Just when it looked like big tobacco had run out of reasons to encourage smoking, Phillip Morris comes out with yet another dubious argument.
During the last two years, cigarette companies, including Phillip Morris, have been exposed for decades of questionable business practices that included trying to lure children to their products and not going public with the health risks caused by smoking before it became common knowledge.
A 1981 Phillip Morris report stated, “Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s potential regular customer.”
Bennett LeBow of the Liggett Group, Inc. once said, “If you are really and truly not going to sell to children, you are going to be out business in 30 years.”
Claude Teague of R.J. Reynolds said, “If our company is to survive and prosper over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market.”
Then you have the jaw-dropping image five years ago of Phillip Morris’ chief executive officer testifying to Congress that nicotine is not an addictive substance, comparing the public’s love of cigarettes to his passion for gummy bears.
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Big tobacco has been forced to play nice and has rolled out a seemingly endless stream of feel-good commercials that explain just how grateful we should be for all of their community service activities.
But Phillip Morris is taking its defense to a whole new level. The company is now pushing the morbid argument that the early demise of smokers is good for a nation’s economy. Several weeks ago, a report commissioned by Phillip Morris asserted that the Czech government saved nearly $30 million in health care costs, pensions and housing for the elderly in 1999 alone as a result of tobacco-related deaths.
Phillip Morris has sunk to a new low in the name of staying financially solvent in the face of a prolonged wave of public hostility and greedy lawyers looking for record settlements. It has called on its legions of scientists to debunk criticism and put a bright face on tobacco products. Something is disconcerting about an industry determined to issue scientific reports that death from the use of its products saves others money.
I don’t expect people to stop smoking, nor do I question the personal decision smokers on this campus make each time they light up a cigarette. I understand we all have our vices.
However, it is a whole other can of proverbial worms when tobacco companies refuse to relent in presenting themselves as anything less than hazardous to your health.
-Iliana Lim¢n
Editor in chief
