure increased and longer-term growth for CAMEL FILTER, the brand must increase its share penetration among the 14–24 age group.”

R.J. Reynolds marketing analyst, 1975 Bates no. 505775557

“KOOL’s stake in the 16–25 year old [black] population segment is such that the value of this audience should be accurately weighted and reflected in current media programs.”

Brown & Williamson marketing analyst, 1973, Bates no. 170052238/2240

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

“Truth” discovered in industry documents • Industry carefully followed studies on the sociology and psychology of smokers by other

researchers. • Research on which people are more likely to smoke, why they continue to smoke, which ones are

likely to quit smoking and how to induce them not to, and how people respond to advertising • Industry paid close attention to social and economic class, racial character, age and sex, level of

education, patterns of smoking, and many other subcategories. • Destruction and disposal of secret documents by the tobacco companies.

“Ship all documents to Cologne [Philip Morris office in Germany]. ... Keep in Cologne. ... Okay to phone & telex (these will be destroyed). ... If important letters or documents have to be sent, please send to home — I will act on them and destroy [emphasis in original].”

Hand-written note from the files of the director of research at Philip Morris, probably 1970s Bates no. 1000130803

http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/TI_manual_content.pdf

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

Research of Industry Documents

Research of Industry Documents

Research of Industry Documents

Research of Industry Documents

End of Lecture