How the Cigarette Industry Played the American Public

Reading about the way the cigarette industry insidiously and effectively played the American public is like watching a horror movie. By now we all (I hope) know how major tobacco companies secretly designed strategies to hide information about the links between smoking and cancer, but reviewing the advertisements and internal corporate documents is like looking at the bloody weapons of a murderer.

Scan through the first three images that ran across several decades of the 20th century. You will see clever camels that would attract younger smokers with the allure of sophistication, men who – perhaps threatened by the women’s movement – could find cigarettes to assuage their masculinity, and doctors as authority figures touting their favorite brands. The tobacco industry knew how to socially engineer their products to appeal to every sort of demographic.

But the cigarette corporations also knew that smoking caused cancer, and they deliberately worked to obfuscate this information. The last slide is the infamous “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” advert from 1954, assembled by six of the leading tobacco companies. About 43 million Americans received this publication, which challenged the research studies (“the validity of the statistics themselves is questioned by numerous scientists”), and claimed that the cigarette industry would pledge to conduct thorough research into the effect of tobacco use. Another memo from the Tobacco Institute described that their tactic should be “advocating the public’s right to smoke, without actually urging them to take up the practice.”.

By casting doubt on the science, asserting that they had the interests of Americans in mind, and also reframing the issue as one of personal freedom, cigarette manufacturers knowingly contributed to the deaths of millions of people. Sadly, strategies such as these have been used by the powerful in other arenas through today.