[Intl-tobacco] Letter to Hershey: Don't Sell to Philip Morris

[Robert Weissman]

Essential Action and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids today sent a
letter to the Hershey Trust urging that the trust not sell the chocolate
company to Philip Morris. 

We will have a letter writing campaign up and running on this soon.
We'll send out information on the list serve as soon as that is set up.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2002

Contact:  Anna White or Robert Weissman, Essential Action
          Tel: 202-387-8030, tobacco@essential.org


Tobacco Control Groups Ask Hershey Not to Sell to Philip Morris/Kraft

-- "Hershey and Philip Morris go together like chocolate and poison" --

Washington, DC – Today, Essential Action and the Campaign for Tobacco
Free Kids sent a letter to Robert Vowler, CEO of the Hershey Trust
Company, strongly urging him to announce as soon as possible that a sale
of Hershey Food Corporation to Phillip Morris/Kraft is not among the
options.

The Milton Hershey School Trust, which owns one-third of Hershey Food
Corporation's shares and controls three-quarters of votes, has asked the
corporation to explore a buy-out. Kraft Foods, whose parent company is
Philip Morris, is among the potential buyers.

The Milton Hershey School, which is the sole beneficiary of the Trust,
was originally established to assist orphaned boys. 

"It would be terribly ironic if the School Trust were to effectively
force the sale of Hershey Foods to a company associated with the
orphaning of thousands upon thousands of children worldwide," the groups
said in their letter. "Hershey and Philip Morris go together like
chocolate and poison."

Tobacco is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths annually in the
United States and the World Health Organization projects that tobacco will
kill 10 million people annually by the year 2030. 

"Kraft has been exploited by Philip Morris - and Hershey will be too if
bought by Kraft - in costly efforts to transform the parent company's
reputation from a corporate grim reaper to that of a good corporate
'citizen,'" the groups warned.

"Philip Morris, the world's largest multinational tobacco company, has a
long and sordid history of aggressively targeting poor and disadvantaged
youth, denying the highly addictive and deadly nature of its products,
thwarting legislative efforts to effectively protect public health, and
launching misleading public relations campaigns," the letter says.

The full letter is available online at:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/vowler.pdf

Essential Action is a corporate accountability group based in
Washington, DC. Its Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control program
works with over 350 groups in more than 100 countries and 40 U.S.
states.

Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids is a national tobacco control advocacy
organization based in Washington, DC. http://www.tobaccofreekids.org