BACKGROUND NOTE: This Lorillard Tobacco
Company document very frankly lays out the
strategy the tobacco industry used to guide itself deftly through
litigation, politics and public relations, that is, the strategy of
creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it.
Quotes:
For nearly twenty years, this industry has employed a single strategy to
defend itself on three major fronts -- litigation, politics and public
opinion.
While the strategy was brilliantly conceived and executed over the years
in helping us win important battles, it is only fair to say that it is
not--nor was it intended to be--a vehicle for victory. On the contrary,
it has always been a holding strategy, consisting of
- creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it
- advocating the public's right to smoke, without actually urging
them to take up the practice
- encouraging objective scientific research as the only way to
resolve the question of health hazard
On the litigation front for which the strategy was designed, it has been
successful. While we have not lost a liability case, this is not
because juries have rejected the anti-smoking arguments.
On the political front, the strategy has helped make an orderly
retreat. But it is fair to say that it has not stemmed the pressure for new
legislation, despite the major concessions we have made.
In the cigarette controversy, the public -- especially those who
are present and potential supporters (e.g. tobacco state congressmen and heavy
smokers) -- must perceive, understand, and believe in evidence to sustain their
opinions that smoking may not be the causal factor.As things stand,we supply them with too little in the way of ready-made
credible alternatives.
THE ALTERNATIVES
1) The Constitutional Hypothesis i.e. people who smoke tend to differ
importantly from people who do not, in their heredity, in constitutional makeup,
in patterns of life, and in the pressure under which they live.
2) The Multi-factorial Hypothesis i.e. as science advances, more and
more factors come under suspicion as contributing to the illnesses for which
smoking is blamed -- air pollution, viruses, food additives, occupational hazards
and stresses.
...there are millions of people who would be receptive to a new message,
stating,
Cigarette smoking may not be the health hazard that the anti-smoking people say
it is because other alternatives are at least as possible. [emphasis in
original]
Anne Landman
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction
Title: The Roper Proposal
Type of document: confidential memo
From: Fred Panzer
To: Horace Kornegay
Date: May 1, 1972
Site: Lorillard Tobacco Company document site
http://www.lorillarddocs.com/
URL:
http://www.lorillarddocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=87657704/7706
