Tobacco Essay Research Paper The tobacco industry — страница 2

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was a lot more effective. (1.166-175) Imperial Tobacco, along with various advertising agencies realized that when addiction happened there was almost always a common rationalization in accepting the side effects; this dangerous psychological information could have very well been exaggerated and used in ads to accelerate the addiction process. There have been non-industry studies that show that kids at very young ages have a playful desire to hold cigarettes since they want to be older. Although there is no proof, this led some fanatical anti-smoking groups to the conclusion that there are ties between the tobacco industry and companies who sell candy cigarettes such as pop-eye candy and big league chew. (1.264) Although this evidence has never been used in court it has been

considered in a parliamentary discussion involving Imperial tobacco s CEO in 1988. He eased the level of severity of his tests by saying they were only for statistical value (5). There is no excuse for the Industry s blatant disrespect for the law in the case of cigarette tests on underage smokers; they encourage kids to help them break the law. The huge amounts of revenue received from tobacco sales allowed the companies to maintain powerful regardless of how wrong they were. The ability to change people s opinions in regards to tobacco was very easy with the influence of money; this was no exception for politicians. Even though the companies explain their motives for political charity as, …for the satisfaction of contributing they must be aware that such excessive charity

almost always influences the vote on tobacco laws to their benefit. (1.155) It seems strange that tobacco is still not a part of the Food and Drug Act or that there has been many obvious loopholes in regulations unless political connections are considered. In 1993, Imasco alone gave away $200 000, which was spread to many different leaders but when combined with many other contributions and the temptation of for tax money, the potential for political control was very great. Government leniency accepted the companies self-regulations which allowed them to create a deceiving complaint system where they could choose who complains. (4) Money is also used in excess by the industry to win court battles since one person s victory could easily lead to a thousand when dealing with

tobacco. A large settlement is a lot better to the industry than a loss in court since they have so much money to spare. An internal memo from an American lawyer explained his court strategy in the 1996 case that resulted in the first out of court settlement: the way we won these cases was not by spending all of the company s money, but by making that other son of a bitch spend all of his. (1.150) The tobacco industry has realized that they have a great green power in their pockets and have grown very rich because of it. People don t seem to realize that a loss in court means a lot more than simply losing money; it also means a loss of credibility, which is usually worth more to the business. With this in mind, the tobacco industry uses its money to escape the law and ultimately

become richer because of it. The use of tobacco manipulation has shown that companies are totally aware of the true nature of their product. They have tried over and over again to argue that nicotine and other chemicals are vital to the taste of the cigarette and by taking them away, the customers would be unsatisfied, but confidential documents point otherwise. In 1945 a company-funded study called The Role of Nicotine describes the reality of their product as nicotine cleverly packaged in the cigarette. In some cases ammonia was found in the mix which was probably added to speed the intake time of nicotine into the system even though this is a dangerous chemical to the human body. While questioning Dr. Wigand, former president of research for Brown and Williamson, he exposed

that his company was using coumarin in their pipe tobacco, a known carcinogen that was needlessly added to cigarettes. When he asked his supervisor why they were using a form of rat poison in their product, Brown and Williamson s CEO replied that taking it away would affect the taste, which would ultimately affect sales. (2.B) Brown and Williamson actually released a nicotine-free cigarette onto the market but quickly took it off because it never succeeded in making any money. Instead they began focussing on producing a more potent tobacco, which they succeeded in growing with a Brazilian plant called Y1 that had twice the nicotine as usual. Eventually though, a tobacco supplier revealed to the industry the reconstitution process which could control the exact amount of nicotine