Big Tobacco Undermined Public Smoking Bans

by Katherine Stapp

Through generous financial contributions to the "hospitality industry" -- mainly bar, restaurant and hotel associations -- tobacco companies led by U.S.-based Philip Morris have been quietly fighting legislation outlawing smoking in public spaces, says the report published in the June issue of the British journal Tobacco Control.

When rebuffed by authentic trade associations, tobacco companies formed their own proxy lobbying groups, according to the report released on the eve of World No Tobacco Day, May 31.

The industry also raised the specter of lost profits for establishments that barred smoking, when sales receipts showed this to be untrue, the report says.

Its authors analyzed tobacco industry documents that became public as a result of lawsuits against cigarette makers in the United States.

Philip Morris, the world's biggest tobacco company, has issued a statement saying that "we continue to believe that a total ban on smoking in restaurants, bars, night clubs, hotels and similar establishments that cater to smokers and non-smokers is extreme."

"Apparently," the statement said, "the authors of the 'Tobacco Control' article believe that it is inappropriate for us to express these views or to seek the support of business sectors that might share the same concerns. We respectfully disagree."

But University of California professor Stanton Glantz, the lead author of the report, says the problem is that "the tobacco industry has effectively turned the hospitality industry into its de facto lobbying arm on clean air."

"When public health advocates seek to enact clean indoor air laws, they inevitably find the opposition coming from the hospitality industry rather than the tobacco industry," he says. "This paper demonstrates that the tobacco industry has had a world-wide program to infiltrate and co-opt the hospitality industry to serve the tobacco industry's political needs."

This lobbying dates back to the 1970s, when evidence began to mount that non-smokers could be sickened by exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the report says, a debate was growing over public smoking, and "the industry realized that it urgently needed to address these issues in a pro-active manner."

"Tobacco companies don't want to lose money," says Dr. Armando Peruga, a tobacco expert with the Pan American Health Association in Washington who is familiar with the report. "They know that smoke-free zones create an incentive for smokers to quit."

The report looks at the industry's ties to groups like HOTREC, the lobbying arm of 12 major European hotel and restaurant associations. According to internal documents, Philip Morris considered its relationship with HOTREC to be of "prime importance."

But the association, while sympathetic to the company's stance against indoor air pollution campaigns, was reluctant to be openly allied with a tobacco company.

In a memo from the mid-1990s, a Philip Morris corporate affairs officer wrote to a colleague: "HOTREC and its national members do not feel comfortable with being publicly associated with PM, as the name representing the tobacco business. They underline the fact that a support from our side would be valuable for their organization, but it should be either under the KJS [Kraft Jacob Suchard] company name or remain as discreet as possible."

KJS is the German arm of Kraft Foods International, a Philip Morris company.

The report says that Philip Morris also courted and gave money to more than 65 hospitality groups around the United States, the International Hotel Association, which represents members from 145 countries, and others.

According to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), smoking kills about 4.2 million people a year, and is the main preventable cause of death worldwide.

The habit is spreading most rapidly in the developing world -- particularly in Asia and Eastern Europe. By the year 2020, the WHO estimates 10 million deaths annually from cigarettes, seven million in developing countries.

Variations on the industry strategies detailed in the Tobacco Control report have also been employed to fight tobacco restrictions in other venues, researchers say.

The main international treaty to curb smoking -- the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control -- has been under negotiation since 1996 and is expected to be finalized by May 2003. It groups 161 countries under the auspices of the WHO, and will provide legally binding guidelines on tobacco control.

Not surprisingly, the industry has reportedly gone to great lengths to influence the final framework document.

In July 2000, the WHO released a report detailing attempts by cigarette makers to "contain, neutralize and re-orient" the global health body's tobacco control efforts.

The WHO's expert committee predicted a "sophisticated and sustained campaign" to either defeat the treaty, or "transform the proposal into a vehicle for weakening national tobacco control initiatives."

How the negotiations on such contentious topics as labelling and promotional activities play out remains to be seen. But some countries are already moving ahead to crack down on smoking.

New Zealand's Labor Party government just announced some of the world's strictest anti-tobacco laws, which prohibit smoking in most bars, restaurants and casinos.

Opponents have dubbed the measures "fascist" and vowed to overturn them.