day s supply of nicotine:
1) It is unobtrusively portable.
2) Its contents are instantly accessible.
3) Dispensing is unobtrusive to most ongoing behavior.
Think of a cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit
of nicotine:
Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine:
4) A convenient 35 cc mouthful contains approximately the
right amount of nicotine [emphasis added]. . . (qtd. in
Hilts 50-51)
These tobacco executives had realized that the whole
purpose of the products they sold was to deliver nicotine
to the consumer. The cigarette was now looked at as a
vehicle for nicotine delivery; this put the companies into
the pharmaceutical business.
Through the extensive studies conducted in the
company labs, company scientists knew a great deal about
nicotine – far more than anyone outside the company walls
(Hilts 46). Already by 1974, companies began to treat
cigarettes as nicotine delivery devices in the sense that
they would manipulate the levels of nicotine in their
tobacco. Their engineers made great use of their internal
knowledge on nicotine when designing various methods of
increasing the level of nicotine delivered to the smoker.
This was done not only by boosting the level of nicotine in
the tobacco, but also by adding substances to the cigarette
(such as ammonia) which, when burnt, would free up the
nicotine that was chemically bound up to other chemicals
inside the leaf (53).
In the early 1960s, when the public began associating
cigarettes to disease, tobacco companies started marketing
low tar, low nicotine brands. The public logically assumed
that these brands would be less hazardous to health, as did
the Surgeon General suggest this in 1966 (Glantz et al.
16). This assumption, however, turned out to be incorrect.
The tobacco industry has learned over the years, through
detailed and comprehensive research, that smokers have
different nicotine need levels (Hilts 52). There is a
minimum amount of nicotine that a smoker must get into his
system in order to fill the void caused by the
addiction. As companies learned in the mid 1970s, a smoker
will adjust his smoking pattern – according to the nicotine
level in the cigarette – in order to attain his desired
level of nicotine. (This further demonstrated that
cigarettes are devices used to deliver nicotine to the
smoker.) This behavior was termed Compensation[:] the
tendency of a person to smoke a cigarette having a lower
machine-measured nicotine delivery more vigorously [or more
often] than a higher delivery product. . . (Glantz et al.
87).
By 1975, Brown & Williamson already had knowledge of the
erroneous reputation of low-tar cigarettes for over a year:
Compensation study conducted by Imperial Tobacco Co. . .
[shows that a smoker] adjusts his smoking habits when
smoking cigarettes with low nicotine and TPM [total
particular matter] to duplicate his normal cigarette
nicotine intake [emphasis added] (qtd. in Glantz et al.
88). The Surgeon General did not conduct a study on
compensation until 1980; the study was not confirmed until
1983 (87). Despite their knowledge of compensation, the
tobacco industry advertised its tow tar, low nicotine
brands as less hazardous than the higher-yield brands, and
succeeded in deceiving the public once again. Even today,
over 60 percent of the market is lead by these low-yield
brands – up from two percent in 1967. A survey in 1993
found that 48.6 percent of adults think that smoking low-
tar is safer while, in actuality, it has found to be more
hazardous to health (Segal 120-121).
Although the industry has detailed knowledge of the effects
of nicotine and it has recognized (internally) that it is
in the business of selling nicotine, the industry
publicly insists that nicotine is not addictive and is in
tobacco merely for taste purposes; there are several
reasons for this position. One of the arguments by the
tobacco industry in product liability lawsuits is that
tobacco companies should not be held responsible for the
diseases associated with smoking since smoking is a matter
of personal choice. If the industry admitted that
nicotine is addictive, it would not be able to claim that
people can choose to stop smoking anytime they want. In
addition, admitting that nicotine is addictive would
undoubtedly qualify nicotine as a drug and therefore
subject to FDA regulation. This would ultimately lead to
government policies regarding tobacco advertisement and
promotion (Glantz et al. 59).
So, instead of tobacco companies admitting – what they knew
before anybody else and know better than anybody else –
that nicotine is addictive, they assert that nicotine s
sole purpose in tobacco is for taste. Brown &Williamson s
chairman and CEO, Thomas Sandefur, testified in 1994 that
[he does] not believe that nicotine is addictive. . .
nicotine is a very important constituent in the cigarette
for taste (qtd in Glantz et al. 15). However, despite many
similar testimonies by tobacco executives, there is no
evidence in any of the companies documents that nicotine
was ever handled by the taste departments of the companies
(Hilts 49). Furthermore, Philip Morris documents show that
No one has ever become a cigarette smoker by smoking
cigarettes without nicotine (qtd. in Hilts 50). Ross
Johnson, while the chief executor of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco,
did his duty and denied the addictive nature of smoking.
After he left the industry, however, he was plain about it:
Of course it s addictive. That s why you smoke the stuff
(qtd in Hilts 64).
Spreading the False Image: Marketing the Product Through
the Use of Media and Propaganda
Next to addiction, the tobacco industry depends on
advertising as its most powerful tool in maintaining its
success. Addiction is what keeps people smoking day after
day; advertising cigarettes with delusive images is what
causes millions to be tempted enough to begin the lethal
habit. Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised product
in America. The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars
each year to ensure that its products are associated with
elegance, prosperity and finesse, rather than lung cancer,
bronchitis and heart disease (Taylor 44). For example,
Newports are advertised with the theme Alive with
pleasure, instead of with the opposite statement which
would indicate the true result of using the product – Dead
with pain (White 116). Since there is little to
distinguish one brand of cigarettes from the next,
cigarettes must be advertised through emotional appeals
instead of product benefits. Marsha Bell Grace of the
advertising firm of Wells, Rich, Greene said that cigarette
advertising is advertising in its purest sense – no
product difference, but a perception of difference in the
product (qtd. in White 117). Thus, the cigarette s appeal
to the consumer is entirely a matter of perception, or
rather, misperception.
Since Congress banned cigarette advertising from
television in 1970, the billions of dollars worth of
advertisements from the tobacco industry are used in the
print media instead of through the airwaves (White 120).
There are a few American publications – such as the Readers
Digest, Good Housekeeping, the New Yorker, and Washington
Monthly – that do not accept cigarette advertising as a
matter of principle. But for the majority of American
publications, the millions of dollars they receive each
year from tobacco advertisements is not only enough to keep
the advertisements running throughout the year, but enough
to control the material they publish. On many occasions,
newspaper and magazine editors have pulled out articles on
smoking and health that they would have otherwise published
if the articles did not have the ability to interfere with
their relations with the cigarette companies. An article in
the Columbia Journalism Revue, analyzing coverage which
leading national magazines had given to cigarettes and
cancer in the 1970s, concluded that it was:
. . . unable to find a single article in 7 years of
publication that would have given readers any clear notion
of the nature and extent of the medical and social havoc
being wreaked by the cigarette-smoking habit. . . one must
conclude that advertising revenue can indeed silence the
editors of American magazines. (qtd. in Taylor 45)
Of all of the newspapers and magazines in America,
those with the largest percent of teenage readers seem to
be the tobacco industry s favorite places for advertising.
Similarly, tobacco advertisement remains most popular among
billboards located closest to colleges, high schools, and
even junior highs. This approach of advertising to young
people has been kept a closely guarded secret since,
besides being illegal, the companies are ashamed of it. If
they had a choice, cigarette companies would simply keep
their business between the adult population and not have to
worry about enticing children into smoking – but that is
not the case. There are two fundamental reasons why it is
necessary for the tobacco industry to market their products
towards young people (Hilts 63-64):
Nicotine addiction, which is paramount to the
industry, does not develop in adults. Among adults over age
21 who begin smoking for the first time, over 90 percent
soon stop completely (65). Among young people ages 12
through 17, who smoke at least a pack a day, 84 percent
reported that they were dependent on cigarettes.
Virtually all tobacco use begins at childhood. Half of the
adult smoking population has started by age 14 (Glantz et
al. 59); nearly 90 percent of those who will smoke as
adults are already smoking daily by the time they reach age
19. It can take up to three years of smoking to establish a
nicotine addiction; adults simply do not stick with it long
enough (Hilts 65).
The second reason why it is vital for companies to
invite children to smoking, has to do with the state of
mind of the adolescent. Children, by nature, are attracted
to many things that the cigarette has to offer them:
defiance of authority, a sense of individualism (which is
an illusion, considering they are one among some 50
million), emulation of an admired image, social acceptance
by peers, a perception of masculinity (for males) or
sexiness (for females), and many other false notions that
help settle various insecurities of the adolescent. Tobacco
executives realize that if they introduce their products as
being capable of relieving numerous social pressures that
teenagers undergo, their products will be perceived this
way (to an extent) by a large percentage of children; these
children will let the industry affect their actions and,
ultimately, their lives.
It is for these two reasons that the industry must
focus their attention on persuading young people to start
smoking. Cigarette companies view their advertising
approach as an investment. Young people, who are only a
small percentage of the market, slowly accumulate in
numbers, year by year, and increase their habit as they
grow older. Eventually, this small group of consumers
develops into the majority of the tobacco market (Hilts
77). It is moreover advantageous for companies to target
youths since young smokers have greater brand loyalty – a
very high likelihood of staying with their first regular
brand of cigarettes for years or even for life (76).
Tobacco companies have learned exactly how to
market their product to children through extensive research
and psychological study of youths; the most intense
studies did not start until after the scares of 1954. In
the late 1950s, Philip Morris found through comprehensive
research that young males started smoking because, to them,
it represented an independence from their parents. What
PM s advertising agency came up with were commercials that
would turn rookie smokers on to Marlboro . . . the right
image to capture the youth market s fancy . . . a perfect
symbol of independence and individualistic rebellion (qtd.
in Hilts 67). With this in mind, they decided that images
of a lone, rugged cowboy would catch the attention of male
children. The Marlboro Man soon began to capture the
largest percentage of starters and clearly put Philip
Morris at the top of the tobacco industry; PM tried to
duplicate the success of Marlboros by creating Virginia
Slims for young girls in the late 1960s (66-69).
In 1976, Imperial Tobacco of Canada started a project which
would psychologically examine young people and establish a
substantial base of information on youths that could be
used for advertising; it was code-named Project Sixteen
for the age of those who were to be studied. Imperial knew
that the only way to raise their sales (which were falling
at the time) was to learn how to market their product to
children: . . . the industry is dominated by the companies
who respond most effectively to the needs of younger
smokers (qtd in Hilts 82). By paying teenagers to be
interviewed (with hidden cameras), Imperial learned that
children perceive smoking as vaguely masculine,
independent, and forbidden. They are sexually insecure and
need to appear confident; they need to feel adult-like, not
childish. The Company discovered that tobacco
experimentation begins often around age five, but more
often around age seven or eight; more serious efforts to
learn to accept the poisonous smoke occur at age 12 or 13,
while smoking becomes a more regular pattern between 14 and
16 years old (Hilts 79-83). In Project Sixteen s summary,
it concluded:
There is no doubt that peer group influence is the single
most important factor in the decision by the adolescent to
smoke . . . The adolescent seeks to display his new urge
for independence with a symbol, and cigarettes are such a
symbol since they are associated with adulthood and at the
same time the adults seek to deny them to the young. (qtd.
in Hilts 83)
Similar studies were conducted by many other
tobacco companies, such as the research co-directed by
Claude Teague at R.J. Reynolds in the spring of 1972.
Teague suggested how the company should go about drawing in
youths: we must somehow convince him with wholly
irrational desires that he should try smoking . . . (qtd.
in Hilts 73). In 1973, Teague wrote:
Realistically, if our company is to survive and prosper,
over the long term we must get our share of the youth
market . . . Thus we need new brands to be particularly
attractive to the young smoker . . . its promotion should
emphasize togetherness, belonging and group acceptance,
while at the same time emphasizing individuality and doing
one s own thing. . . . Evidence is now available to
indicate that the 14- to 18-year old group is an increasing
segment of the smoking population. RJR must soon establish
a successful new brand in this market if our position in
the industry is to be maintained over the long term
[emphasis added]. (qtd. in Hilts 74-75)
R.J. Reynolds eventually did respond to the youth market in
1988 with Camel cigarettes. RJR s market basically remained
the same since 1913, before they modified their advertising
approach 75 years later (Hilts 70). Camels, which had
previously been pitched to smokers over 50 years old, were
suddenly targeted towards those under 20 years old with the
introduction of the cartoon Joe Camel in February, 1988 (79-
80). RJR established a program to sell their cigarettes to
what is referred to in their documents as YAS, or young
adult smokers. (They were referred to in the documents as
young adults only for legal purposes; orally, it was agreed
that the targeted groups were much younger.) The program
carefully governs, among other things, the placement of ads
and propaganda. They ensure that stores within 1,000 feet
of schools carry more promotions than other stores; that
promotions are closest to candy counters more often than
anywhere else; that displays are more often set at a height
of three feet or lower; and that stores in neighborhoods
with a large number of children under 17 receive a greater