If you’re a tobacco multinational and you want to buy off a government, call our helpline. Spitting Image s16e3, ITV 1994
A multi-billion-dollar battle to build a safer cigarette … Can the people who hooked us be trusted to help us? The Fifth Estate, E-Cigarettes: Welcome Back, Big Tobacco, CBC 2016
A mass movement aimed at breaking free from mass addiction. ibid.
In Canada alone the E-Cig business is worth about $235 million. ibid.
Is this the new Marlboro Country? … Big Tobacco has big plans to grow. ibid.
In every area of life throughout Britain we’ve lived with a highly conspicuous creature, a being that is sociable with well-defined habits and quite simple needs. Timeshift: The Smoking Years, BBC 2012
American industrialist James Albert Bonsack invented the first cigarette rolling machine. The date was 1880. Smoking would never be the same again. ibid.
Women started to challenge conventions. ibid.
Bernays’ research suggested that the cigarette was a symbol of male power and of the penis. ibid.
Over 80% of British troops returned home from the war as smokers. ibid.
Lennox Johnson who was conducting his own research into smoking – as early as the 1920s he was speculating on the likely long-term health effects smokers were exposing themselves to. ibid.
He had also devised a nicotine replacement therapy. ibid.
Within two years of starting their research Doll & Hill discovered there was a clear link between smoking and lung cancer. ibid.
Smokers displayed a remarkable reluctance to accept the science. ibid.
The tobacco lobby quickly found ways to counter the findings. ibid.
Cigarettes were also seen as essential fashion accessories. ibid.
More than half the British population smoked. ibid.
The smoker today is a diminished, anguished, exhausted creature. ibid.
700,000 people a year die from tobacco: and I am responsible for citizens’ health. Storyville: The Great European Cigarette Mystery, BBC 2017, John Dalli
Following a fraud investigation, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy John Dalli has resigned with immediate effect. ibid. news
On his desk is the first draft for the new tobacco directive: it involved billions of Euros and thousands of lives. John Dalli wants a strict directive, so of course the tobacco industry is against him. Dalli has to drive it home but in October 2012 he gets called to the office of Jose Manuel Barroso – President of the European Commission. And then he’s fired. ibid. investigating journalist
The report shows that John Dalli has held a string of non-declared meetings on Malta with the tobacco lobbyists. ibid.
How was I to know that she [Kimberley] was a lobbyist? ibid. Dalli
Because what happens next is that OLAF [European investigators] plants a trap for John Dalli and they do this together with a lobby group which Swedish Match is a part of: ESTOC … So the EU sets a trap for its own Commission. ibid. investigating journalist
‘Massive’ lobbying power of tobacco companies diluted European regulation of cigarettes, study shows. ibid. online news headline
I am the victim of a set-up. ibid. John Dalli
I have a package of large volume files about Jose Manuel Barroso and representatives of a powerful tobacco lobby in the US and continental Europe. These documents will shake Europe. Massive fraud and espionage. ibid. email received by Dalli
Jeffrey: I got fired this morning …
Liane: What are we supposed to do? What about our medical coverage? What about our health? What about our car payments? Payments on this house? The Insider ***** 1999 starring Al Pacino & Russell Crowe & Christopher Plummer & Diane Venora & Michael Gambon & Rip Torn & Philip Baker Hall & Lindsay Crouse & Debi Mazar & Renee Olstead et al, director Michael Mann
I received a shitload of scientific papers from inside Philip Morris. Anonymous. ibid. Lowell
I have no intention of violating my confidentiality agreement and disclosing that which I said I wouldn’t. ibid. Jeffrey
Big Tobacco is a big story. And you’ve got something important to say. ibid. Lowell to Jeffrey
I always thought of myself as a man of science. That’s what’s wrong with it. ibid. Jeffrey to Lowell
This guy is the ultimate insider. ibid. Lowell to 60 Minutes team
The process is known as impact boosting. While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There is extensive use of this technology known as ammonia chemistry. It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system. ibid. Jeffrey on 60 Minutes
I find chemistry to be magical. I find it an adventure. An exploration into the building blocks of our physical universe. ibid.
Fuck it. Let’s go to court. ibid.
The greater the truth, the greater the damage. ibid. 60 Minutes lawyer
Tortious Interference: sounds like a disease caught by a radio. ibid.
5 million smokers worldwide die each year … A hundred million smokers died in the twentieth century. The Tobacco Conspiracy: The Backroom Deals of a Deadly Industry 2016
‘It is an epidemic that has been built on unparalleled corporate deceit … criminal negligence.’ ibid. Garfield Mahood, non-smokers rights association Canada
‘Why is cigarette smoking so popular and acceptable despite all the information we have.’ ibid. mother, ex-addict
94% of lung cancer occur in smokers. ibid.
‘The tobacco manufacturers have lied about the risks of their products, they have lied about targeting children.’ ibid. Mahood
Thus began the longest and most expensive public relations campaign in history. ibid.
‘A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers’ blanketed America. ibid.
The Big American trials of the 1990s when 46 states took joint action against the industry, suing for damages to public health. Executives of the seven largest cigarette companies were called to testify. ibid.
The industry agreed to pay $206 billion to avoid a verdict. It also promised to cease marketing to young people, but only in the US. ibid.
Tonight: with millions of Brits turning to e-cigarettes we ask, Do you know what’s in your vape? Are children being sucked in to this growing craze? Tonight: How Safe is Your Vape? ITV 2020
We investigate whether it really is a safer smoking alternative. ibid.
We’ve uncovered vaping products that contain unknown impurities; we’ve seen how easy they are to buy by the underaged, and how the sweet flavours are appealing to young people. ibid.
The [Tobacco] industry had realized you could create the impression of controversy simply by asking questions. Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
How one of Britain’s biggest companies broke the law to sell cigarettes. We reveal how British American Tobacco paid bribes to sabotage its rivals. And secured access to police files and security cameras. And we expose the corrupt deal to pay off a notorious dictator. Panorama: Dirty Secretes of the Cigarette Business, BBC 2021
In South Africa’s rural heartland one company dominates tobacco production. 90% of the crop is bought by British American Tobacco ... The company has been operating here for more than 100 years. ibid.
It claims to be an ethical company. But this isn’t the first time we’ve investigated BAT. Six years ago we exposed how it used bribery to undermine Anti-Smoking legislation in South Africa. ibid.
In the 1870s more than 70% of Americans over 12 years old used tobacco in some form. The Booze, Bets & Sex that Built the World I, History 2022
The press dubbed the conflict [Growers vs American Tobaco] the Black Patch tobacco wars and they dominated headlines from coast to coast. The Booze, Bets & Sex That Made the World II