Truly Retiring the Marlboro Man

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Imagine you were Geoffrey Bible, CEO of Philip Morris. You would have two
overriding goals: First, to limit your liability from lawsuits in the
United States. Second, to make sure nothing interfered with your plans to
expand massively abroad.

In the deal the tobacco industry concluded with 40 state attorneys
general last June, Bible and the other tobacco executives achieved both of
these aims. The deal gave the industry effective immunity from lawsuits,
by precluding class action lawsuits, preventing punitive damage awards to
those who sue the industry and setting an annual cap that would assure the
industry was required to pay no more than $5 billion a year to victims who
successfully sued the tobacco companies. And it did absolutely nothing to
curb Big Tobacco's overseas expansion.

The exclusion of international issues from the deal was not a simple
oversight. When some of the attorney general negotiators raised it, Big
Tobacco dismissed it out of hand. In the face of industry obstinacy, the
attorneys general quickly capitulated.

In fact, the June deal would actually make matters worse internationally.
The deal specifically denied the Food and Drug Administration authority to
regulate tobacco exports. It stated that, in the event of bankruptcy, the
tobacco companies would be able to segment profits from overseas sales
from their domestic bankruptcy payment obligations. And it denied foreign
victims of the U.S. tobacco companies their limited right of access to
U.S. courts. Unfortunately, many of these flaws have been replicated in
several of the pending tobacco bills under congressional consideration.

What happens to the Tobacco Lords' foreign operations is of tremendous
importance both to the health of the tobacco companies and, more
importantly, to the health of millions of people around the world. 

Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds sell approximately two-thirds of their
cigarettes overseas, and make nearly half their profits on foreign sales. 

These sales do not just displace other companies sales. U.S. tobacco
companies' marketing strategies create more smokers. After South Korea
opened its market to U.S. companies in 1988, for example, smoking rates
among male Korean teens rose from 18.4 percent to 29.8 percent in a single
year. The rate among female teens more than quintupled, from 1.6 percent
to 8.7 percent.

With smoking rates rising in the Third World due to rising incomes,
corporate tobacco pushing and other causes, the World Health Organization
predicts tobacco-related deaths worldwide will rise from 3 million to 10
million by the 2020s, with 70 percent of those fatalities in the
developing world. 

There is, however, reason to be hopeful that Geoffrey Bible and his
associates will not succeed in their scheme to protect industry profits
and continue uninhibited addicting millions around the globe. Even as
prospects for tobacco company special protections are fading on Capitol
Hill, a group of legislators have crafted an international tobacco control
package that would begin to address Big Tobacco's international
misconduct.

In late February, Senators Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, Frank Lautenberg,
D-New Jersey, Paul Wellstone, D-Minnesota, and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, joined
with Representatives Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and Frank Pallone, D-New
Jersey, to announce a legislative initiative that would require U.S.
tobacco companies to adhere to at least as stringent marketing and
labeling standards overseas as domestically. 

Other provisions of the package would: prohibit the U.S. government from
promoting U.S. tobacco interests in foreign markets; impose tough
anti-smuggling provisions on tobacco products; and support governmental
and non-governmental tobacco control efforts, including television
counteradvertisements urging people not to smoke, in developing countries
and in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Some Republican support for at least portions of the package is expected
to be forthcoming.

Imagine that instead of Geoffrey Bible, you were a parent of a
15-year-old in Beijing or Seoul, in Nairobi or Sao Paulo, in Moscow or
Kiev. In recent years, the U.S. tobacco companies have begun introducing a
host of slick marketing techniques -- free cigarette giveaways,
sponsorships of rock concerts and sports events, discotheque dance nights,
promotional t-shirts, hats and other attire, and many others -- that make
smoking seem cool, hip, sophisticated and very, very American. Smoking
rates among teens are rising. Wouldn't you hope that the U.S. government
would at least ensure that U.S. tobacco companies not expose your child to
deceptive marketing strategies that are outlawed or about to be banned in
the United States?


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor, and co-director of Essential Action, a corporate
accountability group.

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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