The FDA moves in on tobacco

Morris carried a silver tray with two porcelain coffee mugs and a silver pitcher to Phil’s office door, which was slightly ajar. His back to the door, he pushed it open and with a flourish placed the tray on Phil’s polished desktop.  

“Coffee time!” he announced.

Phil showed a generous smile when he tipped the pitcher and smelled his favorite brew.“What’s the celebration?”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to share some interesting news and to tell you I’m not sore because you are using a nicotine inhaler.”

No hard feelings, Morris.”

The two men helped themselves to a cup of coffee each and began a drawn-out tasting process.

Phil poured himself another cup. “Outstanding,” he said. “Now what’s the news?”

“You know all about the new tobacco law passed last June, don’t you?”

“Morris, there are dozens of laws passed every month related to tobacco. What law are you talking about?”

“The one that’s called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.”

“It passed Congress last June.”

“Sure did. It’s a big one, Phil.”

“That it is. I’m glad I’m not the president of a tobacco company these days.”

“Cigarette sales are falling like a rock, people everywhere are quitting smoking. We can’t advertise to kids, and they’re our best market.”

“We could use a camel right now.”

“We can’t use cartoons. Heck, Phil, we can’t even advertise directly any more.”

“I guess so. We’ve had a good run.” Morris blew the air out of his lungs. “I’ll be smoked.”

Actual text of the new FDA legislation: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1256enr.txt.pdf

  Posted by Griffith Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce L. Griffith
All rights reserved

Tobacco the health product

“Hey, Phil, wouldn’t it have been great to be around when smoking was healthy?”

“Healthy? It’s never been healthy. Where are you coming from?”

Morris jumped on an office chair and began singing “Winstons taste good, like a cigarette should. Winstons give you real flavor, smooth fine, tobacco flavor. Winstons taste good, like a (clap-clap) cigarette should.”

“That’s not our commercial.”

“Neither is this one.” Morris moved his legs in a charade of walking. “ ‘I’d walk a mile for a mild, mild Camel. They’re so mild they suit your TLT.’ ”

“Your ‘TLT?’ ”

“Your tongue, your lungs, your throat. Don’t you remember, Phil?”

“I wasn’t born yet, and neither were you.”

“Grandpa Chester was, and he used to chant those commercials when I was a kid.”

“I have to believe you, but singing commercials is not your talent, Morris. Get down off that chair, sit down, and tell me what you want to say.”

Morris slid down the back of the chair to a sitting position. “Other tobacco companies came up with commercials that said things like ‘One out of three doctors who smoke, choose Charlestons.’ I don’t know if my numbers are right, but that was the idea. ‘Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.’ Then we came along with the greatest advertising campaign in the history of commerce—”

“—The Marlboro man. I want to talk about him later. First I want you to tell me when and how tobacco was ever considered to be a health product.”

“Well, it is said—”

“—You can’t trust anything an ‘it’ says.”

“Historians say…that Sir Walter Raleigh took tobacco back from America and told people at home back in England that it would cure dyspepsia.”

“And?”

“And American Indians told explorers it would cure syphilis.”

“Anything else?”

“Have you ever heard of Eton College?”

“Sure. It’s an exclusive prep school in England.”

“In the 1600s they gave smoking lessons to Eton scholars. That’s how important it was.”

“Hmmm.”

Source: http://www.cigarettespedia.com/index.php/THE_HISTORY_AND_ANTIQUITY_OF_THE_TOBACCO_HABIT

Posted by Griffith Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Griffith Publishing
All rights reserved

One of the least ethical companies in the world

I told you we’d talk more about being labeled an unethical company. Are you ready, Phil?”

“Sure, Morris. Give it to me straight.”

“Have you heard of a company named Covalence?”

“Not since college chemistry.”

“Come on. You were studying atoms, not businesses. Covalence is a well respected research company based in Switzerland. Every year they publish a list of global companies ranking them by their ethics.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of them. And I’ve always wondered how they they determine that. I don’t even know if you’re ethical, and I’ve known you for years.”

“They spend a lot of effort studying the ethics of multinational companies. They have forty-five criteria and they spend seven years studying everything from news reports to the company’s hiring practices and policies.

“So what’s the bad news?”

“It’s really bad, Phil. Our tobacco company was ranked the fifth least ethical multinational company in the world.”

“But we’re not a multinational company. We spun off from world operations, and now we’re PM-USA.”

“But in the eye of the public, we are Philip Morris. And we certainly are not the best loved company even in the U.S.”

“I’ll grant you that. But what made the researchers decide we were so lacking in business ethics? They don’t even know you.”

“They don’t know you, either. What tipped the scale was our latest campaign to keep the U.S. government from taking billions of dollars from us as punishment for hiding the bad effects of cigarettes from the public.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. Four tobacco companies, not just ours, are involved in that campaign. Why aren’t they rated as least ethical, too?”

“Well, they have a lot more on us than that. They combed through our personnel records, our marketing policies, and all of our financial statements. They nailed us for false advertising, for trying to ditch government regulations, and for many deceptive practices.”

Phil extended his hand. “Congratulations for belonging to a seamy organization,” he said.

“Et tu.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/17/business/AP-US-Tobacco-Case.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=philip%20morris&st=cse

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/the-least-ethical-compani_n_440073.html?&&&&&&&&&slidenumber=5FfrlBGYJYU%3D&&#slide_image

Posted by Griffith Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce L. Griffith
All rights reserved

More about counterfeiters

“Morris,” Phil said, “do you remember how upset we were by the Marlboro counterfeiters exploiting the brand all over the place?”

“Sure do. Even those made on Indian reservations.”

“Especially those made on Indian reservations. Now we’ve filed a lawsuit against a company called G. J. Smokes on an Indian reservation in Mastic, New York.”

“Is it going to cost the tribe a lot of money?”

“Probably. But they’ll feel more pain when we take all twenty smoke shops on the reservation to court.”

“Why did we take that on?” Morris asked. “Since they’re breaking the law, shouldn’t the state’s law enforcement agencies be the ones to confront the smoke shops?”

“When it comes to stealing our brand, violating our trademark, and collecting tax-free revenues, we’ll step in whenever we have to.”

“I don’t understand how they make counterfeit cigarettes in the first place.”

“China is the main place where this happens, and it’s easy to hide in such a big country. They grow their own tobacco, from seed bought or stolen from American and other sources. Then they set up shops to make the cigarettes in underground tunnels and basements. Nobody can see them from the street.”

“Like everything else Chinese, they probably do a meticulous job of it.”

“They manufacture fake cigarettes for about sixty countries, right down to the colors, the words and art, tax stamps and the health warning required for each country. They’re good.”

“And wealthy.”

“You’re right there. Last I heard they make about eighty dollars for every pack of cigarettes they sell.”

“Eighty dollars?”

“No, wait. That’s up to eighty dollars for one cigarette.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I, but that’s what I’ve heard.” 

Source: Te-Ping Ching, writing for Slate at http://www.slate.com/id/2221438/pagenum/all/

http://www.csnews.com/csn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004061694

Posted by Griffith Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce L. Griffith
All rights reserved

Nicotine plain and simple

“I want to talk about one thing and only one thing, and I want to talk to you because it matters a great deal to you as well as to me.”

“Gee, Morris. You sound so sincere. Come on in and sit down.”

“Thanks.” Morris looked around the office to see if someone was listening in. “Phil, you have got to stop using nicotine.”

“I like a man who says what he thinks. In what way is my inhaling of nicotine fumes troubling you, my man?”

Nicotine is being studied like never before,” Morris said, “and you should listen to the scientists and stay away from it.”

“What are the scientists saying?”

“That nicotine is highly addictive.”

“We’ve known that for years.”

“Are you willing to trade cancer-producing cigarettes for habit-forming nicotine?”

Phil thought for a minute. “Why yes, I am,” he said. “If its only fault is that it’s habit forming, why not use it if it works?” He looked closely at Morris. “Don’t tell me scientists are trying to link nicotine with cancer.”

“I won’t tell you that, and I don’t think they have a lot of evidence along those lines. But they are finding problems with people using nicotine and more problems when they try to quit using.”

Phil yawned. “You make it sound so deadly dull,” he said. “I’d rather be taking a nap.”

“Phil, nicotine isn’t good for you. One drop of purified nicotine on your tongue, and you’re dead in minutes. It’s used everywhere to kill bugs on plants. It goes straight to your brain, to the parts of your brain that give you a sensation of pleasure.”

“Where are you getting all this?”

“From the great repository of all information past and present, the Wonderful Worldwide Web.” 

“And I suppose you also found that people who use nicotine to break the cigarette habit die within five years or that their skin turns a sickening purple-green color.”

“No, but it’s not good for you, Phil.”

Sources:

http://teens.drugabuse.gov/mom/mom_nic1.php
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000953.htm
http://www.quitguide.com/nicotine-withdrawal.html
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/cravingsandurges/a/withdrawal.htm

Posted by Griffith Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce L. Griffith
All rights reserved

Ethical cigarette sales, an oxymoron?

“Hey, Phil. What do you know about ethics in advertising cigarettes?

“You came rushing in here like you were announcing the winner of the Super Bowl. What have you got up your sleeve?

Morris rolled up his sleeve and took a look. “Nothing, boss, I’m as pure as the driven snow.”

“And as slippery as ice.”

“But listen to me. I’ve been studying the subject of ethical advertising for a couple of  days, and it seems that the tobacco company we work for scores nearly at the bottom of the heap in this category.”

“Really. What terrible thing have we done this time?”

“I’ll tell you later, but don’t you agree we’ve been sort of an anti-truth force since we started making cigarettes back in 1924?”

“Sort of? Absolutely not. We’ve been perfectly honest about our campaign against the truth. We’ve been committed to meeting the needs of millions of people for our products, providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of people, and contributing to the economy of this great nation.”

“And those things were more important to us than the truth?”

“Look at the record, Morris my friend. Look what we did before there was a Surgeon General’s report showing that tobacco causes lung cancer. Did we go around telling people they shouldn’t smoke?”

“Of course not.”

“After the report was published, did we even hint that the scientists might be correct? Did we admit knowing that nicotine was addictive and that tobacco smoke contains hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals? Did we put cutting out those bad chemicals at the top of our R&D agenda?”

“No way. We knew it couldn’t be done.”

“That’s right. Instead, we did everything we could to persuade people to smoke our brands.”

“I know that, but should we have? In an ideal world would we produce anything that causes cancer?”

“An ideal what? Morris, where in the universe are we going to stumble upon something remotely resembling an ideal world? It won’t happen.”

Morris paid no attention. “In my version of the ideal world there wouldn’t be any nicotine or smoking at all.”  

“Well, la tee dah. Until you succeed in establishing the ideal world, get used to it, my friend. We didn’t invent tobacco. We weren’t the first to design a cigarette, and we didn’t teach anybody how to smoke. The smoking habit was deeply entrenched before we came along.” 

 “Sure, Phil. All we did was multiply its bad effects. We pushed a deadly product on the people, especially teenagers and young adults, and were proud to do so.”

Silence reigned for about half a minute until Phil stood up and edged towards the door.

“I’d like to continue this scintillating discussion, Morris,” he said, “but I’ve got a statistics committee in ten minutes on the other end of this campus.”

“I’d like to continue this scintillating discussion, Morris,” he said, “but I’ve got a statistics committee in ten minutes on the other end of this campus.”

“Maybe you can twist some numbers while you’re there.”

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce L. Griffith
All rights reserved

Posted by Griffith Publishing

 

Smoke signals from the Ottoman Empire

Phil and Morris, both managers at a huge tobacco company in Richmond, Virginia, were sharing a few minutes of chatter before going back to their office jobs that afternoon.

“Hey, Morris, do you know anything about the Ottoman Empire?”

“Sure do. That’s where they make those boxy pieces of upholstered furniture with no arms or back.”

“Right next to the barber shop at the Empire Shopping Mall.”

“Phil, don’t push me.”

“Me? You’re doing the pushing. I wanted to tell you how important the Ottoman Empire was in bringing tobacco to the modern world of today.”

“I’m listening to no one but you, my friend.”

“Fealty is good when extended in the proper direction.” Phil intoned the words as if he were making history. “The Ottoman Empire grew from being a small state in the country of Turkey to being a powerful and fierce nation from the fifteenth century up to about 1918.”

“You sound like a professor. They took over other nations, didn’t they?”

“Yes. In Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. But guess what they did to tobacco?”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“They were Muslim, so alcohol was prohibited, but the Koran didn’t talk about tobacco. The Muslims throughout the Ottomon Empire took on tobacco any way they could get it. Loads of tobacco from South America quickly sold it as fast as it could be could offloaded into Egypt or Europe or wherever they went. Tobacco seeds were a great seller so people to take it home and plant their own crops.”

“It was a good time for tobacco.”

“It was prescribed for the sick. Enjoyed by everybody. Even children as young as five regularly smoked. Both men and women enjoyed tobacco. But like other popular trends, smoking has had enemies.”

“Even in the olden days?”

“Think about this one. In 1638 China’s emperor decreed that anybody caught smoking would be decapitated.”

“How many smokers died by losing their heads?”

“Not many. It wasn’t a popular law. A few years later the Catholic church announced it would excommunicate priests caught smoking tobacco. And in several cities or regions the penalty for smoking was death.”

“It still is,” Morris said. “The government doesn’t execute, but every smoke takes away twenty-eight minutes of life. If you’re thirty and are a smoker you’ll live another thirty-five years. If you’re a non-smoker you  can expect to live about fifty-three more years.”

 “I hear you, preacher. Now go away so I can get some work done. See you tomorrow.”

Sources:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9703.php 
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/OTTOMAN/OTTOMAN1.HTM
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0860176.html

Selling a product that sells itself

“We were talking about tobacco in Turkey—”

“—I was talking, Morris. You were punctuating.”

“Well, anyway. Phil, you got me really curious about tobacco in antiquity. Did they actually make cigarettes? Smash ‘em together, roll ’em up in paper and light a match?”

“Sure, Morris, back when people lived in caves they had streetcorner shops that sold matches and cigarette paper and tobacco leaves.”

“They had to smoke them somehow.”

“How do you know? Maybe they chewed it. Or boiled it into a brew and drank it.”

“Who’s being ridiculous now? Phil, I really want to know. At the beginning of time as we know it, when mankind was new, how did they find out that smoking tobacco would give them good feelings?”

“I don’t think anybody knows for sure, li’l brother, but if you’re always building fires for cooking and keeping warm, doesn’t it make sense that you’ll pay attention when something you throw on the fire puts out smoke that smells good? Then if you breathe it in and it feels good, what are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to start a big tobacco company, that’s for sure. And where did you get the idea that I’m your ‘little brother?’ ”

“That’s a compliment.”

“Oh, sure.”

“The smell of the tobacco was intriguing, and people wanted more and more of its effect. Felt good. So they figured out a way to enjoy it on a long-term basis.”

“And it was so good it became a hit on the planet almost immediately.”

“First it had to reach populations around the world, and whatever you may hear to the contrary, tobacco got its start in the Western hemisphere.”

“I believe that. San Francisco still makes creative people famous.”

Phil coughed. “I think it was Mexico that built the early tobacco trade.”

“Oh.”

“Early explorers and settlers loved the stuff and began selling and trading it everywhere they went. Trading in tobacco with explorers and traders made us wealthy in a hurry. We got a huge head start as a nation with our tobacco money.”

“Smoking was well accepted, then?”

“Not on your life. Next time I see you I’ll tell you what anti-smoking is really about.”

“That would be music, coming from you.”

Phil boxed the air and walked away.

http://www.psychoactive.org.uk/tobacco/history.htm

The way it was before it was…

“I wish we could go back in history—I mean ‘way back—to the very first time anyone on earth smoked tobacco leaves.” Morris was rubbing the palms of his hands together.

“Phil leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think anybody knows when that happened. We do have evidence that the Turks were taking tobacco into Egypt and from there into Europe in the 1500s.”

“But where did Turkey get tobacco? It’s a long way from South Carolina to Istanbul.”

“They grew it in Turkey.”

“It just sprouted out of the ground?”

“You’re getting ahead of me, Morris. But you should know there’s a special brand of tobacco we call Turkish tobacco, and there’s some of that in just about every fine cigarette made in the U.S.”

“We import tobacco from Turkey?”

“If we grow it here, it doesn’t taste as good.”

“You’re spoofing me.”

“Nope. Something about the climate and the way they cultivate it changes the taste. The leaves are smaller, the tobacco is very mild and doesn’t have those cancer germs that regular cigarettes do.”

“You still haven’t told me how Turkey got tobacco.”

“Morris, tobacco has been around for thousands of years.”

“Adam and Eve smoked tobacco?”

“Maybe. All we know is that the Mayan Indians of South America have smoked tobacco for at least two thousand years.”

“Oh.” Morris stopped talking for about three seconds. “I suppose they got on little ships and sailed to Europe and North America and sold their tobacco, and that’s how we got it worldwide today.”

“Would you believe that little ships came to Mexico and saw the Mayan Indians enjoying tobacco. The captain of one of the first little ships was Chrisopher Columbus. They took samples with them and that’s how it spread to other countries.”

“I like that! A self-selling product.”

M. Barkley
http://www1.american.edu/ted/turkish-tobacco.htm
The Turkey Travel Planner: http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/details/Tobacco/index.html

Buy your tobacco online

Morris tore open a bag of potato chips and scattered them on paper napkins spread on Phil’s desk. He bit down on a handful and crunched them with his teeth. “What do you think about the new tobacco case that went all the way to the Supreme Court?” He offered the bag of chips to Phil.

“You mean the case that upheld local laws saying you couldn’t badmouth your employer and keep working?” Phil helped himself to a handful of chips.

Morris huffed. “Sometimes I wonder if you even want to keep up on the latest news.”

“Sure I do. But I don’t have to work at it because I can count on you.”

Morris cracked open a can of Coke. “The Supreme Court said that a city can’t sue tobacco sellers for not keeping tax records for all of their sales.”

“For all their customers?”

“The online ones.”

“Oh, yes. Now I remember. New York City was crying because they were losing a lot of sales tax to a tobacco company from Mexico that didn’t keep track of taxes like it was supposed to, and the city was trying to nail them on racketeering charges.”

“That’s the one.”

“Hmm. Morris. Goes to show how big the cashflow is from tobacco to city government.”

“Tobacco is bigger than we think it is.”

Source: Brent Kendall, Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025010024041230.html