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THE TOBACCO TIMELINE

Tobacco Timeline

Chapter 7

The Twentieth Century, 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined
http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/Tobacco_History20-2.html


The Fifties
The public's health concerns drive companies to compete in rival ad campaigns touting their filters (The "Tar Wars" or "Tar Derby"). When the decade begins, 2% of cigarettes are filter tip; by 1960, 50% of cigarettes are filter tips. 15 filter brands account for 95% of U.S. sales (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398).
1950s: ADVERTISING: "Tar Wars."
  • 1950: MARKET SHARE:

  • 1950: HEALTH: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer
  • FTC complains that cigarette ads touting physical benefits are deceptive. (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398)
  • 1950: MEDIA: TV pop-music series "Your Hit Parade" starts its 7-year-run; one of the first hits on TV; it is sponsored by Lucky Strike.
  • 1950: MEDIA: Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" wins TV Guide's commercial of the year. (Cheerleaders sing: "Yes, Luckies get our loudest cheers on campus and on dates. With college gals and college guys a Lucky really rates.")
  • 1950: STATISTICS: American cigarette consumption is 10 cigarettes per capita, which equals over a pack a day for smokers..
  • 1950: LITIGATION: P. Lorillard Co. v. FTC. Lorillard had launched a national campaign claiming a 1942 Consumer Reports article showed Old Golds was "lowest in nicotine and tars". While technically true, the point of the article was that differences in tar and nicotine were insignificant when it came to the harmfulness of all cigarettes. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding the FTC's cease-and-desist order, declares that Lorillard's advertising violated the FTC Act because, by printing only a small part of the article, it created an entirely false and misleading impression. "To tell less than the whole truth is a well-known method of deception," the court ruled. (CC) Along with other protracted- FTC censures against tobacco company ad claims of the 30s and 40s, the action was too little too late. The Consumers Union Report on Smoking and the Public Interest (1963) said, "Like astronomers studying stars millions of light years away, the FTC commissioners were constantly coming to conclusions about phenomena that were no longer in existence."
  • 1950: FRANCE: Le Musée d’Intérêt National du Tabac (National Museum of Tobacco) is established. http://www.france-tabac.com/musee.htm

  • 1951: Consumers in many countries now spend from 3 to 5 per cent of their total income on tobacco products, American delegate John B. Hutson tells the World Tobacco Congress. Mr. Hutson, president of Tobacco Associates, Inc., of Washington, D.C., said in a "General Economic Survey" that "the average per capita consumption for all countries has increased slightly during the past 20 years."
  • 1951-10-15: MEDIA: TV series "I Love Lucy" begins its run at 9:00 PM. It is sponsored by Philip Morris. The animated titles that open the show each week feature stick figures of Lucy and Desi climbing a giant pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. It is the top-rated show for four of its first six full seasons.
  • 1951: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tip brand, emphasizing taste.

  • 1952: UK: "The Great London Smog." 12,000 people are thought to have died from respiratory disease caused by the pollution. See, "The Big Smoke," at http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/smog/ (U. of London)
  • 1952: USA: Federal Trade Commission slaps Philip Morris on wrist concerning claims about Di-Gl reducing irritation. (LB)
  • 1952: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Kent cigarettes, with the "Micronite" filter. At the press conference at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Lorillard boasted that the "Micronite" filter offered "the greatest health protection in cigarette history." Its secret: asbestos.
  • 1952: ADVERTISING: Lorillard: "Kent and only Kent has the Micronite filter, made of a pure, dust-free, completely harmless material that is not only effective but so safe that it actually is used to help filter the air in operating rooms of leading hospitals." (Life Magazine)
  • 1952: ADVERTISING: Lorillard: Kent: "No other cigarette approaches such a degree of health protection and taste satisfaction"
  • 1952: BUSINESS: Hollingsworth & Vose gets 100% indemnity agreement from Lorillard on filters.
  • 1952: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers widely publicizes the results of tests run by Arthur D. Little, Inc. showing that "smoking Chesterfields would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs." The ads run, among other places on the nationally popular Arthur Godfiey radio and television show.
  • 1952-09: READER'S DIGEST republishes Roy Norr's "Cancer by the Carton" article (December, 1952) from the October, 1952 Christian Herald. Norr was the publisher of possibly the first modern anti-smoking periodical, the "Norr Newsletter about Smoking and Health" (NYC)


  • 1953: HEALTH: Dr. Ernst L. Wynder's landmark report finds that painting cigarette tar on the backs of mice creates tumors. This was the first successful induction of cancer in a lab animal with a tobacco product, the first definitive biological link between smoking and cancer.
  • 1953: BUSINESS: Benson & Hedges' Parliament sales are skyrocketing due to its filter, though sales are still well behind the major companies' products: B&W's Viceroy, and Lorillard's Kent.
  • 1953: BUSINESS: PR firm Burson-Marsteller is established.
  • 1953: BUSINESS: UK: The house of Benson and Hedges joins Gallaher Limited.
  • 1953: ADVERTISING: AMA bans cigarette ads in its publications.
  • 1953: ADVERTISING: Liggett: L&M: "Just what the doctor ordered"
  • 1953: ADVERTISING: "[Viceroy] gives double-barreled health protection."
  • 1953-12-08: HEALTH: Dr. Alton Ochsner gives a speech in NYC, saying, "the male population of the United States would be decimated if cigarette smoking increases as it has in the past unless some steps are taken to remove the cancer-producing factor from cigarettes." Tobacco stocks drop 1 to 4 points the next day. This speech is considered by some the last straw, which led tobacco executives join together and to seek out John Hill.
  • 1953-12-10,11: BUSINESS: In response to an urgent telegram from Paul Hahn (ATC), cigarette executives meet in New York City for first time since price-fixing scandal of 1939, and agree to consult with John Hill.
  • 1953-12-15: BUSINESS: Tobacco Execs Plan Counterattack on Smoking Studies. Plaza Hotel, New York City: Tobacco executives meet to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes. Participants included John Hill of Hill & Knowlton, his key aides, and the following tobacco company presidents: Paul D. Hahn (ATC), O. Parker McComas (PM), Joseph F. Cullman (B&H), J. Whitney Peterson, U.S. Tobacco Co. Here's the text of BACKGROUND MATERIAL ON THE CIGARETTE INDUSTRY CLIENT, the H&K memo covering the meeting, and here's the document in .pdf format, Minnesota Trial Exhibit 18905
  • 1953-12-28: BUSINESS: Hill meets again with tobacco execs to report on his initial study of the smoking and health problem.

  • 1954: Doll and Hill publish The Mortality of Doctors and Their Smoking Habits, in the BMJ; it leads to most doctors giving up smoking
  • 1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris (Australia) Ltd. is set up as PM's first major affiliate outside the U.S.
  • 1954: Cigarette companies sponsor ad disputing evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. (Source: Chronology Of Major Events In Cigarette Smoking, Marketing, And Health , Bates #2025019398)
  • 1954: Don Cooley, in the process of writing an article for True Magazine, is contacted by Hill and Knowlton. "Considerable information and assistance was provided Donald G. Cooley in the preparation for his story in True Magazine. This entailed conferences with the author to work on factual revisions. . . Further research and assembling of material and personal conferences have been extended Mr. Cooley to provide him requested aid in his writing of a 48-page, low-priced book for newsstand sales and angled at the idea "You don't have to give up smoking." Fawcett Publications is issuing the book entitled 'Smoke Without Fear' , in late August and early September. " Report of Activities through July 31, 1954
  • 1954: AGRICULTURE: HURRICAINE HAZEL devastates tobacco-growing areas of North Carolina.
  • 1954: LITIGATION: PRITCHARD VS. LIGGETT & MYERS: (dropped by plaintiff 12 years later).
  • 1954-06-07: LITIGATION: EVA COOPER files first tobacco lawsuit; sues R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO COMPANY for her husband's death from lung cancer. He had smoked Camels.
    Mrs. Cooper's complaint alleged her husband, Joseph, who had died of lung cancer, "to his detriment relied on advertisements doctors considered its cigarettes healthful and that its cigarettes were harmless to the respiratory system." She sought to recover damages for pain and suffering and death of her husband.
    The document which follows, a decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, on May 24, 1956, overturned an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts which dismissed the earlier, rewritten complaint.
    "[T]he defendant filed certain interrogatories with reference to allegations in Counts V and VIII that Joseph Cooper had relied upon representations in certain newspaper advertisements and television and radio broadcasts to the effect that "20,000 doctors say that 'Camel' cigarettes are healthful" and that such cigarettes "are harmless to the respiratory system". The interrogatories requested the plaintiff to state, as to each such representation upon which Joseph Cooper relied, the name and date of the newspaper publication and the name and date and identification of the television and radio programs. In response to these interrogatories, the plaintiff answered that the earliest newspaper advertisement upon which Cooper relied was published in the Boston Globe on or about March 12, 1951, and repeated in advertisements thereafter, to the effect that a nationwide survey indicated that "More Doctors Smoke CAMELS than any other cigarette." . . . On November 21, 1957, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment accompanied by an affidavit by the chairman of the board of directors of the defendant company and by an affidavit by the president of the defendant's advertising agency. The latter affidavit read in part: "No copy for advertisement of any kind for Camel Cigarettes was furnished for publication by any newspaper or other publication or by radio or television during said period [19511953] containing the words '20,000 doctors say that "Camel" Cigarettes are healthful' or '"Camel" Cigarettes are harmless to the respiratory system', or containing other words with the same meaning." No opposing affidavits were filed by the plaintiff.

     

    It is apparent from the uncontradicted affidavits, and from the plaintiff's answers to defendant's interrogatories, that there was no genuine issue of fact properly to be submitted to a jury, and therefore that the trial judge committed no error in entering a summary judgment for the defendant as permitted by Rule 56, F.R.C.P. 168 F.Supp. 22. This is entirely apart from the fact that our credulity would indeed be strained by an assumption that a fatal case of lung cancer could have developed in such a short period after the alleged smoking by Cooper of Camel cigarettes in reliance upon representations by the defendant in the various forms of advertising."
    http://www.tobacco.org/resources/documents/560524cooper.html

  • 1954: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tips brand, emphasizing taste, not health.
  • 1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys Benson & Hedges, and in the bargain gets its president, Joseph Cullman III
  • 1954: ADVERTISING: Life Magazine runs ads for L&M featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell giving testimonials for the brand's new "miracle product," the "alpha cellulose" filter that is "just what the doctor ordered." These ads will figure prominently in the Cipollone trial 30 years later.
  • 1954: ADVERTISING: Marlboro Cowboy created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett. "Delivers the Goods on Flavor" ran the slogan in newspaper ads. Design of the campaign credited to John Landry of PM. At the time Marlboro had one quarter of 1% of the American market.
  • 1954-01-04: BUSINESS: Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) announced in a nationwide 2-page ad, A FRANK STATEMENT TO CIGARETTE SMOKERS
    The ads were placed in 448 newspapers across the nation, reaching a circulation of 43,245,000 in 258 cities.
    TIRC's first scientific director was noted cancer scientist Dr. Clarence Cook Little, former head of the National Cancer Institute (soon to become the American Cancer Society). Little's life work lay in the genetic origins of cancer; he tended to disregard environmental factors.
    In 1964, the TIRC will change its name to the Council for Tobacco Research-USA, Inc. ("CTR").
  • 1954-02: UK: Health Minister Iain Macleod, finally meets the press in regards to the Doll/Hill studies. He emphasises that the evidence is statistical only, thanks Doll and Hill for ‘what little information we have’ - and chain-smokes throughout the proceedings. He also announced that the tobacco industry had given £250,000 for research to the MRC. The press reported the uncertainty and the industry’s generosity. ("40 Years Later," RCP)
  • 1954-03-10: LITIGATION: St. Louis factory worker Ira C. Lowe files a suit, the first product liability action brought against a tobacco company. PHILIP MORRIS hired DAVID R. HARDY to defend the company against a lawsuit brought by a Missouri smoker who had lost his larynx to cancer. This case was the beginning of PM's association with SHOOK, HARDY & BACON. The case was won in 1962; the jury deliberated one hour
  • 1954-03-24: BUSINESS: RJR's first filter, Winston, is launched.
  • 1954-04: BUSINESS: TIRC releases A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE CIGARETTE CONTROVERSY, a booklet quoting 36 scientists questioning smoking's link to health problems.
    (The booklet) was sent to 176,800 doctors, general practitioners and specialists . . . (plus) deans of medical and dental colleges . . . a press distribution of 15,000 . . . 114 key publishers and media heads . . . . days in advance, key press, network, wire services and columnist contacts were alerted by phone and in person . . . and . . . hand-delivered (with) special placement to media in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. The story was carried by hundreds of papers and radio stations throughout the country . . . . staff-written stories (were) developed with the help of Hill & Knowlton, Inc. field offices. (Hill & Knowlton memo, May 3, 1954.)
  • 1954-07-26: PROPAGANDA: NCI Dr. W.C. Hueper's talk, "Environmental Cancer of the Lung," is given at the VIth International Cancer Congress in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Hill & Knowlton, having received an advance copy of Dr. W.C. Hueper's talk, and finding it favorable to their cigarette clients, deploy the 17 page text, with 2 pages of highlights and a cover letter, to newspapers and services, science writers, editorial writers and feature writers.
    [Note: Wilhelm Hueper had been through years of battling corporate interests over water, air and occupational pollution; while recognizing the evidence for smoking-related causation, he felt these issues could be slighted by an over-emphasis on smoking. He reportedly refused a $250,000 a year offer from the Tobacco Institute.]
  • 1954-10: PROPAGANDA: Reprints of condensed version of Hueper paper appear in CURRENT MEDICAL DIGEST, October 1954. The magazine reaches 123,000 doctors who are in active practice.
  • 1954-10: LITIGATION: Pritchard v. L&M filed in Federal District Court, Pennsylvania Lung cancer
  • 1954-11: LITIGATION: Ross v. PM filed in Federal District Court, Missouri Laryngeal cancer

  • 1955: Dorn and Baum (NIH) 6-year (1946 - 1952) study of the mortality rates of 11,000 American Tobacco Co. employees is published in the Journal of Industrial Medicine and Surgery. (Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, "Draft 1: Corporate Activity Project") (pp 109-110))
  • 1955: BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces a flip-top box.
  • 1955: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Incorporated becomes the company's corporate name.
  • 1955: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Independent of its Research Department, ATC President Robert Karl Heimann participated in the last two parts of a five-party epidemiological study of American Tobacco Co.'s own employees. The five parts were described as follows:
  • 1955: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco is still #1 in US, with 33% of the market. Philip Morris is sixth.
  • 1955: TV: CBS' "See It Now" airs first TV show linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer and other diseases. (For the first time on TV, Edward R. Murrow is not seen smoking. He had not quit; he felt it was "too late" to stop. Murrow died of lung cancer in 1965.)
  • 1955: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 30, switches from Chesterfield to L&Ms.)
  • 1955-08: LITIGATION: Lartigue v. L&M/RJR filed in Federal District Court, Louisiana Laryngeal cancer
  • 1955-09: REGULATION: FTC publishes rules prohibiting health references in cigarette advertising; references to the "throat, larynx, lungs, nose, or other parts of the body" or to "digestion, energy, nerves, or doctors."

  • 1956: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate among white males is 31.0 in 100,000, resulting in 29,000 deaths.
  • 1956: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard discontinues use of "Micronite" filter in its Kent cigarettes.
  • 1956: BUSINESS: RJR introduces Salem, the first filter-tipped menthol cigarette.
  • 1956: BUSINESS: BAT acquires overseas business of Benson & Hedges.


  • 1957: PEOPLE: DR. EVARTS GRAHAM dies of lung cancer. He wrote to DR. ALTON OCHSNER 2 weeks before his death, "Because of your long friendship, you will be interested in knowing that they found that I have cancer in both my lungs. As you know I stopped smoking several years ago but after having smoked much as I did for years, too much damage had been done."
  • 1957: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires Milprint and Nicolet Paper Co. of Milwaukee--it's first non-tobacco purchase.
  • 1957: BUSINESS: Joseph Cullman, III, becomes president of Philip Morris
  • 1957: BUSINESS: UK: Gallaher launches "Your Never alone with a Strand" TV commercial. The lonely soul walking rain-swept streets with a turned-up collar telegraphs to viewers what a sad person he is. While everyone remembers and admires the moody ad, no one wants to identify with the protagonist; the brand dies. A famous disaster.
  • 1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower talks at a press conference about his battle to quit smoking after suffering a heart attack. "I'm a little like the fellow who said I don't know whether I'll start again, but I'll never stop again."
  • 1957: UK: The Medical Research Council (MRC) accepts smoking/lung cancer link. The Minister of Health announces that the Government accepts the evidence now - while he smokes a cigarette. MRC also isues a statement that air pollution does play a role in lung cancer, but it is a "relateively minor one in comparison with cigarette smoking." In December of 2002, Virginia Berridge said secret papers reveal that the cabinet committe on lung cancer feared that the the statement was modified to downplay the role of air pollution to save the government embarrassment.
  • 1957-07-12: First Surgeon General declares link between smoking and lung cancerl. SG Leroy E. Burney issues "Joint Report of Study Group on Smoking and Health," stating that, "prolonged cigarette smoking was a causative factor in the etiology of lung cancer," the first time the Public Health Service had taken a position on the subject. Burney had put the study group together in 1955, with the help of NCI, NHI, ACS and AHA.
  • 1957-03: MEDIA: READERS DIGEST article links smoking with lung cancer, discloses that the tar and nicotine yields of the filter brands had been rising steadily for several years and now approximated the level of the older and presumably more hazardous unfiltered brands. (RK)
  • 1957-07: MEDIA: READERS DIGEST article rates tar/nicotine levels. RJR's filterless Camel, for example, yielded 31 mg. of tar and 2.8 mg. of nicotine per cigarette compared with 32.6 mg. and 2.6 mg. per Winston. Marlboro has one of the worst; in response, Leo Burnett goes into 2 years of the unsuccessful "settleback" campaign--Marlboro men in relaxed poses.
  • 1957: MEDIA: Ad agency BBDO drops READERS DIGEST over tobacco article.
    --NYT, April 7, 1988; Advertising; RJR Flap Not the First In Cigarette Ad History By Philip H. Dougherty
  • 1957: REGULATION: Pope Pius XII suggests that the Jesuit order give up smoking.
  • 1957: REGULATION: Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is amended. The manufacturer must bear the burden of demonstrating the product is safe and effective. Products previously on the market, those "generally recognized among experts as safe," or "natural constituents of food" are exempt.
  • 1957-03-01: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: At the cooperative British tobacco industry Tobacco Research Council laboratory at Harrogate, an internal report by Batco refers to cancer by the code name, zephyr: "As a result of several statistical surveys, the idea has arisen that there is a causal relation between zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking,"
  • 1957: HEALTH: The British Medical Research Council issues "Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of Lung," which states that "... a major part of the increase [in lung cancer] is associated with tobacco smoking, particularly in the form of cigarettes" and that "the relationship is one of direct cause and effect."
  • 1957: HEALTH: PREGNANCY: In the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Winea J. Simpson asked what effects smoking might have on the unborn child. The incidence of premature births and of all the complications that go with prematurity was twice as great for smoking mothers as it was for nonsmoking mothers. Simpson's paper confirmed that children of smokers are not only born early, but also weigh less and are more likely to be stillborn or die within one month of birth. (ASG)
  • 1957-07: REGULATION: Sen. Bennett (R-UT) introduces bill requiring cigarette packs carry label, "Warning: Prolonged use of this product may result in cancer, in lung, heart and circulatory ailments, and in other diseases." [Bates 03553092]
  • 1957-07: REGULATION: BLATNIK REPORT: The Blatnik hearings are the first testimony presented to Congress on smoking and health. The hearings center on whether the FTC should regulate advertising claims of filtered cigarettes. John A. Blatnik (D-MN) was chairman of the Legal and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee. After hearing that filtered cigarettes deliver about as much tar and nicotine as unfiltered due to the stronger tobaccos used, the subcommitte moves to grant the FTC injunctive powers over deceptive cigarette advertising. The Blatnik Report concludes, "The cigarette manufacturers have deceived teh American public through their advertising of cigarettes." Shortly after the report is issued, Blatnik is stripped of his chairmanship and his subcommittee is dissolved.
  • 1957-12: LITIGATION: Green v. American Tobacco Co. Filed. The case will not conclude until 1970--12 years after Green's death.

  • 1958 (approx): Haag (MCV) and Hanmer (American) update of the Dorn-Baum study of American Tobacco Co. employee mortality rates for the period 1953 to 1956 is published in the Journal of industrial Medicine and Surgery.
  • 1958: Roy Norr and the Reverend Ben-David found The Reporter On Smoking And Health newsletter
  • 1958: BUSINESS: Tobacco Institute Formed
  • 1958: ADVERTISING: British Medical Journal stops carrying tobacco advertising. It is unclear when The Lancet stops carrying tobacco ads--some time between 1953 and 1961. Bartrip, P. "Pushing the Weed:The Editorializing and Advertising of Tobacco in the Lancet and the British Medical journal, 1880-1958"
  • 1958: DOCUMENTS: Senior PM scientist J.E. Lincoln writes to Ross Millhiser, then-Philip Morris vice president and later vice chairman: "This compound [benzopyrene] must be removed from Marlboro and Parliament or sharply reduced. We do this not because we think it is harmful but simply because those who are in a better position to know than ourselves suspect it may be harmful." Four months later he wrote "that law and morality coincided . . . Act on the doctrine of uncertainty and get the benzpyrene (sic), etc., out of the cigarettes." Lincoln later became PM vice president of research. (AP)
  • 1958-02-20: REGULATION: Blatnik Commission report is delivered to Congress. "The cigarette manufacturers have deceived the American public through their advertising of filter-tip cigarettes . . . Without specifically claiming that the filter tip removes the agents alleged to contribute to heart disease or lung cancer, the advertising has emphasized such claims as 'clean smoking,' 'snowy white,' 'pure,' 'miracle tip,' '20,000 filter traps,' 'gives you more of what you changed to a filter for' and other phrases implying health protection, when actually most filter cigarettes produce as much or more nicotine and tar as cigarettes without filters. . . The Federal Trade Commission has failed in its statutory duty to 'prevent deceptive acts or practices' in filter-cigarette advertising."
    False And Misleading Advertising (Filter-tip Cigarettes). Twentieth Report By The Committee On Government Operations
    Very shortly afterwards, Blatnik's commission was unceremoniously dissolved.
  • 1958-06: DOCUMENTS: "REPORT ON VISIT TO U.S.A. AND CANADA," 17th of April to 12th May 1958," by H. R. Bentley, D. G. I. Felton, and W. W. Reid, produced by B.A.T. Company, Ltd. 3 British-American Tobacco Co. scientists, after visiting the United States and discussing smoking research with 35 tobacco industry scientists and officials, write: "With one exception (H.S.N. Greene), the individuals whom we met believed that smoking causes lung cancer if by 'causation' we mean any chain of events which leads finally to lung cancer and which involves smoking as an indispensable link. In the U.S.A. only Berkson, apparently, is now prepared to doubt the statistical evidence and his reasoning is nowhere thought to be sound."

  • 1959-11: HEALTH: Dr Burney publishes an article in JAMA confirming the position of the Public Health Service on cigarettes' causitive relation to lung cancer. According to Luther Terry, "Still, the subject received little scientifc and public attention."
  • 1959-Fall: The "Vanguard Issue." Vanguard was a tobaccoless smoke introduced in the Fall of 1959. The product's creator, Bantop Products Corporation of Bay Shore, Long Island, immediately ran into problems advertising it. Bantop claimed the tobacco industry conspired to prevent its "Now Smoke Without Fear" ads. In the New York metropolitan area, for example, only one newspaper would accept the ads. (ASG)
  • 1959: Industry pressures the New York City Transit Authority to order Reader's Digest to remove from the subways ads promoting an article titled "The Growing Horror of Lung Cancer."

    The Sixties
    By now, the distribution of free cigarettes at annual medical and public health meetings has stopped.
  • 1960: LEGISLATION: FEDERAL HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES LABELING ACT (FHSA) of 1960 Authorized FDA to regulate substances that are hazardous (either toxic, corrosive, irritant, strong sensitizers, flammable, or pressure-generating). Such substances may cause substantial personal injury or illness during or as a result of customary use.
  • 1960: BUSINESS: Pall Mall becomes the nation's top-selling brand. It's reign runs from 1960 to 1966.
  • 1960-01: LEGISLATION: FTC tells cigarette manufacturers to stop "tar derby" advertising and cease referring to improved health effects of filters. (Bates # 03553092)

  • 1960-04-04: LITIGATION: Pritchard v. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company begins. When it was time to deliberate, Federal Judge John L. Miller tells the jury, "The court is of the opinion that no substantial evidence has been offered to support a verdict against the defendant on any theory of negligence, and that fair-minded men could not differ as to the conclusions of fact to be drawn from the evidence... The jury is directed to find a verdict in favor of the defendant Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, and against the plaintiff, Otto E. Pritchard." The case was sent back to Miller on appeal. The jury found on November 9, 1962 that the smoking of Chesterfields was the cause of or one of the causes of cancer in Pritchard's right lung, but denied damages to Pritchard on the assumption of risk theory.
  • 1960: Bernays Repents. ASH praises Bernays for his efforts to inform the public about the dangers of smoking. Bernays writes, "had I known in 1928 what I know today I would have refused [George Washington] Hill's offer."
  • 1960:08:02: LITIGATION: Green v. American Tobacco Co. Decision. Lawyer/Doctor Larry Hastings is first to win a liability suit against tobacco for causing death. Miami Federal District Judge Emett Choate asked the jury to consider (1) Was cancer primary in the lung? (2) Did this cause his death? (3) Did the smoking of Lucky Strikes cause his cancer death? In all three instances, the 12-man jury voted "yes." The fourth interrogatory asked, "Did the cigarette company have knowledge of the harmfulness?" The jury said, "no." Therefore, no money was awarded. In retrial, judge tells jury to side with defendant if the product did not endanger an important number of smokers. Jury does.
  • 1960-10: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Lartigue v. L&M/RJR.

  • 1961: HISTORY: The Tobacco Institute stages a celebration of the 350th anniversary of America's first tobacco crop. The festival features Pocahontas and a cigar-smoking John Rolfe.
  • 1961-06-01: POLITICS: The presidents of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association submit a joint letter to President Kennedy, pointing out the increasing evidence of the health hazards of smoking and urging the President to establish a commission. The result will be the landmark 1964 SG report.
  • 1961: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Overseas Division is renamed Philip Morris International.

  • 1962: US imposes economic embargo on Cuba.
  • 1962-03-07: UK: First Report of the British Royal College of Physicians of London: Smoking and Health,.
  • 1962: STATISTICS: Per-capita consumption of cigarettes stands at 12 per day among adult Americans
  • 1962: LEGISLATION: KEFAUVER-HARRIS DRUG AMENDMENTS TO THE FOOD, DRUG AND COSMETICS ACT requires that drugs must be proven effective and safe before sold and manufacturers are to registered with the FDA.
  • 1962: Bob Newhart Satirizes Sir Walter Raleigh. "The Bob Newhart Show" played on NBC- briefly. In one episode, Newhart played an Englishman getting a phone call from Sir Walter Raleigh in the Americas. The Sir Walter Raleigh bit is preserved on a record album. From: http://www.bob-newhart.com/Frames/comedy.html:
  • 1962: BUSINESS: Philip Morris begins picturing a cowboy in scenes depicting recognizable American landmarks, with the new slogan, "Marlboro Country."
  • 1962:01: SG Luther Terry submits to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Abraham A. Ribicoff, a formal proposal for the establishment of an Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health to report to the Surgeon General.
  • 1962:06: Surgeon General Luther Terry announces the formation of the Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health.
  • 1962:06: LEGISLATION: Sen. Moss (D-UT) introduces a measure to give the FDA the power to police content, advertising and labeling of cigarettes.
  • 1962-07: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Ross v. PM
  • 1962-07-27: Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health chosen by representatives from government, medicine and tobacco. From Luther Terry:
      On July 27, 1962 my staff and I met with representatives of the various medical associations and volunteer organizations, the Tobacco Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission, and the President's Office of Science and Technology. These representatives were given a list of 150 eminent biomedical scientists (none of whom had taken a major public position on the subject of smoking and health) from which we expected to appoint a committee of about ten members. The attendees were given the opportunity to delete from the list anyone to whom they objected, and they were not required to give reasons for their objection.
  • 1962-11: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Pritchard v. L&M (and agin in 1968)
  • 1962-11-09: The 10 members of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health have first meeting.

  • 1963: LEGISLATION: FDA expressed its interpretation that tobacco did not fit the "hazardous" criteria stated of the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (FHSA) of 1960, and withheld recommendations pending the release of the report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health.
  • 1963: LITIGATION: 7 tobacco liability suits are filed
  • 1963-08: LITIGATION: Zagurski v. American Tobacco filed in Federal District Court, Connecticut Lung cancer
  • 1963: LITIGATION: KC, MO. Local, 20-lawyer firm, Shook Hardy Bacon, wins John Ross case (filed in 1954) for Philip Morris. SHB goes on to become virtually synonymous with tobacco litigation.
  • 1963: BUSINESS: Philip Morris dispenses with tattooed sailors, et. al., and settles on the cowboy as the sole avatar of the Marlboro Man, featuring him exclusively in scenes of the American West.
  • 1963: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys the Odells' Burma-Vita (Burma Shave) and absorbs it into its American Safety Razor division. PM discontinues the roadside signage in favor of NFL football TV ads. By 1966, virtually all 7,000 sets of signs had disappeared; many lamented the loss of this unique Americana.Philip Morris sells the division to an investor group in 1977.
  • 1963-07-17: LITIGATION: B&W's General Counsel ADDISON YEAMAN writes in a memo, "Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms." Yeaman was concerned about the upcoming Surgeon General's report, and was writing of "the so-called 'beneficial effects of nicotine': 1) enhancing effect on the pituitary-adrenal response to stress; 2) regulation of body weight."
  • 1963: INDONESIA: PT Hanjaya Mandala (HM) Sampoerna is established
  • 1963: Consumers Union's "Report on Smoking and the Public Interest"

  • 1964: STATISTICS: There are 70 million smokers in the US, and tobacco is an $8 Billion/year industry. (Joseph Ben-David, Reporter on Smoking and Health, April-May, 1963)
  • 1964: BUSINESS: MARKET SHAREE: Pall Mall, the nation's top-selling brand, captures nearly 15 percent of the market.
  • 1964-01-11: 1st Surgeon General's Report linking smoking and lung cancer: Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service
    • See the CDC's History of the 1964 Surgeon General's ReportSee the full list of SG reports here
  • 1964-01: REGULATION: Sen. Maurine Neuberger (D-OR) introduces bill giving FTC authority to regulate cigarette advertising and labeling. Also, the FTC begins rule-making to require health warrning on cigarette packs and in advertising. (Bates # 03553093)
  • 1964: LITIGATION: 17 tobacco liability suits are filed
  • 1964: Tobacco industry writer suggests tobacco control advocates have psychiatric certification that they are not sufering from pyrophobia and suppressed fear of the 'big fire' or atom bomb
  • 1964: BUSINESS: LIGGETT Joins TIRC
  • 1964: BUSINESS: TIRC changes its name to the Council for Tobacco Research-USA, Inc. ("CTR").
  • 1964: BUSINESS: MARLBORO Country ad campaignbegins featuring the slogan, "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country." Marlboro sales begin growing at 10% a year.
  • 1964: JAPAN: Emperor Hirohito begins the tradition of giving out cigarettes to his staff on his birthday.
  • 1964: National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health, the first national antismoking coalition, is formed.
  • 1964-02-07: The AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN accepts a $10 million grant for tobacco research from six cigarette companies. The AMA shelves its previous plans to issue a report on smoking's relationship to cancer; the official AMA word on smoking and health won't be issued for another 10 years.
  • 1964-02-28: The AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN supports the tobacco industry's objection to labeling cigarets as a health hazard, writes in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, "More than 90 million persons in the United States use tobacco in some form, and, of these 72 million use cigarets... the economic lives of tobacco growers, processors, and merchants are entwined in the industry; and local, state, and the federal governments are recipients of and dependent upon many millions of dollars of tax revenue."
  • 1964-03-19: Rep. FRANK THOMPSON Jr. (D-NJ) charges that the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN has entered into a deal with tobacco-state congressmen to gain their votes against Medicare.
  • 1964-06-23: Rep. Orem Harris, chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, begins hearings on warning labels.
  • 1964-09-10 to 10-15: BUSINESS: Sir PHILIP ROGERS and GEOFFREY TODD, senior officials of the BRITISH RESEARCH COUNCIL arrive in US on month-long fact-finding tour. Their reports will not be seen by the public until 10/2/96.

  • 1965: CONSUMPTION: 51.9% of men are smokers; 33.9% of women are smokers. (SG report "Women and Smoking," CDC, 2002) 29.6 percent of people who had ever smoked had quit as of 1965.
  • 1965: TOBACCO CONTROL: Public Health Services (PHS) establishes the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health.
  • 1965: TOBACCO CONTROL: UK: Parliament bans cigarette advertising on TV.
  • 1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: TIRC sets up secretive, lawyer-directed SPECIAL PROJECTS division.
  • 1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PREGNANCY: A study by the TIRC finds that pregnant women who smoke have smaller babies and are more likely to give birth prematurely.
  • 1965: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: B&W's "PROJECT JANUS" begins issuing scientific reports on the health effects of smoking, about 30 substantial reports by 1978.
  • 1965: BUSINESS: The tobacco industry's Cigarette Advertising Code, announced in the Spring of 1964 to minimize the FTC's ad restrictions, takes effect. Drawn up by the Policy Committee of Lawyers, its administrator is respected ex-NJ-governor Robert B. Meyner, who was given authority to fine violators up to $100,000. The code banned advertising and marketing directed mainly at those under 21 years old, and ended advertising and promotion in school and college publications. No violations or fines were ever levied
  • 1965-08-01: UK: Government bans cigarette advertisements on TV
  • 1965: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American's share of the market sank from 35% in 1965 to 17.8% in 1971. By 1978 they were down to 12%.
  • 1965: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the follwoing Surgeon General's Warning on the side of cigarette packs: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." . .
  • 1965-05: LITIGATION: Weaver v. AT filed in State Court, Missouri Lung cancer

  • 1965-07-31: UK: Cigarette advertising on British TV is banned.
  • 1965-09: BUSINESS: JAPAN: Japan Tobacco begins providing free cigarettes to elderly residents of nursing homes on the "Respect for the Aged Day" holiday. The practice becomes a tradition.
  • 1965-12-17: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: CTR's Ad Hoc Cmte sets priorities; Alvan R. Feinstein is awarded $5,600 CTR "Special Projects" grant.

  • 1966: Congress votes to send 600 million cigarettes to flood disaster victims in India
  • 1966: ARIZONA: Ornithologist Betty Carnes starts Arizonans Concerned About Smoking. Some consider this the beginning of the movement nationwide. Carnes is credited with convincing American Airlines to create the first non-smoking sections on airplanes in 1971, as well as Arizona's 1973 first-in-the-nation statewide smoking-control law.
  • 1966: PROPAGANDA: "It Is Safe To Smoke" by Lloyd Mallan. "The scientific facts in the smoking vs. health controversy--and a startling, straight-forward conclusion." Mallan visits scientist after scientist, all of whom tell him smoking's not really dangerous, but just in case it is--the charcoal filter (then used on Lark cigarettes) would the best protection. The dedication reads: This book is for Rose Tinker Mallan, my lovely non-smoking wife, who worries with renewed emphasis every time she reads another scare headline in the newspapers "linking" cigarette smoking with disease, and for my son Lloyd Jeffrey, who fiendishly smokes the wrong kind of cigarette.
  • 1966: BUSINESS: RJR's filter-tip Winston becomes top-selling cigarette in the US
  • 1966: FASHION: Designer Yves Saint Laurent introduces "le smoking," a tuxedo for women.
  • 1966-01-01: Health warnings on cigarette packs begin
  • 1966-05: LITIGATION: Thayer v. L&M filed in Federal District Court, Michigan Lung cancer

  • 1967: 2nd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review
  • 1967: The first attempt to market king-length cigarettes to women fails when the American Tobacco Company advertises its new Silva Thins with the slogan: "Cigarettes are like girls. The best ones are thin and rich." 25 [Lerner, S., "Tobacco Stains," Ms. , November/December 1996] Source: Mediascope http://www.mediascope.org/pubs/ibriefs/ws.htm
  • 1967: Federal Trade Commission releases the first tar and nicotine report.
  • 1967: FCC applies TV Fairness Doctrine to cigarette ads
    • Stations broadcasting cigarette commercials must donate air time to smoking prevention messages.
  • 1967: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) releases the first report on tar and nicotine yield in cigarette brands.
  • 1967: SCIENCE: Dr. Auerbach gives 86 beagles tracheotomies in order to pump smoke into their lungs.
  • 1967: BUSINESS: Philip Morris reorganizes its corporate structure to create Philip Morris Inc. and three operating companies: Philip Morris Domestic; Philip Morris International; and Philip Morris Industrial.
  • 1967: BUSINESS: Joseph F. Cullman, 3rd, is appointed chairman and CEO of Philip Morris Inc.
  • 1967-01-16: PROPAGANDA: Hawthorne Books publishes "It Is Safe to Smoke."
  • 1967-02-28: PROPAGANDA: Dehart Hill & Knowlton hold a press conference for Lloyd Mallan's "It _Is_ Safe to Smoke" Bates # 502643635
  • 1967-06: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Zagurski v. American Tobacco
  • 1967-10: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: "Tobacco Abstracts," a trade publication which offers relevant citations and abstracts to world literature on nicotiana drops the section titled "Health". The announcement was as follows: "(NOTE: Health section will be omitted from now on.)" No further information was offered. (LB)
  • 1967: PROPAGANDA: "It Is Safe To Smoke" by Lloyd Mallan is taken off the market by Hawthorne publishing after the initiation of a congressional investigation into allegations the book was financed by the tobacco industry.

  • 1968: 3rd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1968 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review
  • 1968: NCI Monograph No. 28: Effect of filter cigarettes on lung cancer risk. Toward a Less Harmful Cigarette. Bross, I.D. Wynder, E.L., Hoffmann, D. (Editors.).
  • 1968. LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 43, switches from L&M to Virginia Slims and Parliaments.
  • 1968. TOBACCO CONTROL: Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is formed to serve as a legal action arm for the smoking prevention community. (CDC)
  • 1968. BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Virginia Slims brand, aimed at women
  • 1968: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Domestic changes its name to Philip Morris U.S.A.
  • 1968: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. operating revenues top $1 billion.
  • 1968. BUSINESS: American Tobacco begins buying into Britain's Gallaher's
  • 1968. BUSINESS: 'Bravo', the attempt to create a non-tobacco based (lettuce based) cigarette, fails (World Tobacco, 1968, p1) (LB)
  • 1968. MOTOR SPORTS: Colin Chapman's Team Lotus becomes the first Formula One team to accept tobacco sponsorship.
  • 1968-02: PAKISTAN: Pakistan Tobacco Board is established through an ordinance (Pakistan Tobacco Board Ordinance No: 1 of 1968), to promote the cultivation of tobacco, manufacture and export of tobacco and tobacco products .
  • 1968-01: PROPAGANDA: "To Smoke or Not to Smoke--That Is Still the Question," by Stanley Frank, a widely read sports writer, appears in True Magazine. To call the public's attention to the article, the Industry ran a contemporaneous ad in 72 markets, announcing the article's publication. On March 3,, a similar but shorter article appeared in the National Enquirer entitled "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk / 70,000,000 Smokers Falsely Alarmed." written by "Charles Golden" (a fictitious name commonly used by the Enquirer.) The real author was Stanley Frank. Two million reprints of the True Magazine article were distributed to physicians, scientists, journalists, government officials, and other opinion leaders with a small card which stated, "As a leader in your profession and community, you will be interested in reading this story from the January issue of True Magazine about one of today's controversial issues. -- THE EDITORS" The actual sender was the TI, through Tiderock.. It was subsequently disclosed through investigations by Wall St. Journal reporter Ronald Kessler and the FTC that author Frank had been paid $500 to write the article, by Joseph Field, a public relations professional working for Brown and Williamson. [Frank also received $2,000 for the article from True.] Brown and Williamson reimbursed Field for that amount. By the time the True article was published, Frank was an employee of Hill and Knowlton.
  • 1968-03-03: PROPAGANDA: National Enquirer publishes "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk".
  • 1968-10: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Pritchard v. L&M

  • 1969: 4th Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1969 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review Confirms link between maternal smoking and low birth weight
  • 1969: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, which amends the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act to require the following warning: "The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health." The 1969 act also includes the phrase: "(b) No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act." This proviso helps absolve the industry in many court cases, most recently in Pennsylvania's Carter case (1/27/03).
  • 1969: Taxes: North Carolina Gov. Bob Scott, succeeds in ramming through NC's first cigarette tax: 2-cents-per-pack, the lowest in the nation.
  • 1969: SCOTUS: U.S. Supreme Court applies the Fairness Doctrine to cigarettes, giving tobacco control groups "equal time" on the air to reply to tobacco commercials
  • 1969: National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) endorses phasing out of cigarette ads on television and radio.
  • 1969: BANS: Ralph Nader asks the FAA to ban smoking on airlines as annoying and unhealthy for nonsmokers, and as a fire danger; Pan American Airlines creates the first nonsmoking section on planes; TWA and United quickly do the same.
  • 1969: REGULATION: FCC issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette ads on TV and radio. Discussions, both in Congress and in private between legislators and tobacco companies, result in cigarette advertisers agreeing to stop advertising on the air in return for a delay in controls on the sale of cigarettes.
  • 1969: BUSINESS: Philip Morris gains a controlling interest (53%) in the Miller Brewing Company (nee 1855), then only the 7th largest brewery.
  • 1969. BUSINESS: American Tobacco drops "tobacco" from parent; American Brands, Inc. is established with headquarters in Old Greenwich, CT, as parent company of American Tobacco Co.
  • 1969. BUSINESS: Reynolds Tobacco introduces "Doral" brand. It will be re-introduced in the "value" segment in 1984.
  • 1969. BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco drops "tobacco."
  • 1969. MOTOR SPORTS: WINSTON CUP racing is born when NASCAR driver Junion Johnson suggests to RJR they sponsor not just a car, but the whole show.
  • 1969: DOCUMENTS: A Philip Morris memo from researcher William Dunn to Dr. Helmut Wakeham, Philip Morris' director of research and development, warned against referring to tobacco as a drug. Dunn wrote, "I would be more cautious . . . do we really want to tout cigarette smoke as a drug? It is, of course, but there are dangerous FDA implications to having such conceptualization go beyond these walls."
  • 1969-12: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Thayer v. L&M

    The Seventies

  • 1970: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 19%.


  • 1970: BRAND CONSUMPTION:
  • 1970: CONSUMPTION: American cigar consumption peaks at about 9 billion a year.
  • 1970: LEGISLATION: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. Introduced in 1969, the legislation amends the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act to require the following warning: "The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health." The 1969 act also includes the phrase: "(b) No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act."
  • 1970: TOBACCO CONTROL: Clara Gouin founds the first GASP group in MD. Her father died of lung cancer and emphysema. The group tried to get established groups to endorse goals but was not successful.
  • 1970: TOBACCO CONTROL: World Health Organization (WHO) takes a public position against cigarette smoking. (CDC)
  • 1970: BUSINESS: Cigarette industry voluntarily agrees to display "tar" and nicotine data in all advertising.
  • 1970: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Roper Researchers tell Philip Morris, True answers on smoking habits might be difficult to elicit in the presence of parents. . . We recommend interviewing young people at summer recreation centers (at beaches, public pools, lakes, etc.)
  • 1970 (approx): INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Philip Morris purchases the Institut fur Industrielle und Biologische Forschung GmbH, or INBIFO, a biological research facility in Cologne, Germany.
  • 1970: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires the remaining 47 percent of Miller it does not own from De Rance Foundation in Milwaukee.
  • 1970: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. becomes a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.
  • 1970-02-18: Great American Smokeout is born on "Smokeout Day." Massacusetts smoker and guidance counselor Arthur P. Mullaney and some Randolph High School kids come up with the idea of setting aside one day when everyone in town would quit smoking and donate to a scholarship fund what they would have spent that day on cigarettes. The challenge soon caught on, and in 1977, the American Cancer Society sponsored the first nationwide called "The Great American Smokeout."
  • 1970-03: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: "The Mouse House Massacre" A major research project on smoking and emphysema is dismantled. Former scientist Joseph E. Bumgarner told in a deposition how he and 25 other members of Reynolds' biological research division in Winston-Salem, N.C., were abruptly ordered to surrender their notebooks to the company's legal department and then were fired. .
  • 1970-03-31: LEGISLATION: President Nixon signs a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971
  • 1970-04: LITIGATION: Tobacco wins Weaver v. AT
  • 1970: REGULATION:: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health."
  • 1970-04-01: LEGISLATION: Congress enacts the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 (passed in 1970), banning cigarette advertising on television and radio and requiring a stronger health warning on cigarette packages: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health."
  • 1970-07-01: TWA becomes first airline to offer no- smoking sections aboard every aircraft in its fleet.
  • 1970-12: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: RJR closes down its "mouse house" facility in Winston-Salem, NC..


  • 1971: 5TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1971: Surgeon General proposes a government ban on smoking in public places.
  • 1971: Helen Story founds the second GASP group in Berkeley due to problems with smoking in classrooms.
  • 1971: BUSINESS: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco becomes R.J. Reynolds Industries
  • 1971: UNITED AIRLINES is the first major carrier to establish seperate sections for smokers and nonsmokers
  • 1971: UK: Second British Royal College of Physicians of London Report: Smoking and Health Now Refers to cigarette death toll as "this present holocaust."
  • 1971: UK: Cigarette Smoking and Health--Report by an Interdepartmental Group of Officials finds that, all things considered, tobacco use brings in more money than it costs in health and disability. Report is unknown to the public until the Guardian publishes an account on May 6, 1980.
  • 1971: SPORTS: RJR sponsorship of NASCAR's NASCAR Grand National Division begins.
  • 1971: SPORTS: Virginia Slims Tennis begins. The Women's Tennis Assn. tour will end in 1994.
  • 1971-01-02: REGULATION: TV: Cigarette ads are taken off TV and radio as Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 takes effect. Broadcast industry loses c. $220 Million in ads (Ad Age, "History of TV Advertising"). The last commercial on US TV is a Virginia Slims ad, aired at 11:59 PM on the Johnny Carson Tonight show, Jan. 1, 1971. See stills at: http://www.batnet.com/ghostship/VS/VS_TV_ad/comercial.html
  • 1971-01-02: TOBACCO CONTROL: With the end of tobacco ads on TV, so too end the anti-tobacco ads demanded by the Fairness Doctrine.
  • 1971-01-03: Joseph Cullman, then Chairman of the Board of Philip Morris, Inc., is interviewed on CBS' Face the Nation. The interviewers asked Cullman if he was aware of a massive study [which] showed that babies of smoking mothers were had a greater incidence of low birth weight than non-smoking mothers, that smoking mothers had an increased risk of stillbirth and infant death within 28 days of birth. Cullman said he was aware of the study and its results. He said, "Some women would prefer having smaller babies." Another exchange:, "Well, I think, Mr. Ubell, in this case your premise is wrong. I merely have to refer to the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee report; that report stated categorically that cigarettes are not addictive.
    UBELL: I didn't say that they were addictive. I said that nicotine is a drug, within the meaning of a term of drug, meaning a chemical --
    MR. CULLMAN: It's more important for the industry to take the word of the Surgeon General's committee; they said that cigarettes are not addictive. . . the Surgeon General's committee largely exonerated nicotine as a health hazard of any consequence to the public. I have to lean on that. After all, the Surgeon General's committee met for nine months or longer, and they concluded that nicotine is not a hazard to health.>
  • 1971: UK: Tobacco manufacturers voluntarily put health warnings on cigarette packs.
  • 1971-04: Cigarette manufacturers agree to put health warnings on advertisements. This agreement is later made into law.
  • 1971-12-23: Nixon Administration declares "War on Cancer"

  • 1972: 6TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General
    • Surgeon General's Report addresses "public exposure to air pollution from tobacco smoke" and danger of smoking to the unborn child.
  • 1972: LEGISLATION: Tobacco advertisements, direct mail and point-of-sale material are all required to carry health warnings
  • 1972: MIT Professor David Wilson founds MASH an affiliate of ASH.
  • 1972: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires 100 percent of Mission Viejo Company, a community development and home-building firm.
  • 1972: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc.'s revenues top $2 billion.
  • 1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro becomes the best-selling cigarette in the world
  • 1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro Lights introduced, promising lower tar and nicotine.
  • 1972: INDUSTRY SCIENCE: "In 1967, five persons in the U.S. officially died of bunions. One died of headache. One died of emotional instability!" -- Tobacco Institute Backgrounder, 5th in a series of "background papers on the smoking and health controversy." Bates # TIMN 0078551 http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/tdo/view.cfm?CitID=13981
  • 1972: DOCUMENTS: RJR research scientist Claude Teague writes in a memo, "the tobacco industry may be thought of as being a specialized, highly ritualized and stylized segment of the pharmaceutical industry." Significantly, he added that,"Tobacco products, uniquely, contain and deliver nicotine, a potent drug with a variety of physiological effects. . . Happily for the tobacco industry, nicotine is both habituating and unique in its variety of physiological actions, hence no other active material or combination of materials provides equivalent 'satisfaction..'"
  • 1972-05: BUSINESS: Tobacco Institute memorandum from Fred Panzer (VP) to TI President Horace R. Kornegay, Panzer describes the industry's strategy for defending itself in litigation, politics, and public opinion as "brilliantly conceived and executed over the years" in order to "cast doubt about the health charge" by using "variations on the theme that, `the case is not proved.'" The memorandum urges more intensive lobbying, and advocates public relations efforts to provide tobacco industry sympathizers with evidence "that smoking may not be the causal factor [in disease]." Until now, the industry has supplied symmpathizers with "too little in the way of ready-made credible alternatives."
  • 1972-05-24: DOCUMENTS: PM scientist Al Udow writes memo stating that rival brand Kool had the highest nicotine "delivery" of any king-size on the market. "This ties in with the information we have from focus group sessions and other sources that suggest that Kool is considered to be good for 'after marijuana' to maintain the 'high' or for mixing with marijuana, or 'instead." He wrote that Kool's high nicotine is a reason for its success, and that "we should pursue this thought in developing a menthol entry. . . The lessened taste resulting from the lowered tar can be masked by high menthol or other flavors. Many menthol smokers say they are not looking for high tobacco taste anyway. . . A widely held theory holds that most people smoke for the narcotic effect (relaxing, sedative) that comes from the nicotine. The 'taste comes from the 'tar' (particulate matter) delivery. . . . Although more people talk about 'taste,' it is likely that greater numbers smoke for the narcotic value that comes from the nicotine."
  • 1972-07: ADVERTISING: Ms. Magazine begins regular publication. Editors decide to accept tobacco advertising if they include health warnings. Philip Morris'brands do, but editors object to the "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" Virginia Slims campaign, as it makes smoking a symbol of women's progress. Philip Morris pulls all its brands. Gloria Steinem wrote in 1990: " Gradually, we also realize our naivete in thinking we could decide against taking cigarette ads. They became a disproportionate support of magazines the moment they were banned on television, and few magazines could compete and survive without them; certainly not Ms., which lacks so many other categories. By the time statistics in the 1980s show that women's rate of lung cancer is approaching men's the necessity of taking cigarette ads has become a kind of prison."
  • 1972-09: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Boston, MA: Gary Huber's "Tobacco and Health Research Program, aka "The Harvard Project" begins, the result of a $2.8 million grant to Harvard, the largest ever for a University. It will run until 1980, generating 239 medical publications, including 27 books and 54 peer-reviewed scientific papers ("Civil Warriors," pp. 288-89)

  • 1973: 7TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1973 Finds cigar and pipe smokers' health risks to be less than cigarette smokers, but more than nonsmokers.
  • 1973: SECRET DOCUMENTS: A Gallup poll commissioned by Philip Morris finds only 3 percent of Americans are familiar with the Surgeon General's 1964 report on the dangers of smoking.
  • 1973: SMOKEFREE POLICIES: Nixon Administration Surgeon General Dr. Jesse Steinfeld is fired after angering tobacco executives by urging restrictions on secondhand smoke.
  • 1973: SMOKEFREE POLICIES: Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) requires all airlines to create nonsmoking sections. This is the first federal restriction on smoking in public places.
  • 1973: SMOKEFREE POLICIES: Arizona becomes the first state (in modern times) to pass a comprehensive law restricting smoking in public places. The law forbids smoking in public places like elevators, libraries, indoor theaters and concert halls, and buses.
  • 1973: SMOKEFREE POLICIES: Federal Government mandates that smoking in bed be forbidden in prisons.
  • 1973: REGULATION: Congress enacts the Little Cigar Act of 1973, amending the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act to ban TV and radio advertising of little cigars.

  • 1973: SPORTS: Marlboro Cup horse racing begins.
  • 1973: SPORTS: Tennis' "Battle of the Sexes." Billie Jean King, wearing Virginia Slims colors, and Virginia Slims sequins on her chest, defeats Bobby Riggs.
  • 1973: SCIENCE: RJR report on success of PM's Marlboro and B&W's Kool brands states, "A cigarette is a system for delivery of nicotine to the smoker in attractive, useful form. At normal smoke pH, at or below 6.0, the smoke nicotine is...slowly absorbed by the smoker. . . As the smoke pH increases above about 6.0, an increasing portion of the total smoke nicotine occurs in free form, which is rapidly absorbed by the smoker and...instantly perceived as a nicotine kick."
  • 1973: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' Tobacco Research Center in Richmond is dedicated.
  • 1973: Jesse Helms, former director of the News and Programs for the Tobacco Radio Network, is elected to the US Senate. He will become a powerful tobacco defender in Congress.
  • 1973-02-08: Department of Health, Education and Welfare issues a charter for the Tobacco Working Group (TWG), which makes it a formal and multidisciplinary group consisting of researchers from academia, the government, and the tobacco companies. The group had actually begun meeting informally in 1968 to discuss generally research related to smoking and health, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease {1400.01} . The 1973 charter specifies that the purpose of the group was to "identify the criteria and prescribe methods for the development of a less hazardous cigarette, and other methods to decrease the smoking hazard" Glantz, The Cigarette Papers
  • 1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR director of marketing and planning R.A. Blevins Jr writes in a memo that free nicotine, advertising expenditures and cigarette size of Winstons and Marlboros all affected market share "independently and collectively," but that "the variability due to 'free nicotine' was significant and its contribution was over and above that of advertising expenditures and [cigarette size]."
  • 1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR senior scientist Frank Colby sends Blevins a memo suggesting that the company "develop a new RJR youth-appeal brand based on the concept of going back--at least halfway--to the technological design of the Winston and other filter cigarettes of the 1950s," a cigarette which "delivered more 'enjoyment' or 'kicks' (nicotine)." Colby said that "for public relations reasons it would be impossible to go back all the way to the 1955-type cigarettes."


  • 1974: 8TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1974
  • 1974: SPORTS: UST creates the Copenhagen Skoal Scholarship Awards Program for student athletes (in conjunction with the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Assn.)
  • 1974: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 49, switches to True cigarettes.
  • 1974: ADVERTISING: FRANCE: Joe Camel is born. Used in Poster for French ad campaign for Camel cigarettes.
  • 1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Harrogate lab in England is closed down.
  • 1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PM pollsters try to find out why competing brands like Kool were slowing Marlboro's growth among young smokers.
  • 1974: BUSINESS: Johnny Roventini retires after a 40-year career as Philip Morris pitchman.
  • 1974: BUSINESS: Philip Morris opens the world's largest cigarette factory on Commerce Road in Richmond, VA.
  • 1974: CANADA: The Canadian Council on Smoking and Health is formed. Charter members include the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Lung Association. The Non-Smokers' Rights Association is also formed. (NCTH)
  • 1974: US Trade Act. The threat of punitive tariffs, as provided under Section 301, will be used to force Asian markets considered to have "unfair" or "discriminatory" trade restrictions to open up to U.S. tobacco companies' products and advertising.
  • 1974-01-07: Monticello, Minnesota decides to go non-smoking for a day, in a "D-Day" (Don't Smoke Day) organized by Lynn Smith. The event goes statewide in November, and in 1977 goes national--the first Great American Smokeout.
  • 1974-07-15: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Family Practice News covered Alvan R. Feinstein's address to the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians with this headline: "Smoking Link to Lung Ca[ncer] Termed Diagnostic Bias." The article reads "The more cigarettes a person says he smokes, the more likely he is to be checked by his physician for lung cancer. Thus, cigarette smoking may be contributing more to the diagnosis of lung cancer than to the disease, said Dr. Feinstein of Yale University." Bates #: TITX 0002372 ( http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/tdo/view.cfm?CitID=127054)
  • 1974-11: Entire state of Minnesota decides to go non-smoking for a day: "D-Day" (Don't Smoke Day).

  • 1975: 9TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1975
  • 1975: 3rd World Conferfence on Tobacco or Health: New York, NY
  • 1975. Department of Defense stops distribution of free cigarettes in C-rations and K-rations.
  • 1975. UK: Government and industry agree on advertising curbs. Ads will no longer suggest cigarettes are safe, popular, natural or healthy, nor will they link smoking with social, sexual or business success. The restrictions are followed by 3 decades of what some consider the most creative and memorable ads in history:
  • 1975. REGULATION: Italy bans smoking in schools, hospitals, cinemas, theaters, museums, libraries and public-transport waiting rooms.
  • 1975: THAILAND bans smoking on city buses.
  • 1975. BUSINESS: RJR's low tar/nicotine "NOW" cigarette released.
  • 1975. BUSINESS: American Brands assumes control of Britain's Gallaher
  • 1975: BUSINESS: PM's Marlboro overtakes Winston as the best-selling cigarette in the U.S.
  • 1975: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' net earnings top $200 million.
  • 1975-08-01: REGULATION: MINNESOTA Clean Indoor Air Act, the nation's first statewide anti-second-hand smoke law goes into effect to protect "the public health and comfort and the environment by prohibiting smoking in public places and at public meetings, except in designated smoking areas." It is the first law to require separation of smokers' and nonsmokers.
  • 1975-08-26: REGULATION: Madison, Wisconsin passes an ordinance limiting smoking, the first community in the nation to do so; the effort was led by Margo Redmond of GASP.

  • 1976: 10TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Selected Chapters from 1971 through 1975 Reports
  • 1976: REGULATION: Federal Election Committee resolves charges that high-ranking RJR executives were funneling illegal campaign contributions to Republican presidential candidates from 1964 through 1972. The monies were said to have been paid in the form of personal gifts as high as $10,000 each from individual corporate officials, who were repaid from an off-the-books "slush fund," drawn from RJR's overseas customers. No jail terms, no fines: Charles B. Wade, Smith and Peoples had to resign; Alex Galloway, a former chairman who was also implicated during the internal investigation, had retired in 1973. . . Lawyers threatened lawsuits if the exact details of the scandal got out.
  • 1976: MEDIA: Rupert Murdoch buys the New York Post
  • 1976: LITIGATION: Norma Broin, a 20-year-old non-smoking Mormon, gets a job as a flight attendant for American Airlines (Broin vs. Philip Morris, et.al.)
  • 1976: SOCIETY: Formation of the Cigarette Pack Collectors Association and first of its conventions. (LB)
  • 1976: LITIGATION: Donna Shimp sues New Jersey Bell Telephone for not protecting her from second-hand smoke. Ruling in her favor, the judge said, "if such rules are established for machines, I see no reason why they should not be held in force for humans."
  • 1976: BUSINESS: Philip Morris exceeds $4 billion in revenues.
  • 1976: MARKET SHARE: Philip Morris' share of the U.S. cigarette market increases to 25.1%; the international tobacco company's share increases to 5.1%.
  • 1976: UK: TV: Peter Taylor's Death in the West--The Marlboro Story made by Thames Television is shown.
  • 1976-05-29: REGULATION: Resignations of Wade, Smith & Peoples becomes public.
  • 1976-07-23: UK: BUSINESS: BAT Industries is formed when Tobacco Securities Trust Company Limited (TST) merges with British-American Tobacco Company Limited (BATCo).
  • 1976: SOCIETY: The Tobacco Institute provides funds to the Smithsonian Institute for the creation of a one-tenth scale model of the colonial ship Brilliant. The first cargo carried by the Brilliant was tobacco in 1775. (LB)

  • 1977: 1st Great American Smokeout
  • 1977: REGULATION: Berkeley, California became the first community in California to limit smoking in restaurants and other public places.
  • 1977: CANADA: 1st National Non-Smoking Week
  • 1977: UK: Royal College of Physicians of London third report: "Smoking or Health."
  • 1977: BUSINESS: RUSSIA: Philip Morris signs a licensing agreement with Licensintorg, representing the Soviet tobacco industry.
  • 1977: BUSINESS: BAT acquires overseas business of Lorillard, including the Kent brand.

  • 1978: 11TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking, 1977-1978
  • 1978: A Roper Report prepared for the Tobacco Institute concludes that the nonsmokers' rights movement is "the most dangerous development yet to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred."
  • 1978: BUSINESS: SWITZERLAND: INFOTAB is established as a non-profit international association (original name: ICOSI - International Committee on Smoking Issues) by BAT, Imperial, Philip Morris, Reemtsma, R.J. Reynolds and Rothman's International.
  • 1978: BUSINESS: UK: Gallaher launches "Pure Gold" Benson & Hedges campaign.
  • 1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris obtains the international cigarette business of the Liggett Group Inc.
  • 1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. acquires 97 percent of the Seven-Up Company
  • 1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris announces plans to construct a new 26-story corporate headquarters building in midtown Manhattan, across from Grand Central Station.
  • 1978: BUSINESS: For the 25th consecutive year Philip Morris posts record revenues ($6.6 billion) and profits ($409
  • 1978: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell becomes CEO of Philip Morris. Will hold the position until 1991. million).
  • 1978: AUSTRALIA: Philip Morris, Rothmans and WD & HO Wills set up the Tobacco Institute
  • 1978: Tobacco companies fight a CA referendum on statewide smoking restrictions with a group called "Californians for Common Sense." Though 68% support the referendum, CCS spends $6.6 million lampooning the anti-smoking movement as a nagging Big Brother out to deny personal freedoms. The referndum fails.
  • 1978: USA: A tobacco trade journal reports that "cigarette purchases are 2.5 times as great when an in-store display is present compared to when no advertising or display treatment is employed", and that cigarette sales drop when parents shop with their children. (Tobacco International, 22 Dec 1978, p. 33). (LB)

  • 1979: 12TH Surgeon General's Report: Smoking and Health: A Report of the Surgeon GeneralDr Julius B. Richmond, first reviews health risks of smokeless tobacco.
  • 1979: CONSUMPTION: 37.5% of men are smokers; 29.9% of women are smokers. (SG report "Women and Smoking," CDC, 2002)
  • 1979: State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America, Worcester MA, issues a 41 page report titled, "Mortality differences between smokers and non smokers." The abstract reads: "Cigarette smokers are subject to a mortality risk significantly higher than that of non smokers. These differences are real; they emerge at early durations, contrary to what may earlier have been believed. They are not deferred to older ages; they are statistically significant at anyreasonable level."
  • 1979: REGULATION: Minneapolis and St. Paul become the first U.S. cities to ban the distribution of free cigarette samples. (Dan Freeborn, MN Star-Tribune)
  • 1979: DOCUMENTS: A BAT memo said, "We also think that consideration should be given to the hypothesis that high profits additionally associated with the tobacco industry are directly related to the fact that the customer is dependent up on the product . . . We are searching explicitly for a socially acceptable addictive product." On the other hand, the memo warned, "one must question both the ethics and practical possibilities of society/medical opinion permitting the advent of a new habituation process ... "
  • 1979: TOBACCO CONTROL: Australian activist group BUGAUP (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions) is formed, and begins re-facing tobacco and alcohol billboards.
  • 1979: TOBACCO CONTROL: MA: The Clean Indoor Air Educational Foundation begins. It will later (1992) become the Tobacco Control Resource Center.
  • 1979: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Inc. revenues top $8 billion; net earnings top $500 million.
  • 1979: FIRES: A residential fire started by a cigarette kills five children and their parents in Westwood, Massachusetts, in the congressional district of Representative Joseph Moakley. Moakley began a 20-year quest to mandate a fire-safe cigarette. He introduces legislation that would requite the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to regulate cigarettes as a fire hazard. His efforts culminate, after his death, in the federal Joseph Moakley Memorial Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 2002 (H.R. 4607).
  • 1979-01: MEDIA: Mother Jones magazine publishes "Why Dick Can't Stop Smoking." According to MoJo in 1996, As a professional courtesy, Mother Jones gave tobacco manufacturers advance notice of the cover story so they could pull their ads from the issue. Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and others responded by canceling their entire commitment: several years' worth of cigarette ads. In a show of corporate solidarity, many liquor companies followed suit.
  • 1979: ADVERTISING: Tobacco Institute launches ad campaign against nonsmokers'-rights movement.
  • 1979: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE:
  • 1979: BUSINESS: Top 20 Brands Sold:

    The Eighties


  • 1980: 13TH Surgeon General's ReporT: The Health Consequences of Smoking for Women: A Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1980: LITIGATION: Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission of New York. US Supreme Court sets guidleines for the regulation of commercial speech:
  • 1980: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 11%.
  • 1980: BUSINESS: Philip Morris revenues approach $10 billion.
  • 1980: ENTERTAINMENT: Superman II: Lois Lane lights up. In fifty years of comic book appearnces, Lois Lane never smoked. For a reported payment of $42,000, Philip Morris purchases 22 exposures of the Marlboro logo in the movie; Lois Lane, strong role model for teenage girls, gets a Marlboro pack on her desk and begins chain smoking Marlboro Lights. At one point in the film, a character is tossed into a van with a large Marlboro sign on its side, and in the climactic scene the superhero battles amid a maze of Marlboro billboards before zooming off in triumph, leaving in his wake a solitary taxi with a Marloro sign on top. The New York State Journal of Medicine even published an article titled "Superman and the Marlboro Woman: The Lungs of Lois Lane." Thoughout the 80s, "Superman II" is frequently re-run on TV in prime time.
  • 1980: Tobacco companies fight a 2nd CA referendum on statewide smoking restrictions; this time the front group is called "Californians Against Regulatory Excess." As in 1978, the referendum fails.
  • 1980: SPORTS: CANADA: Imperial Tobacco, through Du Maurier, begins sponsoring men's and women's tennis.

  • 1981: 14TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- The Changing Cigarette: A Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1981: Federal Trade Commission concludes that health warning labels have had little effect on public knowledge and attitudes about smoking.
  • 1981: "A formalized "Blueprint for Action," drafted in 1981 by more than 200 smoking control "experts" attending a National Conference on Smoking OR Health, is often identified as the catalyst for a dramatic change (in anti-smoking activity."-- "The Anti-Smoking Movement"
  • 1981: CONSUMPTION: Annual consumption peaks at 640 billion cigarettes, 60% of which are low-tar brands.
  • 1981: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses a lobe of her right lung to cancer; continues to smoke cigarettes.
  • 1981: LITIGATION: CBS Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen accuses Brown & Williamson of engaging in a lurid advertising campaign to get young people to smoke. Jacobsen based his claim on a controversial "Illicit pleausre campaign" proposed by the Ted Bates agency.
  • 1981 Massachusetts GASP files suit against BAY Transit authority for not enforcing smoking restrictions.
  • 1981: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell, 57, becomes CEO of Philip Morris (1981-1991), succeeding George Weissman
  • 1981: Insurance companies begin offering discounts for nonsmokers on life insurance premiums
  • 1981: Stanton Glantz at UCSF receives a copy of " Death in the West"
  • 1981: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: 1981 PM study investigates the link between pricing and smoking levels
    • Dick Schweiker was proposed as Secretary of DHHS (a conservative) and a relatively unknown surgeon by the name of C. Everett Koop was proposed as SG. The latter was considered an ultraconservative and darling of the far right because of his public stand on abortion. Jesse Helms was Koops sponsor in the Senate. Schweiker rescued the Office on Smoking and Health from
  • 1981-01: The Hirayama Study. Takeshi Hirayama, chief of epidemiology of the Research Institute at Tokyo's National Cancer Center, and his associates studied for fourteen years 92,000 nonsmoking wives of smoking husbands to learn what their risk was of contracting lung cancer, compared to a similarly sized control group married to nonsmokers. Nonsmoking wives married to axsmokers or current smokers of up to fourteen cigarettes a day showed a 40 percent elevated risk of lung cancer over wives married to nonsmokers; those married to husbands smoking fifteen to nineteen cigarettes a day had a 60 percent higher risk; and those whose husbands smoked a pack or more a day had a 90 percent heightened risk. The findings were savaged by letters to the BMJ (by, among others, Theodore Sterling, whose projects received $5M in CTR funds between 1973 and 1990),-- and by the Tobacco Institute in full page ads all across the US. Meanwhile, Brown and Williamson documents show that, although the tobacco industry was publicly attacking Hirayama's paper, several of its own experts were privately admitting that his conclusions were valid. B&W counsel J. Wells said both German and British scientists paid by the tobacco industry had reviewed the work and "they believe Hirayama is a good scientist and that his non-smoking wives publication is correct."15 (J. Wells, Re Smoking and Health - Tim Finnegan, Memo to E. Pepples, 1981, 24 July) Non-smoking wives of heavy smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer: a study from Japan (BMJ, V. 282: pp. 183-185, 17 January 1981
  • 1981-02: David Stockton's Office of Management and Budget "zeroes out" the Office on Smoking and Health in its FY 82 budget. Health and Human Services Secretary Dick Schweiker battles Stockton and the White House to get half the funding restored.

  • 1982: 15TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- Cancer: A Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1982: CONSUMPTION: 624 billion cigarettes were sold in the US this year, the most ever.
  • 1982: BUSINESS: Harrods' (department store) name goes on a a cigarette; this is one of the first instances of tobacco companies "renting names" of other companies (See "Harley Davidson" cigarettes) (LB).
  • 1982: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Credit Corp. is incorporated.
  • 1982: BUSINESS: Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. is founded.
  • 1982: HEALTH: Surgeon General's Report (Koop) finds possibility that second-hand smoke may cause lung cancer.
  • 1982: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses her right lung to cancer; continues to sneak cigarettes.
  • 1982: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the No Net Cost Tobacco Program Act, requiring the government's Commodity Credit Corporation, which pays for the government tobacco purchases, to recover all the money it spends on the price-support program. Now taxpayers no longer pay for losses incurred by the program, though they still pay about $16 million a year in administrative costs to run it
  • 1982: Dallas hotelier Lyndon Sanders opens the Non-Smokers Inn; By 1990 an economic slump forced the Non-Smokers Inn to change its policy -- and its name.
  • 1982-01-01: CHINA: The China National Tobacco Corporation is founded.
    The State Tobacco Monopoly (STM) controls tobacco production, distribution and sales. It becomes the country's single biggest taxpayer in 1987. As of January, 2003, STM operates 123 cigarette plants with annual output of 500 billion yuan. It employs about 500,000 workers and produces 38 per cent of the world's cigarettes.

  • 1983: 16TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Cardiovascualr Disease; A report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of coronary heart disease
  • 1983: MARKET SHARE: Philip Morris U.S.A. gains market share for the 21st consecutive year, to reach 34.4 percent, overtaking RJR to become the #1 tobacco co. in the US in sales. For the 30th consecutive year, Philip Morris announces record revenues ($13 billion) and earnings ($904 million).
  • 1983: BUSINESS: US Tobacco introduces Skoal Bandits -- a starter product, with the tobacco contained in a pouch like a tea bag.
  • 1983: BUSINESS: UK: Ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi creates its first product-free Silk Cut advertisements, the most successful tobacco-ad campaign ever.
  • 1983: LITIGATION: Cipollone suit filed; Rose finally quits smoking.
  • 1983: REGULATION: San Francisco passes first strong workplace smoking restrictions, banning smoking in private workplaces
  • 1983: USA: BUSINESS: The creative director of a New York advertising agency spoke of working on tobacco advertisements, "We were trying very hard to influence kids who were 14 to start smoking". (Medical J of Australia, 5 March 1983, p.237). (LB)
  • 1983-06-06: MEDIA: Newsweek runs "Showdown on Smoking" (http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/view.cfm?docid=503744468 -4478&source=SNAPRJR&ShowImages=yes, a 4 page article on the nonsmokers' rights movement. Despite months of TI input, the removal of the item from Cover Story status, and the deletion of 3 sidebars (on health effects, political donations/industry lobbying, and a poor business prognosis), TI felt, "the article contains sufficient errors and indicatons of superficiality and poor research so as to leqave an anti-smoking bias in readers' minds." Issues of Newsweek before & after carried 7-10 pages of cigarette ads, but the June 6 issue carried none. According to Larry C. White's Merchants of Death, the estimated loss of revenue as a result of publishing the article: $1 million.
  • 1983-07-16: A theater in Newton, Massachusetts, runs a KOOL advertisement prior to the Saturday matinee screening of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," resulting in an August, 1983 FTC complaint filed by Action for Children's Advertising, Inc.

  • 1984: 17TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, A Report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of chronic obstructive lung disease.
  • 1984: The Advocacy Institute, which pioneered the use of electronic media for tobacco control advocacy through the creation of the Smoking Control Advocacy Resource (SCARCNet), is founded
  • 1984: UK: British Medical Association uses black edged postcards to notify MPs of smoking related deaths
  • 1984: CESSATION: FDA approves nicotine gum as a "new drug" and quit-smoking aid
  • 1984: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone dies of lung cancer at 58.
  • 1984: REGULATION: Tobacco industry is required to turn over a general list of cigarette additives annually to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Smoking and Health. The List is then locked in a safe. Disclosure to any David Yen (YD), the renowned anti-tobacco warrior who devoted half his life to promoting public health, died Sept. 6 of coronary thrombosis at 82.
  • 1984: The Cigarette Safety Act of 1984 establishes a technical study group (TSG) to determine whether it was technically and economically feasible to make a fire-safe cigarette.
  • 1984: TOBACCO CONTROL: TAIWAN: David Yen founds the John Tung Foundation
  • 1984: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell becomes president and CEO of Philip Morris Inc.
  • 1984: BUSINESS: The Bakery, Confectionary and Tobacco Workers International Union (BC&T) and the Tobacco Institute joined forces by establishing the Tobacco Industry Labor Management Committee. The purpose is to "contribute to greater cooperation among the various segments of the tobacco industry, in order to improve job security and economic development through public education and research address problems facing the tobacco industry". (LB)
  • 1984: SPORTS: Champion Diver Greg Louganis almost represents American Cancer Society at Olympics
  • 1984-03: MEDIA: THE SATURDAY EVENING POST stops accepting tobacco advertising. The magazine was threatened with a partial advertising boycott by non-tobacco divisions of tobacco companies in response to the decision. ("Smoking and Health Reporter", 1985, p3). The Post's publisher is Cory SerVaas, MD.
  • 1984-04-15: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Another "Mouse House Massacre." The Philip Morris labs at which nicotine researchers Victor DeNoble and Paul Mele worked are abruptly shut down.
  • 1984-09-25: Tobacco Institute and the National Association of State Boards of Education announce an anti-youth smoking campaign, "Responsible Living Program," which includes the TI/NASBE'-produced booklets, "Helping Youth Decide" and "Helping Youth Say No: A Parents' Guide to Helping Teenagers Cope with Peer Pressure." There is very little mention of tobacco in either book. The booklets offers no specific health reasons for urging youths to exhibit patience before undertaking an adult custom like smoking.

  • 1985: 18TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking -- Cancer and Chronic Lung Disease in the Workplace: A Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1985: HEALTH: Lung cancer surpasses breast cancer as #1 killer of women.
  • 1985: Stanford MBA student Joe Tye's 5 year old daughter becomes so delighted with a Marlboro billboard, she begins squealing with delight and says, "Look Daddy, horsies!" Tye later founds STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco).
  • 1985: LITIGATION: Brown & Williamson sues CBS and Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen for libel for his 1981 commentary. B&W wins a $3.05 million verdict--the largest libel award ever paid by a news organization.
  • 1985: BUSINESS: The corporate framework of Philip Morris Inc. is restructured and Philip Morris Companies Inc., a holding company, becomes the publicly held parent of Philip Morris Inc.
  • 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys food and coffee giant General Foods (Post's cereal, Jell-O, Maxwell House Coffee for $5.6 billion.
  • 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris net income tops the $1 billion mark, reaching $1.26 billion.
  • 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris begins publishing Philip Morris Magazine (1985-1992)
  • 1985: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries buys food products company Nabisco Brands for $4.9B; renames itself RJR/Nabisco.. Ex-Standard Brands/Nabisco head Ross Johnson takes control of company.
  • 1985: BUSINESS: A tobacco trade journal reports on the job of the tobacco "flavourist" and chemist. One job of the flavourist is to "ensure high satisfaction from an adequate level of nicotine per puff". One job of the chemist is "to ensure adequate levels of nicotine and tar in the smoke". (World Tobacco, March 1987, pp. 97-103).
  • 1985: TOBACCO CONTROL: Actor Yul Brenner does TV public service announcement urging people to stop smoking. Sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
  • 1985: TOBACCO CONTROL: Iceland institutes a near-total ban of smoking in public.
  • 1985: SOCIETY: Ritz-Carlton Boston hosts a cigar-smoker private dinner party for 20 gentlemen. It soon becomes a regular event in Ritz-Carltons across the country..
  • 1985: Minnesota enacts the first state legislation to earmark a portion of the state cigarette excise tax to support smoking prevention programs.
  • 1985-01-17: BUSINESS: B&W lawyer J. Kendrick Wells writes "Re: Document Retention" memo in reference to "removing the deadwood."
  • 1985-08-32: REGULATION: Aspen, CO, institutes 50% smoking ban. Smoking areas must be separately ventilated.

  • 1986: 19TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, A Report of the Surgeon General (C. Everett Koop) finds smokeless tobacco to be cancer-causing, and addictive.
  • 1986: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds opens its Tobaccoville plant outside Winston-Salem, NC; it was the world's largest cigarette factory at the time.
  • 1986: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries, Inc. becomes RJR Nabisco Inc.
  • 1986: BUSINESS: Philip Morris sells off Seven-Up International to PepsiCo.
  • 1986: BUSINESS: Spurred by the General Foods business, Philip Morris revenues increase more than 50 percent to $25.4 billion, while net earnings reach $1.5 billion.
  • 1986: BUSINESS: Ex-Philip Morris CEO GEORGE WEISSMAN, begins reign as chairman of Lincoln Center (NYC).
  • 1986: CUBA: Fidel Castro stops smoking cigars for health reasons.
  • 1986: USA: The CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE of the Library of Congress wrote a 19 page document titled "The proposed prohibition on advertising tobacco products: A constitutional analysis". It concluded that (a) commercial speech does not have the same protection under law as non-commercial speech, (b) Congress had the authority to regulate tobacco advertising and (c) Congress had the authority to completely prohibit tobacco advertising under the conditions set in the Central Hudson case and/or the Posadas case. (LB)
  • 1986: UK: BUSINESS: IMPERIAL GROUP is purchased by HANSON TRUST PLC
  • 1986: LITIGATION: U.S. Tobacco wins SEAN MARSEE trial in Oklahoma, the only smokeless-tobacco liability case ever tried. Marsee was a track athlete who began using smokeless tobacco at 12. He contracted cancer of the tongue, which spread to his lymph nodes. He died in 1984 at 19.
  • 1986: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Industry ETS Seminar Cancelled amid charges of deception on sponsorship.
  • 1986: Mr. Potato Head Quits Smoking. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop asks Hasbro to stop including a pipe as a Mr. PH accessory. Mr. Potato Head became the official "spokespud" for the American Lung Society and the Great American Smoke-out.
  • 1986-05: To counter the Great American Smokeout, Philip Morris USA introduces the Great American Smoker's Kit. (Tapgram, Jan., 1987)
  • 1986-07: RJR Heir Turns Against Tobacco. The grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds, PATRICK REYNOLDS, speaks against tobacco at a House Congresional hearing chaired by Congressman Henry Waxman; he advocates a complete ban of tobacco advertising, and recounts his memories of watching his father, RJ REYNOLDS, JR., die from emphysema.


  • 1987: CONSUMPTION: 44 percent of people who had ever smoked had quit as of 1987.
  • 1987: REGULATION: Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole refuses to ban smoking completely on airplanes, despite a unanimous recommendation from the National Academy of Scientists and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
  • 1987: LEGISLATION: CA: Willie Brown's "Napkin Deal" is passed. It bars product liability actions for inherently unsafe products, on the grounds that consumer use of those products was "knowing" and "voluntary." Outlined on a linen napkin at the watering hole Frank Fat's by Bill Lockyer and then-Speaker Brown, the law was one of the most famous back room deals ever struck in Sacramento. (Code of Civil Procedure 1714.45). It takes effect on Jan. 1, 1988, and remains in effect for exactly 10 years, until the Calif. legislature, shocked by revelations from secret documents, strips the industry's immunity away again, effective Jan. 1, 1998.
  • 1987: BUSINESS: Philip Morris execs are blessed by Cardinal Cooke. For the Treasures of the Vatican exhibit, Terence Cardinal Cooke, then the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, led a prayer for Mr. Weissman and his Philip Morris colleagues. After the benediction, Frank Saunders, PM VP, said, "We are probably the only cigarette company on this earth to be blessed by a cardinal."
  • 1987: LITIGATION: INDONESIA: Lawyer R.O. Tambunan, on behalf of Indonesian youth, files a class-action suit for Rp 1 trillion against cigarette producer PT Bentoel, for allegedly violating the law by using the words Remaja Jaya (Successful Youth) as the brand name of its product. The Central Jakarta District Court dismissesthe suit, saying that Tambunan had no right to take action as a representative of Indonesian youth.
  • 1987: REGULATION: Congress bans smoking on domestic flights of less than two hours. Takes effect in 1988.
  • 1987: REGULATION: Beverly Hills, CA, bans smoking in restuarants. Barry Fogel (Jacopos) the restauranteur who is the nominal head of the Beverly Hills Restaurant Association, later said the group was fabricated,, and that he regretted having anything to do with it. BHRA was organized by Rudy Cole according to Consumer Reports. It took a survey of Beverly Hills restaurants which found business decreased 30% durng a 1987 smoking ban. "What if they Passed a Law That Took Away 30 Percent of Your Business" read an ad that the Tobacco Institute ran in some restaurant trade publications. In 1994, Fogel wrote to the NYC council that he had been president in 1988 of the BHRA, which successfully fought a local smokefree bill, He said the BHRA had been organized and financed almost exclusively by the tobacco industry. Fogel said he regretted his participation in the group. He owns the Jacopo restaurants, and wrote that since they went nonsmoking, "sales have risen." Fogel: 'There was no Beverly Hills Restaurant Association before the smokefree ordinance. We were organized by the tobacco industry. The industry even flew some of our members by Lear Jet to another California city considering smokefree restaurant legislation." Mr. Fogel goes on to say "I regret my participation with the tobacco industry." BHRA was represented by then-partner Mickey Kantor of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips law firm in Los Angeles
  • 1987: FIRES: 1984'S Cigarette Safety Act study group reports to Congress that the production of more fire-safe cigarettes is indeed technically and economically feasible and within the capabilities of the tobacco industry at that time. The industry denies this. "Toward a Less Fire-Prone Cigarette," Final Report to the Congress,Technical Study Group on Cigarette and Little Cigar Fire Safety, Cigarette Safety Act of 1984, 1987.
  • 1987: Tobacco Instutute Testing Laboratory takes over tar/nicotine tests from the FTC Test Center.
  • 1987: REGULATION: Department of Health and Human Services goes smoke-free.
  • 1987: REGULATION: AUSTRALIA: The province of Victoria is the first to use a tobacco tax to create tobacco control foundation.
  • 1987: ADVERTISING: Joe Camel Debuts in USA. A North Carolina advertising agency uses Joe Camel to celebrate "Old Joe's" 75th anniversary.
  • 1987: JAPAN: A tobacco trade jcournal reports on a group of Japanese "smoke lovers" who participated in a panel discussion on smoking. One panelist said, "The life expectancy of Japanese is said to be the world's longest now, and why must we be so timidly concerned about health? Let's enjoy life and smoking" (World Tobacco, Sept 87, p.18). (LB)
  • 1987: JAPAN: The Tokyo Customs Office attributes the increase in cigarette imports to the permeation of promotional activities of the suppliers of foreign tobacco products. (World Tobacco, Sept 87, p.7).(LB)
  • 1987: BUSINESS: Ross Johnson attempts a leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco.
  • 1987: BUSINESS: Introduction of "Go to Hell" cigarettes. Each pack comes with two messages, first, "I like'em and I'm going to smoke'em", second, "Cheaper than psychiatry, better than a nervous breakdown". (Tobacco International, p.31). (LB)
  • 1987-09: BUSINESS: Premier Introduced. RJR's F. Ross Johnson introduces the smokeless Premier cigarette at a press conference in New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel.
  • 1987-11-18: UK: Fire, thought caused by a dropped cigarette, engulfs the King's Cross Underground station, killing 31. As a result, a 1985 ban on trains is expanded to cover the entire system, including London Underground stations.

  • 1988: 20TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, A Report of the Surgeon General (C. Everett Koop) calls nicotine "a powerfully addicting drug." In 618-page summary of over 2,000 studies of nicotine and its effects on the body, Koop declares, "It is now clear that . . . cigarettes and other form of tobacco are addicting and that actions of nicotine provide the pharmacologic basic of tobacco addiction," .
  • 1988: LEGISLATION: Pennsylvania's preemptive Clean Indoor Air Act is passed; it requires restaurants with 75 or more seats to provide a nonsmoking section. Restaurants with fewer seats either must provide a nonsmoking section or post signs saying there is no such section. The law preempts any further restrictions on public smoking by localities.
  • 1988: LITIGATION: FINLAND: First tobacco trial in Europe, in the case of Pentti Aho, 66. In 2001, 7 years after his death, the supreme court rules Aho is responsible for his own ill health.
  • 1988: LITIGATION: CIPOLLONE: New Jersey Judge Lee H. Sarokin, presiding over the Cipollone trial, says he has found evidence of a conspiracy by 3 tobacco companies that is vast in its scope, devious in its purpose, and devastating in its results."
  • 1988: DOCUMENTS: .Cipollone trial reveals "Motives and Incentives in Ciragette Smoking," a 1972 confidential report prepared by the Philip Morris Research Center of Richmond, Virginia. It reads in part, The cigarette should be conceived not as a product but as a package. The product is nicotine. . . . Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine. . . . Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine. . . . Smoke is beyond question the most optimized vehicle of nicotine and the cigarette the most optimized dispenser of smoke.
  • 1988: CONSUMPTION: New Teen Smokers: 710,000
  • 1988: BUSINESS: Philip Morris report, "Smoking Among High School Seniors" suggests fewer youngsters were smoking in the early 1980s because participation in athletic programs was increasing.
  • 1988: BUSINESS: Philip Morris pays $13.6 billion for Kraft, Inc. As in the General Foods deal, most of the financing is provided by non-U.S. sources.
  • 1988: BUSINESS: Philip Morris revenues reach nearly $32 billion; net earnings top $2.3 billion.
  • 1988: BUSINESS: Richemont is formed.
  • 1988: ADVERTISING: McCann-Erickson ad agency creates "Smooth Character" line for Joe Camel campaign.
  • 1988: SPORTS: Olympics goes smoke-free. When the 1988 Winter Olympics were held in Calgary, Alberta, Dr. John Hamilton Read successfully lobbies to have the Games smoke-free. All subsequent Games also ban smoking.
  • 1988-01-06: LITIGATION: Merrell Williams begins work for lawfirm Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs analyzing secret Brown & Williamson tobacco documents.
  • 1988-04-07: CESSATION: First World No-Tobacco Day, sponsored by World Health Organization as part of WHO's 40th anniversary. Slogan: Tobacco or health: The choice is yours
  • 1988-04-18: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Shook Hardy recommends renewal of $484G Feinstein "CTR Special Project" "Dr. Alvan Feinstein has requested a renewal of his CTR Special Project on improved scientific methods in clinical epidemiology. Funding is requested for two years in the amount of $484,960." Bates #:2015006928-6929 http://my.tobaccodocuments.org/tdo/view.cfm?ShowCitation=yes&CitID=2292049
  • 1988-06: LITIGATION: Liggett Group (L&M, Chesterfield) ordered to pay Antonio Cipollone $400,000 in compensatory damages for its contribution to his wife's death. In the years before the 1966 warning labels, Liggett found to have given Cipollone an express warranty its products were safe. First ever financial award in a liability suit against a tobacco company; award later overturned on technicality; plaintiffs, out of money, drop case
  • 1988-Fall: BUSINESS: Ross Johnson informs RJR Nabisco board he intends to lead a management buy-out, and purchase the company for $17 billion. The ensuing debacle will become the largest LBO ever, with Henry Kravitz' KKR emerging the winner in 1989, paying a record $24.9 billion.
  • 1988-11-17: Great American Smokeout; ex-Winston model David Goerlitz quits smoking after 24 years.
  • 1988-12 to 1993-03:Jeffrey Wigand works at Brown & Williamson.
  • 1988-89: CANADA: LEGISLATION: Federal laws are enacted to prohibit tobacco advertising and ensure smoke-free workplaces. Cigarette packs must carry one of four specified health warnings: "Smoking reduces life expectancy;" "Smoking is the major cause of lung cancer;" "Smoking is a major cause of heart disease;" or "Smoking during pregnancy can harm the baby." (NCTH)

  • 1989: 21st Surgeon General's Report: Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking, 25 Years of Progress, a Report of the Surgeon General
  • 1989: BUSINESS: RJR releases Premier, its smokeless cigarette, for test-marketing.
  • 1989: BUSINESS: PM spends $300,000 test-marketing a version of its Next brand called "De-Nic," which contained only .1mg nicotine. The Kansas City Star reported that apparently the major market for Philip Morris De-Nic cigarettes was tobacco researchers, who ran out and bought them for use in studies in which it was found that though they tasted very similar to regular cigarettes, and were smoked in much the same way, smokers brain waves did not change as they do with nicotine cigarettes.
  • 1989: BUSINESS: PM combines Kraft Inc. and General Foods Corp. to form Kraft General Foods, the largest food company in the United States.
  • 1989: BUSINESS: Spurred by the Kraft Inc. business, Philip Morris Cos. revenues increase 41 percent to nearly $45 billion; net earnings jump 26 percent to nearly $3 billion. Operating companies income from Philip Morris International tops $1 billion for the first time.
  • 1989: BUSINESS: Richemont acquires Philip Morris' 30% interest in Rothmans International
  • 1989: ADVERTISING: Saatchi and Saatchi design Northwest Airlines' Smoke-free Skies campaign; RJ Reynolds withdraws its Oreo account, which Saatchi had had for 18 years.
  • 1989: BUSINESS: BRAND CONSUMPTION: Marlboro has 25% of the American market
  • 1989: BUSINESS: RJR abandons Premier, its smokeless cigarette, after unsuccessful test-marketing in Arizona and Missouri.
  • 1989: CANADA: The government requires cigarette manufacturers to list the additives and amounts for each brand. RJ Reynolds temporarily withdraws its brands, and reformulates them so they are different from their US versions. Philip Morris withdraws its cigarettes from the Canadian market entirely.
  • 1989: UAR: Dubai Islamic Bank in the United Arab Emirates has banned smoking by staff and customers because Islam forbids harming the body. (Reuters, 27 July 19189). (LB)
  • 1989-01: B&W hires Wigand as Vice President for Research and Development, ostensibly to develop a safer cigarette.
  • 1989-02-08: BUSINESS: KKR buys RJR Nabisco for $24.88 Billion (or, according to some accounts, $29.6 billion). Lou Gerstner from American Express is appointed CEO
  • 1989-05-31: World No-Tobacco Day. Slogan: The female smoker: at added risk
  • 1989-11-20: Philip Morris U.S.A. sends a letter to Sega Enterprises demanding that the company cease all use of the Marlboro trademark on its "Super Monaco GP" video arcade game and recall all games where the Marlboro trademark appears. http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2046855732.html
  • 1989-11-21: Smoking banned on domestic airlines. The bill by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is enacted.

    The Nineties
    The Millenia Approaches


  • 1990: 22nd Surgeon General's Report: Health Benefits of Smoking Cessation, A Report of the Surgeon General


  • 1990: BUSINESS: BRAND CONSUMPTION:

      RANK

      BRAND

      BILLIONS SOLD

      1

      Marlboro

      134.43 billion(?)

      2

      Winston

      45.81 billion

      3

      Salem

      32.01 billion

      4

      Kool

      25.67 billion

      5

      Newport

      24.09 billion


  • 1990: CONSUMPTION: Americans smoke fewer than 3 billion cigars annually.
  • 1990: REGULATION: Dr. David Kessler comes to the FDA. He will stay till 1997, his tenure marked by the attempt, invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1999, to regulate cigarettes as nicotine delivery devices.
  • 1990: REGULATION: FRANCE: Social Affairs Minister Claude Evin severely restricts tobacco advertising.
  • 1990: FIRES: Moakley shepherds the Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1990 into public law. It mandates the development of a standard test method for cigarette fire safety.
  • 1990: LITIGATION: Mississippi jury rules that cigarettes killed Nathan Horton, but does not award damages, finding both Horton and American Tobacco shared culpability equally.
  • 1990: Ben and Jerry's ice cream boycott by dropping Oreo cookies from its ice cream.
  • 1990: USA: Ellis Milan, president of the Retail Tobacco Distributors of America said, "President George Bush often talks of 1,000 points of light. I'd like to think those points of light are coming from the glowing ends of cigars, cigarettes and pipes across the country, and symbolize the cornerstone of this nation -- tobacco"(LB)
  • 1990: BUSINESS: Philip Morris acquires Jacobs Suchard AG, a Swiss-based coffee and confectionery company, for $4.1 billion.
  • 1990: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' revenues reach $51 billion; operating companies income reaches $3.5 billion.
  • 1990: FIRES: INDIA: 86 people are killed when a train in Patna catches fire after a passenger throws a cigarette on a girl's sari, which catches fire.
  • 1990: INDIA: A tobacco trade journal reports that India is selling its first cigarette specifically aimed at women, MS Special Filters, "the sort of market targeting that can get you pilloried in the US." (World Tobacco, March 1990, p. 11). (LB)
  • 1990: PEOPLE: Philip Morris CEO Hamish Maxwell, a heavy smoker, undergoes quadruple bypass surgery.
  • 1990: REGULATION: NYC Passes Tobacco Sampling Law. Prohibits giveaway or discounted distribution of tobacco products in public places and at public events. Exempts tobacco retailers in their stores and wholesalers or manufacturers.
  • 1990: REGULATION: San Luis Obispo, California becomes the first city in the world to ban smoking in all public buildings including bars and restaurants.
  • 1990: BUSINESS: The Uptown Fiasco. RJR begins test-marketing "Uptown" cigarettes targetting blacks. Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan, along with many black civic and religious leaders denounce the cigarette. RJR cancels the cigarette. The success of the campaign leads to the founding of the National Association of African Americans for Positive Imagery (NAAAPI) in 1991.
  • 1990: BUSINES