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Today marks the 10th anniversary of the historic racketeering (RICO) case against Big Tobacco, United States of America, et al. v Philip Morris USA, Inc., et al. On Aug. 17, 2006, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued her final opinion, in which Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, BATCo, American Tobacco, Lorillard, and Brown & Williamson were all found guilty of defrauding the American people by lying for decades about the health risks of smoking, manipulating nicotine content in cigarettes, and marketing to children.
The opinion weighs in at 1683 pages, and while we encourage you to settle down and read it in its fascinating entirety, the following excerpt sums it up perfectly:
"The seven-year history of this extraordinarily complex case involved the exchange of millions of documents, the entry of more than 1,000 Orders, and a trial which lasted approximately nine months with 84 witnesses testifying in open court. Those statistics, and the mountains of paper and millions of dollars of billable lawyer hours they reflect, should not, however, obscure what this case is really about. It is about an industry, and in particular these Defendants, that survives, and profits, from selling a highly addictive product which causes diseases that lead to a staggering number of deaths per year, an immeasurable amount of human suffering and economic loss, and a profound burden on our national health care system. Defendants have known many of these facts for at least 50 years or more. Despite that knowledge, they have consistently, repeatedly, and with enormous skill and sophistication, denied these facts to the public, to the Government, and to the public health community. Moreover, in order to sustain the economic viability of their companies, Defendants have denied that they marketed and advertised their products to children under the age of eighteen and to young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one in order to ensure an adequate supply of “replacement smokers,” as older ones fall by the wayside through death, illness, or cessation of smoking. In short, Defendants have marketed and sold their lethal product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted."
Kessler, Final Opinion, pages 33-34
Besides imposing remedies upon the tobacco companies that included banning the use of terms such as "low tar," "light," "ultra light," "mild," and "natural", which had been used to mislead consumers about the health risks of smoking particular cigarette brands, Kessler’s Final Judgment and Order (shorter, at a mere 18 pages) extended the length of time the tobacco companies must publish on their websites their internal company documents produced in litigation. Those documents are housed permanently in UCSF Library’s Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Archive. To celebrate the anniversary, pay us a visit and browse some tobacco industry documents.
You can download zip files of the final judgment and order, final opinion, and other court documents from TTID’s “Lawsuits and Court Documents” webpage (scroll down to US v. Philip Morris, et al.)
Happy reading, and happy anniversary!
The Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) recently debuted an amazing database of documents pulled from the files of Big Oil as well as our Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive (TTID). The Smoke and Fumes website is a culmination of their investigation into climate misinformation campaigns which in turn led to a dive into our tobacco documents to look for industry intersections. And find them they did!
The Oil industry's efforts to mislead the public about climate science are well documented. Amidst the ongoing investigations and recent wave of climate litigation, comparisons to Big Tobacco have been obvious yet Exxon and its associates have rejected these parallels. CIEL's research into TTID reveals compelling evidence that the relationship between these two industries is "neither coincidental nor casual." The connections between oil and tobacco date back nearly a century and our tobacco documents show these industries have a long history of shared marketing and advertising strategies, research interests, PR firms, and scientists. For instance, in the 1970s, the Chair of BAT also served on the Board of Directors of Exxon and RJ Reynolds once owned and operated an oil company, American Independent Oil, which engaged in industry-wide projects. In the late 1950s the oil industry lent their expertise in mass spectrometry to tobacco companies looking to test cigarette smoke for toxins and both industries attempted to engage in joint research on filters.
These are just a few examples CIEL pulled from the tobacco documents. If you head over to our search box and type in "Shell Oil", "Exxon", or even "Esso", you'll be amazed at the thousands of documents that are retrieved.
Smoke and Fumes: A Hidden History of Oil and Tobacco from CIEL on Vimeo.
This study and supporting tumblr blog reports on RISE (Racism Still Exists), a high-risk, high-reward public health intervention that used outdoor advertising to disseminate a “counter-marketing” campaign in New York City (NYC).
One component of the campaign was to use internal tobacco industry documents to demonstrate ways the industry marketed cigarettes, targeted specific populations, and sought to deny the dangers of smoking. Big Tobacco’s targeting of Black populations reveals much about how these companies perceived African Americans and the strategies they used to create and maintain Black smokers.
The RISE campaign generated significant public discourse, particularly in social media and the study results suggest that racism counter-marketing campaigns may have promise as a community-based intervention to address health inequalities.
