Tobacco titans get tough.

Tobacco Titans Get Tough

Marc Mauer hates cigarette companies. "My aunt was a heavy smoker. When she died of lung cancer two years ago, it really brought home what a devastating effect the tobacco industry can have on people's lives."

What Mauer doesn't know is that each time he buys Post Grape Nuts, he's supporting Philip Morris, one of the largest tobacco companies in the country.

Cigarette companies aren't stupid. As America learns to kick the habit, they've moved to diversify. Food and alcohol aside, Saks Fifth Avenue, Marshall Field's, Ivey's, Peoples Drug stores, Swingline staplers, Jergens lotion, Loews hotels and theaters, Regal china, Bulova watches, and Yardley cosmetics are just a few of the products or businesses affiliated with the cigarette sellers.

The spate of mergers has turned the large tobacco companies into corporate octopuses. Philip Morris spent over $1.3 billion on advertising in 1986, more than any other company except Procter & Gamble. RJR Nabisco is the fourth biggest spender (Sears is third), with an ad budget just under $1 billion.

With that stupendous size comes undeniable power. It's advertising that supports most magazines, newspapers, television and radio. A magazine that depends on cigarette--or food--ads is going to think twice before running a story on the evils of smoking. "Advertising fees buy journalistic complacency," charges Alan Blum, a physician and co-founder of Doctors Oughta Care (DOC), an anti-smoking physicians' association.

Already, the tobacco titans have started to throw their weight around. Here are a few examples:

* In 1983, the American Medical Association sponsored an ad supplement on personal health in Newsweek. In a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, an AMA official admitted that the nation's largest medical association had soft-pedaled the dangers of smoking because the magazine was afraid of offending tobacco advertisers.

* According to Howard Wolinsky, the Sun-Times reporter who uncovered the scandal, the same thing happened a year later when the American Academy of Family Physicians sponsored an ad supplement in Time. Both groups said it would never happen again.

* In 1986, the American Heart Association approached Reader's Digest to run an ad supplement highlighting the dangers of tobacco. Reader's Digest, to its credit, is one of the few national magazines that accepts no tobacco advertising. But Reader's Digest does accept food advertising. The Sun-Times reported that pressure from General Foods (owned by Philip Morris) killed the deal.

* Last year, the Fleischmann's Margarine Division of RJR Nabisco asked the American Academy of Family Physicians to join in a $1 million anti-heart-disease ad campaign. This time, the Academy insisted that the campaign warn consumers that smoking promotes heart disease.

But when Wolinsky and a Washington Post reporter independently exposed the deal--pointing out that it would be the first time a tobacco company voluntarily admitted that cigarettes cause disease--Fleischmann's pulled out.

* Earlier this year, RJR Nabisco abruptly fired its longtime ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi DFS Inc., after discovering that the firm had created a television ad for Northwest Airlines. The ad showed passengers applauding the airline's ban on smoking. According to The Wall Street Journal, RJR Nabisco vice chairman Edward A. Horrigan Jr., was "furious after seeing the Northwest ad."

Saatchi & Saatchi lost an $84 million account (for Life Savers and Nabisco cookies), sending a threatening message through the advertising world. Meanwhile, Philip Morris sent a Mailgram to thousands of its customers, urging them to call Northwest Airlines to complain.

As the cigarette-makers swallow food and other companies, they can use the best of their food products to establish ties with medical groups--and with consumers.

"The food products are powerful weapons to gain a foothold," says Blum. "Some people argue that diversification is good because it means these companies are getting out of the tobacco business. In fact, diversification just insulates the tobacco sector. And all the profit comes from tobacco. Cigarettes account for 57 percent of Philip Morris' sales, but 79 percent of its profits."

Blum knows that diet is a major contributor to heart disease. But, he maintains, some tobacco-owned food companies, such as Fleischmann's, focus attention almost exclusively on diet to deflect attention from the smoking connection.

Blum has refused to buy foods made by tobacco companies for almost ten years. For those who wish to follow his lead, we offer a list of tobacco-owned food and beverage brands. Since no one can possibly remember them all, Blum suggests checking ads or labels for the major brand names, such as General Goods, Nabisco Brands, or Del Monte.

Many see the battle against cigarette-makers as a war in which it's treason to collaborate with the enemy. Brent Blue, a physician from Jackson, Wyoming, urged that the Academy of Family Physicians cut all ties with the tobacco companies or their subsidiaries.

Says Brent, "you don't burn down villages in the morning and build orphanages in the afternoon."