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Tobacco war smoldered for decades
June 20, 1997
Web posted at: 10:51 p.m. EDT (2251 GMT)
From Correspondent Dan Ronan
ATLANTA (CNN) -- The landmark agreement announced Friday between tobacco companies and state attorneys general is only the latest development in ongoing hostilities between government and the industry.
The U.S. government's position on tobacco began to turn against the industry in the early 1960s, when U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry put the first warning label on cigarette cartons.
With one sentence, Terry sparked the forthcoming change in government policy toward tobacco. The warning, "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health," went on cigarette packages in 1965.
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"We then released a report in an explosive manner on a Saturday morning, and it was shocking to much of the public," Terry recalled in 1984.
"The sale of cigarettes almost died," he added. But sales quickly rebounded, which Terry said was in part due to advertising.
From the 1950s through the early 1970s, you couldn't turn on your television or radio without seeing or hearing cigarette ads. Congress outlawed the commercials in 1971.
The tobacco companies shifted the money toward another visible arena, becoming one of the biggest sponsors of sporting events.
But the anti-smoking sentiment in the United States was growing. And some high-profile ex-smokers, such as actor John Wayne, joined the fight.
Warnings get harsher
At the same time, the warning on cigarettes was toughened to read "Warning: The surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health." And currently, several different warnings appear on packages.
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More people were quitting or choosing not to start smoking.
In 1965, 42 percent of all men over 18 smoked; by 1993, it was 25 percent. In 1965, nearly 34 percent of all women 18 or older smoked; by 1993 it was 22.5 percent. The figures are lower today.
Private action to slow the number of smokers was working. But it was not until the appointment of another activist surgeon general that the government's efforts really intensified.
"If tobacco suddenly were unavailable and was as expensive as heroin and cocaine, I think that you would find that the behavior of some tobacco addicts would be very much like the behavior of some addicts of heroin and cocaine," former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop told a government hearing in 1988.
Koop touts dangers of secondhand smoke
Koop also declared secondhand smoke a cause of cancer. Congress made a major step in the late 1980s to limit public smoking, eventually banning cigarettes on all domestic airline flights.
Still, the tobacco companies fought back. About the same time smoking was prohibited on aircraft, Joe Camel was introduced. Critics say the ads were designed to hook young people to cigarettes as older smokers quit or died.
Throughout the 1980s, dozens of lawsuits were filed against the tobacco companies by ex-smokers. The companies' strategy was to litigate the cases for years.
One lawsuit brought by a smoker dying from cancer lasted nine years, until Rose Cipollone's son dropped the legal action eight years after she died.
A denial from R.J. Reynolds
The conflict has been heightened under President Clinton. By this point, the government's efforts to regulate tobacco were led by former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler.
"The levels of nicotine in cigarettes is in excess of what's necessary to create and sustain an addiction," Kessler told a hearing in 1994.
But tobacco executives swore before Congress that nicotine is not addictive.
"Reynolds Tobacco does not spike its products with nicotine," said James Johnston, chief executive of R.J. Reynolds Co. "In fact, our process results in the loss of nicotine."
Still, the tobacco companies' own internal documents showed they knew 40 years ago that smoking was dangerous. And those memos were written long before the government reached that same conclusion.
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