Behind Closed Doors


What have the companies been telling us?

  • Tobacco use isn't dangerous
  • Nicotine isn't addictive
  • Environmental Tobacco Smoke isn't dangerous.
  • They don't want kids to smoke

What do their secret documents say?

  • The companies have known for many years that tobacco use kills.
  • They hired scientists to discover a safe cigarette, but none could be developed.
  • They've known that nicotine is a drug and that it's addictive. The companies call cigarettes an ideal drug delivery system because they are convenient, portable, and are self administered.
  • The level of nicotine in tobacco products is controlled by the companies to keep their customers addicted.
  • Privately, they have conducted research on Environmental Tobacco Smoke which showed that it's dangerous.
  • They want and need children to replace the 5,000 customers who die and quit smoking every year.
Here are some quotes from the tobacco industry that became public as a result of Tobacco Trials. This is what the tobacco industry says "BEHIND CLOSED DOORS."
The tobacco industry actively markets tobacco to teens.
  • "They got lips? We want them." (Reply of an RJ Reynolds representative when asked the age of the kids they were targeting.)

  • "The desire to quit seems to come earlier now than before, even prior to the end of high school...attempts to quit are very painful, they thought they could quit easily, but they soon learn..."they have become SLAVES to their cigarettes. (Imperial Tobacco)

  • A memo from Brown & Williamson consultants recommended the company use a "sweet flavor cigarette... It's a well known fact that teenagers like sweet products. Honey might be considered." (B&W 1972, from John Schwartz, Documents Indicate Strategy of Targeting Teen Smokers, Washington Post, February 5, 1998, p A3)

  • David Goerlitz, the former Winston Man, asked RJ Reynolds executives, "Don't any of you smoke?" One executive answered, "Are you kidding" We reserve that right for the poor, the young, the black, and the stupid." (As quoted in a New York Times editorial by Bob Hebert, Nov. 1993)

  • "We wanted to get into that market, (youth market) and used the promotional items, tee shirts, baseball caps, and one hot item were lighters, knowing full well the people were giving these away to was kids half the time." (Salesman for RJR) (Hilts.97)

  • Marlboro dominates in the 17 and younger age category, capturing over 50 percent of the market." (1979 Philip Morris memo)

  • They represent tomorrow's cigarette business...As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume-for at least the nest 25 years."(RJR's marketing plan presented to the company's board of directors in 1974.

  • The report on Teenage Smokers (14-17) indicates that RJR continues to gradually decline and between the spring and fall 1979 periods, RJR's total share declined from 21.3 to 19.9. Hopefully, our various planned activities that will be implement this fall will aid in some way in reducing or correcting these trends." (RJR interoffice correspondence July 22, 1980)

  • "Kool has shown little or no growth in share of users in the 26 (plus) age group... Growth is from 16-15 year olds. At the present rate, a smoker in the 16-25 year age group will soon be three times as important to Kool as a prospect in any other broad age category." (1973 Brown and Williamson memo)

  • "Young blacks have found their thing. It's menthol in general and KOOL in particular."(l974 Philip Morris marketing plan)

  • A 1992 memo form Imperial Tobacco's "Project 16" notes how many young people who begin smoking "in the 14-16 age range" doubt they will become addicted to cigarettes. The memo continues, "Once addiction does take place, it becomes necessary for the smoker to make peace with the accepted hazards....(from John Schwartz, Documents Indicate Strategy of Targeting Teen Smokers, Washington Post, February 5, 1998, pA3)

The tobacco industry has known that tobacco kills.

  • "Studies of clinical data tend to confirm the relationship between heavy and prolonged tobacco smoking and incidence of cancer of the lung." (RJ Reynolds, 1953) "There are biologically active materials present in cigarette smoking. These are: • cancer causing • cancer promoting • poisonous • stimulating (A consulting firm, working for the US Liggett Company reviewed the results of seven year's research work. 1961)

They've know nicotine is addictive

More than twenty Surgeon General Reports over a span of more than twenty-five years have summarized tens of thousands of studies that show tobacco use is deadly.

The tobacco industry doesn't want to admit that nicotine is a drug because it's afraid that The Food and Drug Administration, a governmental agency, will be able to regulate cigarettes. They fear that the FDA may force them to lower the amount of nicotine, or worse yet, make them remove it. If this happened, the tobacco industry would no longer have a product that people would buy. They know that a cigarette is nothing more than a little white package that holds nicotine. Without the nicotine no one would buy the package.

This is what they've said "Behind Closed Doors."

  • "Very few customers are aware of the effects of nicotine, i.e. its addictive nature and that nicotine is a poison." (1979 B&W document)
  • "Nicotine is the addicting agent in cigarettes." (1982 B&W Tobacco Company document on getting smokers to switch brands.)

  • "Ammonia, when added to tobacco reacts with nicotine and can act as an impact booster (makes nicotine more powerful)."( Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation)

  • "Nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug." (B&W, 1963)

  • "Think of a cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine...." (Philip Morris, 1971)

  • We are searching explicitly for a socially acceptable addictive product...The essential constituent is most likely to be nicotine or a direct substitute for it." (August 1979 memo by BAT on the search for a potential replacement for cigarettes)

  • Taken together, the evidence suggests that self-administration of nicotine may be the primary motivation for smoking." (1984 BAT document describing nicotine's addictive qualities in scientific detail)

Tobacco Companies Know Tobacco is a Drug

  • BAT should learn to look at itself as a drug company rather than as a tobacco company." (April 1980 memo by a team of BAT scientists

  • "Do we really want to tout cigarette smoke as a drug" It is, or course." (February 1969 memo from a Philip Morris researcher)

  • "Classification of tobacco as a drug should be avoided at all costs." (1974 British American Tobacco memo).

Now
Tobacco companies like Philip Morris want to change their image. They'd like us to believe they are doing everything they can to keep kids from smoking. That's like saying they want to put themselves out of business. The truth is:

The amount spent on promotions and marketing of cigarettes vastly exceeded what was spent on any of these (Tobacco Institute youth) programs." (Michael Ciresi, Attorney for the State of Minnesota, summarizing in court information showing that the three largest cigarette manufacturers spent $40.6 million on youth prevention programs from 1938 to 1994 or less than 2 tenths of 1% of the @26.9 billion spent on cigarette advertising, marketing and promotion during the same period.)


Many of these quotes were compiled by the Minnesota Attorney General's Office.

For more quotes go to Tobacco Industry Quotes: A Sample - from Americans for NonSmokers' Rights