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from the smoking-gun-found-next-to-skeleton-in-closet dept.
PandoDaily's Mark Ames has published a paywalled article [archive] entitled "Shillers for killers: Revealed: How the tobacco industry paid journalists, scientists, activists and lawyers to cover up the most deadly crime in human history." The article draws upon a new round of documents that was recently added to the University of California San Francisco's Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. The library contains 14 million documents and is growing, as noted on the Library's blog. Some bits are more relevant to our community.
In 1994, marketing director at the RJ Reynolds tobacco company wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to discuss topics related to protecting tobacco advertising on the Internet. Later that year, EFF's executive director sent a proposal to RJ Reynolds's direct marketing manager, Peter Michaelson, soliciting money to fund an EFF project that would oppose government regulations on commercial tobacco advertising on the Web. An alternative plan is suggested:
"We are also prepared to pursue a legal test of this alternative approach to regulation. For example, if MARC [RJR's direct marketers] or RJR decided to put one or another sponsored on-line service up on the Internet or via America-on-Line or other on-line service, the white paper could become the basis of a legal brief challenging the constitutionality of any governmental effort to block the programming on the basis of current advertising bans in electronic media... We have not budgeted for this alternative at this point."
Years before Glenn Greenwald teamed up with Laura Poitras and whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose the NSA, he worked as a lawyer for Wachtell Lipton, a law firm that sued ABC-TV for $10 billion and helped to gag smoking industry whistleblowers. This had a chilling effect on CBS, which prevented the airing of a 60 Minutes program covering Merrell Williams and Jeffrey Wigand until the next year. These events were covered by the 1996 Frontline documentary "Smoke In The Eye" [Internet Archive] and Wigand's story inspired the 1999 film, The Insider.
It's reasonable to assume Greenwald—ever the diligent researcher—must have joined Wachtell fully aware that they were helping gag whistleblowers and threatening journalists: Greenwald says that he chose to work for Wachtell in 1994 after being recruited by over a dozen top law firms. But of course that doesn't necessarily mean he worked on the specific Philip Morris case. Except that a billing ledger discovered in the tobacco library shows Greenwald's name in a Wachtell Lipton bill to Philip Morris... Other Wachtell Lipton memos show Greenwald's name prominently displayed on the letterhead in aggressive, threatening letters against ABC-TV, against whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, and against whistleblower Merrell Williams...
[...] Again, in the two decades since, whistleblower champion Glenn Greenwald has never said a single word about this case or about the role his law firm played in crushing TV investigative journalism. As far as our research can tell, Greenwald has never taken a position on tobacco laws or spoken about the horrific death toll smoking is taking.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by schad on Monday July 13 2015, @12:02PM
First, it's a good idea to have fire resistant furniture anyway. Perhaps a less-toxic additive would have been a better fit, but it's not a bad idea. Lots of (primarily) stationary stuff in your house is designed either not to burn or to burn more slowly.
Second, the anti-burn stuff they put on cigarettes doesn't work. I say this as an ex-smoker, so I have firsthand experience but also no horse in the race any more. You actually end up smoking more. (If your cigarette goes out halfway, there's not enough to relight -- not that you can always relight a cigarette that went out at the no-burn mark anyway -- so you have to smoke a new one. And obviously you're going to smoke until it's done, because otherwise it's a waste. It's irrational, but it's the way addicts think.)
And it tastes like burning glue. That can't be good for you. I mean, it's not like cigarettes ever taste good or are healthy. But... maybe we shouldn't be making them worse on those two fronts than they already are, you know?
Ultimately, I question whether this is really a serious enough problem to warrant doing anything at all. According to NFPA [nfpa.org], there were 610 deaths in 2010 due to smoking-related fires. There are roughly 42 million smokers in the US. Even allowing for the fact that there are surely fires caused by cigarettes that don't result in any deaths, but do result in injury or significant property damage, that's an awfully tiny fraction. How much time, money, etc. do we spend chasing that last fraction of a percent?
Honestly, aren't these resources better spent trying to get people to quit smoking? That's the only surefire solution.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Eunuchswear on Monday July 13 2015, @01:14PM
And do you think the things they put in cigarettes to make them taste "better" are good for you?
Anyway, you're missing the point -- it's documented fact that they paid people to influence these decisions. Do you think they did that for your good?
Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by schad on Monday July 13 2015, @02:49PM
I'm going to repeat the sentence immediately following the one you quoted: "I mean, it's not like cigarettes ever taste good or are healthy. But... maybe we shouldn't be making them worse on those two fronts than they already are, you know?"
Of course not. They did it for their own good. Are you one of those people who thinks that smokers believe cigarettes are made of vitamins?
In this specific context, probably they resisted the idea for the exact reasons I mentioned. In short, it makes smoking a worse experience, and that may translate to an increased willingness to quit. I don't know if it does, but it's an obvious enough worry that I can definitely imagine cigarette makers spending money to stop it. So actually, in this particular case, the companies' sociopathic interests quite nicely aligned with mine, though for entirely different reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:22PM
> First, it's a good idea to have fire resistant furniture anyway. Perhaps a less-toxic additive would have been a better fit, but it's not a bad idea.
But is it? First, the retardants that the tobacco lobby got mandated don't delay the burning very long and second, the number of people in non-smoking households who are injured or killed by burning furniture approaches zero. Second, everything has a price, doesn't seem like there is not much potential return in that area.
> Lots of (primarily) stationary stuff in your house is designed either not to burn or to burn more slowly.
Name two that aren't construction materials.
(Score: 2) by bootsy on Monday July 13 2015, @05:31PM
All those 80s computers, consoles and peripherals that went that horrible yellow colour due to bromide were all done so they were more fire resistant.
Cooking accidents and candles have caused most of the house hold fires I have experienced.
One smoker colleague of mine has a burnt hand due to a fire started by a candle as he always smoked outside to cut down on the smell.
I've seen a fire started by an acyclic ball next to a window as well.
According this link
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/410287/Fire_Statistics_Great_Britain_2013-14___PDF_Version_.pdf [www.gov.uk]
37% of UK household fires were connected to smoking.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:30AM
I used to smoke rollies. With thin paper, they went out when you stopped smoking them. The cigarette companies had to work to make cigarettes that didn't go out.
You list number of people killed by fires started by smoking. You also can add the number of forest fires started by cigarettes to the downside of cigarettes that keep burning. Long time ago around here, during fire season, only the thinnest of papers were allowed to be sold to the workers in the bush.