Smoke in Our Eyes

After decades of disputes with the government and with the United States Surgeon-General, U.S. tobacco company Philip Morris, the largest in the country, made a cynical publicity bid earlier this month when it at last recognized that smoking causes cancer and other major diseases and that tobacco is addictive.

The announcement--that "there is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers"--appeared on the company's newly designed Web site (www.philipmorris.com) and is the second in a series of attempts by tobacco companies to give salience to health-related issues. Last year, the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company similarly redesigned its Web site to include a section on smoking and health hazards, and Tommy Payne, director of R.J. Reynolds, announced two weeks ago that his company planned to follow suit. Previously, Philip Morris had only gone so far as to claim that smoking may be a "causal factor" in certain diseases, and many commentators now say that the company has taken a radical step simply by changing a few words.

Philip Morris telling its clients that its products kill looks like commercial suicide. So what are cigarette makers up to? When its Web site says, "Smokers and potential smokers should rely on these messages in making all smoking-related decisions," does a tobacco company actually mean smokers should quit? Certainly not; it would go out of business. It is only because Philip Morris knows that such pious statements have little impact that it publishes them. After all, the scientific evidence regarding the impact of smoking has been around for quite a while, at least since 1964, when the first Surgeon General's report relating smoking causally to lung cancer, coronary artery disease, chronic bronchitis and emphysema came out.

The fact is, today's smokers, especially heavy smokers, know that smoking is bad for them, but that knowledge doesn't usually stop them. They develop a sort of split personality when it comes to their bad habit: ask any addict around campus (and there are still quite a few out there, despite enormous social pressures to quit), and he or she will tell you that she pushes the health-hazard right to the back of her mind whenever she smokes.

Most smokers feel powerless in the face of addiction; witness the many old people you see in the street nowadays, who despite ill health and even lack of money, will simply carry on buying cigarettes. We've all seen old men rummaging around in their pocket for coins at a Walgreen's counter to buy their third packet of cigarettes that day--packs they probably can't really afford. Ask them why they still smoke, and they'll answer with a raspy voice, "I'm too old to quit." The opposite story, that of young people who thoughtlessly take up smoking, is just as tragic and common. So when Philip Morris advertises that "cigarette smoking is addictive, as that term is most commonly used today. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so," it really doesn't tell anyone anything new, nor does it really risk losing much of its clientele.

By recognizing the health hazards of smoking, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies may just be attempting to avert legal action such as that undertaken by many state attorneys general in recent years. Lawsuits since 1995 have sought to make cigarette makers reimburse the costs of smoking-related health care, arguing that companies had intentionally misled smokers into thinking that cigarettes were safe. Openly stating the risks now could free companies of any charges of misrepresentation in the future.

But for Philip Morris, this is just part of a wider publicity campaign, in which the company's tobacco products are played down (they are only one of many headings on the company's Web site, and an inconspicuous one at that), and new attention is given to its food and drink products Miller and Kraft. The Marlboro logo no longer appears on the site, while in contrast the most complete link is to Philip Morris's community and charitable actions, including headings such as hunger, domestic violence, culture and AIDS. That the company is engaging in an intensive image-building campaign is clearest in its use of appealing rhetoric from two popular traditions: communitarian and voluntaristic. The company can comfortably engage itself in Youth Smoking Prevention campaigns and denounce "complete government-imposed smoking bans or severe restriction" all in the same breath, since it claims that smoking is a question of adult free choice.

Last Wednesday's move was therefore an answer to mounting public pressure: after California banned smoking in all public areas in 1997, including bars and taverns, and with similar legislation in Massachusetts pending, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to jump on the bandwagon of public denunciation--even if such denunciation means appearing hypocritical. If confronted, any executive from a tobacco company could simply claim to have the facts in his favor: "we have admitted that smoking causes cancer, what else do you expect us to do?" And surprisingly, few would realistically respond, "stop producing cigarettes." Is that because the American business ethic is still stronger than the health ethic? No, it just means that self-castigation is the new means to self-promotion. After all, we are all becoming public health puritans, and this is precisely the sentiment to which Philip Morris is now catering.

Marianne C. S. Brun-Rovet is a graduate student in the department of government.