How Tobacco Companies Sell Death

How tobacco Companies Sell Death...

Switzerland is a judicial paradise for tobacco companies. We found around the Lac Leman, from Lausanne to Geneva (60km) Philip Morris International, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International, BAT British American Tobacco, among others. Even sometimes they can face issues, they keep close relationships to WHO , OMC/WTO, many other international organizations and Swiss academy...

Alike the researcher at the University of Geneva who conducted research beneficial to the tobacco industry while concealing his financial relationship (as much as $150,000/year as a "consultant") to Philip Morris and other tobacco companies.

The affaire Rylander has been a major scandal in Europe for a number of years. For more information on this issue, visit L'affaire Rylander courtesy of Gene Borio's Tobacco News There is a complete chronology of the affair available at L'affaire Rylander PHILIP MORRIS Faculté de Médecine de Genève Prof. Ragnar Rylander including dozens of documents, newspaper articles and court and tobacco industry documents. This scandal exposes the difficult problem of Universities that accept research funding from the tobacco industry. University professors who take this type of money often produce research results that support tobacco company legal positions, influence politicians or attack the work of other scientists who produce studies documenting the health dangers of tobacco products. Some prestigious American universities, including Harvard University, Harvard University School of Health, Duke University and the University of California fall into the the group of institutions that take the highest amounts of money i.e. millions of dollars, from tobacco industry sources.

"I know how difficult it is to achieve any success in the Swiss environment. It seems to me that you can make good use on appeal of the trial court's unwillingness to consider alteration of research results to please a sponsor as scientific misconduct. After all, does Switzerland really want to announce to the world that its scientific research cannot be trusted?"
— Richard Daynard, Directeur, Tobacco Products Liability Project, Boston, USA

Now, if you visit the page of JTI managers, you will read that the french president is a member of the Board of the Geneva Museum of Contemporary Art (MAMCO), which french director has suggested his french friend to manage Geneva Beaux Arts (HES university). And so on... Social friends network !?

Tobacco Marketing

“The media like the money they make from our advertisements,
and they are an ally that we can and should exploit.”
— Philip Morris

“Our woman is front and center. She is unquestionably the star. She is happy and healthy. She is not a physical fitness fanatic, but loves to take part in healthy fun activities. And while she is good at them, she is not a champion. . . . As the strategy dictates, her activities are not too strenuous or aerobic. Smoking a low [tar and nicotine] cigarette would be a logical extension of
the lifestyle depicted.”
— Imperial Tobacco (Canada)

“[Motor racing is] the ideal sport for sponsorship. It’s got glamour and world wide television coverage. It’s a ten month activity involving six-teen races in fourteen countries with drivers from sixteen nationalities. After football it’s the Number One multinational sport. It’s got total global exposure, total global hospitality, total media coverage and 600 million people watching it on TV every fortnight. . . . It’s macho, it’s excitement, it’s color, it’s international, it’s glamour. . . They’re there to get visibility. They’re there to sell cigarettes.”
— Barrie Gill, Chief Executive of Championship Sports Specialists


“The problem is, how do you sell death?
How do you sell a poison that kills 350,000 people per year, a 1,000 people a day? You do it with the great open spaces . . . the mountains, the open places, the lakes coming up to the shore. They do it with healthy young people. They do it with athletes. How could a whiff of a cigarette be of any harm in a situation like that? It couldn’t be - there’s too much fresh air, too much health - too much absolute exuding of youth and vitality - that’s the way they do it.”
— Fritz Gahagan, former tobacco industry marketing consultant

Black Market

The smuggling of licit products across national borders has been the subject of academic research for 30 years but little attention has been given to the role that multinational corporations play in smuggling. When addressed at all, global firms have been generally represented as unwitting actors in smuggling activities. Because of the illegal nature of smuggling, empirical research into firm participation has been daunting if not impossible to undertake. However, recent revelations arising from scandals involving the Black Market Peso Exchange—as well as scandals and lawsuits surrounding the international cigarette industry—shed new light on global firms. If we examine swiss environment evidence suggesting that the role of global firms in international smuggling may not be as benign as previously portrayed.

Tobacco-Related Internet Sites:

• Hall of Shame
  Affaire Rylander, a major scandal in Europe
  
• JoinTogether Search Engine Articles Archive
  
• Tobaccopedia: The online tobacco encyclopedia A full, rich database of sites from the International Union against Cancer. Nicely organized, rich collection of subjects.
  
• Larry Breed's Online Guide To Tobacco Activism Get up to speed on the tobacco issue with this terrific, ever-fascinating guided tour of agricultural, business, health, and activist sites.
• Smoking from All Sides Page
  Loring Holden's valiant attempt to provide links to everything-from whatever side-there is about tobacco
• Tobacco FAQs Nicely organized set of links from UCSF.
• AG Tobacco Settlement Links
• Prevention.ch Archives
• Tabagisme.net Amazing numbers of Tobacco business
  
• EU Accuses U.S. Tobacco Companies of Trading With Iraq
• JTI formulates plan to move Gallaher HQ to Geneva
• Imperial Tobacco to raise £4.9bn from rights issue
• Big stores and tobacco firms ‘colluded on cigarette prices’
• FCT Report2: How Tobacco Companies Sell Death (PDF)