How many people smoke today?

“Hey Morris,” Phil said to his friend one day. “I’m going to find out how much you know about smoking in the US.”

“Sure, boss,” Morris said. “But why?”

“To help set up our marketing campaign, of course.”

“Okay. Lessgo.”

“You have to answer every question within 10 percent of the correct answer. Otherwise you’re wrong. First question: Let’s start with non-Hispanic whites. Men versus women. Out of 100 white men, how many smoke?”

“Probably 25.”

“Wrong. It’s 24 out of 100.”

“Hey! You said if I was within 10 percent…”

“I did, didn’t I? Well, okay. How many women?”

“Same number, 24 of 100.”

“This time you’re really wrong. The answer is 20 out of 100.”

“Wow,” Morris said. “That’s a lot of women who aren’t buying our product.”

“Hold on. It gets worse. What about black women? Out of 100, how many smoke?”

“I’d better say 19.”

“No, Morris. You’d better say 17.3 percent.”

“What? Where are you getting those numbers?”

“From the American Heart Association. They keep track of such things, you know.  Out of 100 black men, how many do you think smoke?”

“I’d guess 20.”

“Wrong. It’s 26.”

“Wow. I hope you’re going to write these numbers down…”

“I will. How many Hispanic men out of 100 smoke?”

“I’m tired of being wrong. You tell me.”

“Okay. It’s 21.1 out of 100.”

“C’mon, Phil,” Morris said. “You can’t have 0.1 smokers.”

“It’s a percent, dummy. Would you rather have me say 21.1 percent?”

“Yes, now that you asked. I really would.”

“OK. What percent of Hispanic women smoke?”

“Probably about 20 percent.”

“Wrong by a mile. It’s only 11.1 percent.”

“Wow. We have a lot of work to do there, don’t we?”

“Wait. It gets worse. What percent of Asian men smoke?”

“Tell me.”

“Okay, it’s 20.6 percent. But here’s the surprise. Only 6 percent of Asian women in America smoke cigarettes.”

“Wow.”

“Now for our last group, let’s look at native Americans, including those in Alaska. What do you think? C’mon. It’s your last chance to be wrong, Morris.”

“Okay. I’d guess 25 percent of native American men and 22 percent of women in that category.”

“You would, and you would be wrong-er than ever.”

“Wrong-er? That isn’t even a word, Phil. Don’t make up a new language to describe my guessing ability.”

“Well, these are the people we have eating out of our hand.”

“Or smoking out of our cigarettes.”

“That would work. A whopping 37.5 percent of native American men smoke, and 26.8 percent of native American women.”

“I’m worn out. I hope you don’t have any more statistics to throw at me.”

“Oh, but I do. Morris, tell me if you think people with less education smoke more than those with a college degree?”

“I’m afraid so, Phil.”

“You’d be right. People with more than 16 years of education smoke at a rate of 7 percent. And those who smoke the most are in what we call the poverty level.”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”

“You’ve got what?”

“Our marketing strategy. Don’t you agree that it’s easier to get a group of people with lots of smokers to add more smokers than it is to go to a group that has hardly any smokers and try to win a few over?”

“I guess so. Sounds reasonable.”

“Then we should sell our cigarettes to American native men who have a GED but nothing beyond.”

“C’mon, Morris. You didn’t give me that statistic.”

“Ooops. You’re right. I didn’t. Okay, here it is. People who only have a GED smoke at a rate of 43.2 percent.”

“Then it should be easy to find all of the men in that category who are native Americans and are at the poverty level. Boosting their smoking rate from 25 percent to 50 percent or better shouldn’t be that hard to do.”

“Maybe. But my vote would be to go for everybody who’s at poverty level. And everybody who doesn’t have much of an education.”

“What about women?”

“Ugh. They’re a lost cause. All we can do is run a campaign telling all women how great a good smoke is. We’ll need to work on that. Spend a few million promoting our free-base nicotine and nail ‘em with one smoke.”

“We might not get ‘em all, but we’d get ‘em fast.”

(Go to the AHA site for the statistics.)

Which is worse: murder or deception?

“Big tobacco blames the FTC for its deceptive claims. The FTC blames big tobacco for its deceptive claims. And the Marlboro Man tips his hat and rides off into the sunset.”—Slade

“Hey, Phil,” Morris said one day. “Wouldn’t you rather go to court for deception than for causing death and disease?”

Phil thought a minute. “I would,” he said.

“That’s what I thought. You see, in advertising there’s already a lot of deception and fraud. All we have to do is slip our messages in that category.”

“You’re saying it’s better to lie than to kill, right?”

“Exactly. Take our case in the State of Maine. It’s a breath of fresh air to be blamed for something besides  causing death and disease.”

Phil scratched his head. “The deal with Maine is that they’ve had laws on the books against deceptive advertising a lot longer than anything banning our products for health reasons.”

“Yeah, you’re right, and you know what happened. We got the smokers’ case dismissed–”

“–Until that wise guy in Boston jumped in and got the case back into the courts.”

Morris pondered that geographic leap. “Boston,” he growled.

“Well, what happens next?” Phil urged.

“There’s going to be a big struggle about state law versus federal law.”

“Which is better for us?”

“Federal law, Goofus,” Morris said. “We comply with the fed’s laws and rules of labeling and advertising, and Maine can’t take their little state laws and ramp them up to a higher level of accountability and slap them on us. They just can’t do it.”

“But smokers could still sue us for being deceptive.”

“Sure, they could. But they’d have to jump through a lot of hoops to get their case into the federal spotlight.”

“Well, crumb-de-bum,” Phil said. “We win some, we lose some. As long as we can keep producing cigarettes that give a good buzz and give it fast, I have a feeling we’ll come out ahead in this.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Morris.

Back on tobacco’s back

It’s been too long since we’ve put info together for people who are as sick and tired as we are of Philip and Morris. Those are the two business tycoons who are running ramshack through our country and others with their death-dealing, money-making products. Philip is the suave executive type. Morris is the hit man working in disguise behind the scenes. They’ve been up to a lot lately, and we’re back online again to track their latest moves. Visit us often.

Philip was on a working vacation in the Bahamas a while back, taking it easy on the dock of his luxury yacht moored in a beach bay. He was stretching out in his hammock, reaching for an ice cold beer, when it hit him.

“Morris!” he yelled. “Get up here. Let’s make some moves.”

Morris stumbled up the ladder to the deck and waited on the top stairs while Philip mulled over what he was about to say. 

“What moves?” he asked.

“Morris,” Philip said slowly, “they’re trying to keep us from selling our cigarettes. Got it?”

“You mean in San Francisco?”

“Of course that’s what I mean. We’ve got to find an angle, a way to keep us from being banned from the marketplace. It’s un-American.”

“You want me to go down there and blow up city hall?”

“No, silly. We’ll do it legally. There’s got to be a law, a constitutional law, a protection backed up by the U.S. Constitution, that allows us to sell cigarettes in San Francisco’s pharmacies. We’ll use that to get us back in the lungs of those SF folks.”

“Let me check that out,” Morris said, fastening his holster under his jacket as he headed for shore.

About an hour or so later he was back on the yacht.

“You know Joe Murillo is worth his weight in gold,” he said. “No threats, no bricks thrown around. Just First Amendment rights.”

“Really?

“Yeah, Phil. It works like this. Joe says that the government of San Francisco has no right to suppress our communications with adult smokers. It’s a constitutional free speech right. Not only that, but the city’s ban keeps customers from buying products from legal, licensed retail firms. They can’t do that!”

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That’s more or less how Phil and Morris decided to fight the latest attack on their tobacco revenues. You can read all about it in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Don’t miss these comments:

Mitch Katz, director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, says he must have missed the day when his social studies teacher told the class that cigarette sales were a constitutional right. “It’s a badge of honor for anyone in public health to be sued by Philip Morris,” he said.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano: “If they want to sell butts, they can kiss mine.”

Walgreens is also complaining and filing a claim because the ban on cigarette sales could cut their sales dollars by a huge percent.

The court case will be heard September 30.  

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