Philip Morris Corporate Harassment

I've just listened to a radio interview that got my blood boiling, I urge those in the UK to check it out. The BBC content may not be available outside the UK due to the extortion racket funding model. The story and interview are about the tobacco giant Philip Morris using FOI requests to harass researchers.

The story in full as I understood it from the piece and subsequent interview is as follows:

Stirling University has a 15 person reasearch team funded by Cancer Research spanning a decade. They worked out that most smokers start at a young age, in many cases under the legal age for smoking. They worked out that as people get older they realize that smoking is addictive and harmful and less people choose to start, those who do, many regret it and make some efforts to stop. Their research is focused on what makes young people want to start in the first place, examining advertising, plain packaging etc. They interview young people to get information of a sensitive nature given in confidence.

Philip Morris want that research. Philip Morris appear to be hounding them with FOI requests for that research. They claim that they want to "understand the basis of the research" if the spokesperson was to be believed; she used that same line in response to just about every question whether related or not.

Philip Morris say they don't want personally identifiable information like names, addresses etc which seems plausible. They say they don't want young people to smoke which seems implausible. They say they've conducted their own research which is available on their website but not into young people, which of course would look bad from a PR viewpoint.

The research carried out by Stirling University is peer reviewed and regularly published. At the time of the FOI request this wasn't the case. This does not satisfy Philip Morris. "The basis of the research" surely means the questions the researchers asked, the number of people involved in the study, the blends of backgrounds, genders etc. All of that is published by the University.

The real reason they want this research seems pretty obvious. For decades the entire tobacco industry has spent a fortune discrediting research and researchers who show the real effects of tobacco. They use front groups to provide studies supporting their public claims. How many court cases have there been where big tobacco firms have fought tooth and nail to deny any link between smoking and cancer? Any time there's a law being proposed or inquiry into changing the laws around smoking, the tobacco industry and it's lobby groups wade in with lots of money and fake studies that claim the sky will fall if any change takes place.

They funded a front group of small retailers who's only function was to petition against the tobacco displays in small shops being out of sight. They've been desperate to avoid plain packaging on the grounds that brands are trademarks and should be protected, They've fronted all sorts of campaigns predicting doom and gloom for pubs if smoking is banned in them. When it becomes too restrictive to hook new children in countries like the UK they simply move to countries where they can continue to do it.

If adults who smoke die out with fewer and fewer adults starting the tobacco companies have a problem. If children are protected properly by law and educated to the realities of smoking, for the most part they don't start in the first place. In that reality the tobacco industry no longer has a place. Of course they fight against that. The thing that makes them different from many industries is that their product does kill people. There is no safe way to smoke and not cause harm to yourself at least. By design there are no non-addictive cigarettes.

There was also an allegation of a female researcher being slandered and abused online, as well as anonymous calls. They did not connect Philip Morris with this, just that it's coincidental timing. The Philip Morris spokesperson denied any connection.

They are hounding researchers with expensive legal requests, forcing the University to devote time and financial resources in standing their ground. All that does is send the message that "we will bully anyone who dares threaten our business model of creating new addicts".

The norm for corporate and industry spokespeople is to deny any accusations even when they know they're guilty. Even after they've been shown with evidence as guilty, the story is still denial. Their job is to spin a story to play innocent, the truth does not come into it.

At the time my dad started smoking, it was the trendy thing to do; movie stars did it, TV characters did it, rock and roll stars did it. It was perceived to be sexy and cool. There were no health warnings on packs. Even then serious questions were being asked about the effects of tobacco, which was being fought with the same tactics still employed today. Big tobacco ignore evidence, create their own evidence, smear the whistleblowers, discredit and harass researchers etc. He eventually quit.

At the time I started around 1990 I had no excuses. It was widely accepted as causing cancer, there were warning labels on packs and the lions share of the price was tax. The idea of hitting cigarettes with huge amounts of tax was to price it out of the pocket money range to keep it away from children. Those are good intentions but it didn't work and has since been abused year after year as an easy way to raise money. When you know you can hit addicts over and over and over again all the while knowing the addicts won't stop being addicts. Most of them will simply find the money for their addiction. I know, I've spent many years in that category before I finally managed to quit.