Just what kind of industry can sustain damages of $246 bn and continue to prosper? (That’s like 8 to 10 times the Anglo-Irish Bank losses that threaten to, and may yet, bankrupt Ireland).
That astronomical $246 bn fine – compensation for the cost of treating nicotine-related illnesses over several decades – was levied on the Tobacco Industry in US in 1998 after Merrell Williams blew the whistle. Williams, a paralegal with a Louisville law firm, had, for years, been secretly collecting damning documents that proved that executives of tobacco giant, Brown & Williamson, knowingly and deliberately covered up figures that proved that cigarettes were addictive and the cause of serious, often fatal, illnesses.
Perjury
In 1994, the CEOs of Brown & Williamson and six other tobacco giants – the so-called Seven Dwarves – attested on oath before the US Congress that they believed that nicotine was not addictive. As each one in succession answered the direct question, without a waver in the voice or a blink of the eye, he committed perjury. Tobacco CEOs are tough cookies. More than 20 years before that, the CEO of Philip Morris, one of the largest of the Seven Dwarves, stated publicly that, while he agreed that babies born to smoking mothers were smaller, they were just as healthy as those whose mothers didn’t smoke; but, he added with a smile, ‘some women would prefer having smaller babies.’ So now all you expectant mothers know what to do: chain-smoke during your pregnancy and you’ll have perfectly healthy babies but – hey presto! – they’ll be so small that you won’t even have to go to the labour ward! Trust me, ladies. I have lots of tobacco shares, so would I lie to you?
The other Six Dwarves must be mightily peed off with Brown & Williamson because it was from their board room that another famous whistleblower emerged – Dr. Jeffrey Wigand. Obviously, during his interview, Dr Wigand had not been properly screened for the presence of a conscience and, the next thing they knew, their vice-president for Research and Development was having qualms about B&W’s use of chemicals to increase the absorption of nicotine from the lungs, and therefore its addictiveness and, as a side effect – undesirable, but what the heck? – its harmfulness.
When Dr Wigand expressed his concern, he was fired on a trumped-up charge (according to the film, The Insider, anyway) and given a nice severance package in return for a confidentiality agreement. But that pesky conscience just kept at him, chipping away at his confidentiality agreement…
Both whistleblowers relate the tactics of the tobacco industry once they discovered their ‘treachery’. The industry couldn’t rubbish the message – it was demonstrably true – so they went after the messengers. They were hounded unscrupulously; their pasts were dug into, twisted, exaggerated, probably fabricated in some cases, all to show that they were flaky, unreliable liars, paranoid dreamers with delusions. The film shows threats of physical violence to Wigand and his family but it also warned that some fictional sub-plots had been included for dramatic effect – it didn’t state which. Another well known film, Silkwood, also suggests that large business corporations will stop at nothing when it comes to protecting their bottom line, profits.
“Hook ’em young. Hook ’em for life.”
Dr Wigand, now a tireless anti-smoking campaigner, says that cigarettes are the only product that, when used as they are supposed to be, can kill, and that the tobacco industry’s motto is: “Hook ’em young. Hook ’em for life.” He also claims that the new-fangled electronic and other ‘smokeless’ cigarettes which can be used in planes, restaurants, etc., are merely the industry’s desperate efforts to forestall people from making the proper, the real decision, to quit nicotine altogether.
Governments make huge fortunes on taxes on cigarette sales – but spend them again on health care for smokers, so what’s the point? Cigarette companies make vast fortunes. Tobacco growers make small fortunes. And smokers? Smokers spend fortunes supporting these guys, and make themselves sick at the same time. Some bargain, aye? But, hey, as long as you know who you’re making rich – go for it. You’re old enough now to look after yourself if you want.
PS I was only joking when I suggested that pregnant ladies should chain-smoke. It ought to be obvious, but then, if you’re silly enough to smoke in the first place.
Some tobacco headstones, er milestones:
1492 Columbus offered dried tobacco by native Americans – so maybe they won after all!
1571 Dr Nicolas Monardes claims tobacco can cure no less than 36 illnesses!
1588 Thomas Harriett recommends smoking over chewing and dies soon after from cancer of the nose – exhaling smoke through the nostrils was the current fashion.
1610 Sir Francis Bacon remarked on how hard it was to give up tobacco.
1826 Scientists declare nicotine to be a dangerous poison.
1923 Marlboro deliberately targets women by claiming the brand is as ‘Mild as May’ and in a1960s Virginia Slims does the same with the slogan, ‘You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby’ and in
1985 Lung cancer ousts breast cancer as #1 killer of women in USA.
1953 Scientists found that rubbing cigarette tar on the backs of mice caused tumours.
2010 This writer guesses that the skin on a mouse’s back is tougher than the lining of a human lung…
