[Intl-tobacco] Licensed to Kill, Inc.

[Robert Weissman]

Licensed to Kill, Inc.
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

There is a new tobacco company in town, and it aims to teach a lesson or two.

The company: Licensed to Kill, Inc.

Licensed to Kill, Inc. is incorporated in the state of Virginia, for the
explicit purpose of engaging "in any business permitted by the
Commonwealth of Virginia and not required to be stated herein including,
but not limited to, the manufacture and marketing of tobacco products in
a way that each year kills over 400,000 Americans and 4.5 million other
persons worldwide." (You can view the articles of incorporation at:
<http://www.licensedtokill.biz/articles.html>.)

"We're not like other tobacco companies that try to obscure what their
business is about," says the company's short introduction, published on
its website <www.licensedtokill.biz>."If you market cigarettes, you
market death. It's that simple. In a country which effectively allows
corporations to be formed without regard to their purpose, corporations
are allowed to kill people to make money. Addiction to cigarettes may be
lethal, but profiting from spreading death is perfectly legal."

Describing its unique identity, the company states, 'The name 'Licensed
to Kill' is truly a tobacco name -- a name associated with leadership in
corporate killing in that industry in the United States and around the
world. We do not own any companies that are not tobacco-based, and we do
not feel a need to purchase any food subsidiaries to obscure the fact
that our prime source of profit is indeed cigarettes. By taking such a
name, Licensed to Kill, Inc clearly identifies what it is: a company
that has been given the explicit permission by the state to manufacture
and market tobacco products in a way that each year kills over 400,000
Americans and 4.5 million other persons worldwide. In short, a company
that profits off of some of the world's most deadly brands."

"Some have speculated that the choice of the name 'Licensed to Kill' is
perhaps a tad bit too truthful. It isn't. Licensed to Kill, Inc. takes
pride in owning what we believe to be the premier tobacco company in the
world. Going forward, our identity will give stakeholders clarity about
the purpose of our company."

Taking a jab at Philip Morris, which has renamed its holding company
Altria, Licensed to Kill, Inc. says, "We don't hide what our business is
really about behind an altruistic-sounding name."

Why was such a company created?

Licensed to Kill, Inc. is the inspiration of Robert Hinkley, a former
corporate lawyer now turned activist, and is a project of Essential Action.

It was formed to make a point both about corporations generally, and the
tobacco industry in particular.

States once exercised a modicum of control -- and retain the power to
exercise real control -- over the incorporation, or corporate chartering
process. Corporations are creatures of the state. States have the
authority, through their chartering process and through corporations
law, to establish rules setting boundaries on corporate conduct and
requiring certain kinds of corporate activity.

Over the years, however, states have effectively forfeited these powers,
though they remain dormant and could be reasserted.

Underlying the creation of Licensed to Kill, Inc. was this question:
Have states made the incorporation process so pro forma that they would
grant a charter to a company that set out as its purpose the killing of
millions of people a year?

Now we know the answer: Yes.

The idea of highlighting such an extreme example -- that a literal
parody could gain a charter -- is to suggest how out of control the
chartering process has become, and to suggest that it is time to
reimpose controls.

Of course, although it is a parody, Licensed to Kill, Inc.'s business
plan differs from the actual business plans of existing tobacco
companies in only one notable respect: Its willingness to acknowledge
the deadly, devastating impacts of the industry's marketing practices,
product manipulation, manipulation and misrepresentation of science,
political influence buying, and fundamental way of doing business.

Nearly 5 million people a year worldwide are now dying from
tobacco-related disease, thanks in considerable part to the way the
industry chooses to do business.

A choice the companies have, because the states fail to impose basic
controls on the companies they authorize to do business.

The bottom line message conveyed by License to Kill, Inc.:  No one --
and certainly no corporation -- should have a license to kill. And any
system that is willing to grant one is fundamentally flawed, and should
be scrapped.


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, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the
Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2003/000149.html
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