The New Straits Times, April 25, 1997
Of late, the tide is turning against the culture of smoking in an unprecedented way.
Since a few years ago, numerous lawsuits has been brought against tobacco industrial giants by the public. These include one in 1995 by the now deceased Jean Conner and family claiming that products from a tobacco industry lied about the health risks and addiction caused by smoking.
Adding to this tide is a breakthrough pact that was reached last March between Ligget Group Inc, a tobacco company, and more than 20 States in the United States suing the tobacco industry to recoup Medicaid (health) funds spent in treating smoking-related illnesses, which could amount to an estimated US$600 million (RM1.5 billion) a year.
Ligget broke ranks with the rest of the industry by making available 'a treasure-trove of potentially incriminating documents that the State and local governments will rely on the city and county lawsuits' against other tobacco companies.
Such a pact can give access to crucial internal documents that will be vital in the suits.
The Ligget documents are important because it is the first tobacco company that has publicly confessed. More importantly, the disclosure broke the industry's long-standing code of silence about the addictive and dangerous nature of cigarettes.
In fact, it was reported that among the documents from Ligget were some that revealed how as long as 30 years ago, executives knew that cigarettes were addictive and deadly.
Other documents revealed plans including one which targeted 16-year-olds in the marketing of their products. Richard Daynard, chairman of Tobacco Products Liability Project, said: 'You're dealing with an industry that has spent 40 years hiding what they are doing.'
That nicotine is a powerful addictive drug was summarised in the influential US Surgeon General's Report as far back as 1998. Although this has been strengthened by further research from time to time, many, including policy planners and decision makers, remained largely unmoved - not until the disclosure by the Ligget Group anyway.
More specifically, others mentioned of a 1997 memorandum on the 'crucial role of nicotine' in tobacco business, indicating that while the tobacco company knew of the addictive nature of tobacco, it chose to keep it a secret from the public. Another July 1970 draft letter from a cigarette company research director had made reference to its research into lung cancer and heart disease among others.
To date, independent scientific researchers have gone on the record documenting similarities between nicotine and a number of 'drugs of addiction', including cocaine, amphetamines and heroin.
By July 1995, the US Food and Drug Administration concluded for the first time that nicotine is a drug that should be regulated and proposed steps for regulating tobacco products.
As recent as mid-1996, a scientific journal, Nature, published a finding that "adds new weight to the conclusion that nicotine is indeed addictive". The researcher showed that the part of the brain involved is similar to that activated by "cocaine, amphetamine and morphine" in animal experiments.
However, many Third World countries remained oblivious to such an unprecedented turn of events.
In Malaysia it's "business as usual" despite the massive flow of new information questioning not only the integrity of the tobacco products freely sold to the public, but also the manufacturers of such dubious items.
Unlike in the US, where over the last year public attitudes towards tobacco have become increasingly negative according to one poll, concerned citizens in this country are still fighting an uphill battle with the tobacco lobbyists and, at times, politicians.
When Americans are calling on Congress "to investigate the lies of the tobacco company" in the wake of the recent even, the industry in Malaysia is still justifying its magnanimous existence as a big contributor to the economic well-being of country, saying nothing about the countless sufferings it caused, especially to children and teenagers.
In contrast, a US-based study conducted on behalf of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reported that most Americans feel that the industry lies about the addictive nature of tobacco (81 per cent), the health effects of tobacco (77 per cent) and the marketing of such products to teenagers (75 per cent).
In fact, 66 per cent feel that tobacco company executives should be "criminally prosecuted for lying about the health effects of tobacco".
Arising from this new awareness, many are charging that despite being accessible to some privileged information about the hazards of smoking, the tobacco industry took no comprehensive steps to remedy the precarious situation nor attempt to fully inform its customers about it.
On the contrary, for decades tobacco executives have been claiming that cigarettes are not as harmful as they are made out to be an prefer to go on with their forays of advertisements and sponsorships minimising, if not totally ignoring, the seriousness of ill-health and addiction brought about by smoking.
Ironically enough, in the wake of the Ligget confession, lawyers for the tobacco companies continue to exert that the documents are "secret" and challenged the relevance of making them public.
Unfortunately, this works well in a relatively docile society like Malaysia, where opinions about the dangers of smoking remain fragmented and the strategy to combat them fragile.
Unlike its counterpart in the West, the local tobacco industry seems "protected" from any impending lawsuits brought against them now.
On hindsight, therefore, it is most timely that we re-examine the position of the tobacco industry which has for so long knowingly "cheated" on all of us by being careless and negligent in the design of its product and in the marketing and promoting of such a harmful produce resulting in an untold number of tobacco-related illnesses amongst our citizens, notwithstanding those who were addicted.
To make it worst, the buck dies not stop here if one is to consider that a majority of Malaysia's expanding addict population were for a start, "legal" addicts hooked on smoking.
All the same, the issues is clearly of addiction, tobacco regardless.
To target, hence, is not so much on the industry per se but one against all forms of substance abuse and addiction which is plaguing the country relentlessly.
It is no doubt a battle that must be fought long and hard in the face of a tight network of an ostentatious industry set to sell addiction.
In this context, the coming 1997 World No-Tobacco Day - May 31 - provides a chance for all of us to be "united for a tobacco-free world" - the only viable option left before this menacing habit could be rid from our society once and for all.
