Let’s hear it for the tobacco industry. No, really, give it up. C’mon, put your hands together. Big Tobacco, the cockroach of American capitalism, is working hard to show not only is it not worried about the future, it’s prepared for it. It’s adapting like a chameleon. It’s not about to let a few smoking bans and feel-good Clean Air acts stop it from cashing in. South Dakota, go ahead and pass your little smoking ban next week. By the way, it’s about time, you lemmings.

Smoking just isn’t what it used to be. It used to be the cool thing to do. The best-looking actors, the sexiest actresses smoked on the big screen. You can’t watch a black-and-white movie without seeing half the cast nursing a nic stick. Hollywood only fostered Big Tobacco’s success.

Sure, smoking in the United States has taken some blows, but it’s never been close to needing life support like so many of its victims have. That pesky surgeon general has always put up a decent fight. And today, more states are adopting those smoking bans and more are coming to the conclusion that smoking just isn’t worth it. Of course, we’ve always known that, but we couldn’t stop. The secondhand smoke scare made some people cease and desist, cessation programs have done some good, and a hike in cigarette taxes has really put a dent in the tobacco industry’s plans.

And then there’s ClearWay Minnesota, a program born in 1998 as part of Minnesota’s legal settlement with the tobacco companies. The Ramsey County District Court entrusted more than $200 million of that $6.2 billion settlement to create ClearWay, which has built a national reputation for controlling tobacco.

But out of the ashes of the war between the tobacco companies and those who stand against them, a new, 21st century battle is brewing, and those crafty geniuses who run the tobacco companies are continually coming up with new ways to push their product and keep those who continue to line their pockets to keep lining their pockets.

ClearWay’s Mike Sheldon, who said the group will come out with a comprehensive survey in January detailing the adult smoking rate in Minnesota, said ClearWay is looking at ways it can be most effective before 2023 when it transitions out. “We’re looking at ways we can have the most impact in the time that we have left. Certainly one of the most important pieces is policy work and how we can affect the policies in Minnesota.”

Oct. 1 marked the three-year anniversary of the Freedom to Breathe Act – Minnesota’s statewide comprehensive smoke-free law. Molly Moilanen, also of ClearWay, said that almost 80 percent of Minnesotans are supportive of the Act and she predicts that attitude will continue to trend upward.

“A lot of business that were opposed or on the fence about it are now very supportive and are glad that it happened in terms that they have lower maintenance costs and the kind of customers they have. We’re really proud of that law, but we know that our work’s not done.”

That’s because the tobacco companies continue to evolve and go after youth. Coming to a market near you – maybe you’ve already seen some of this stuff -are grape-flavored cigarettes. Grape! In purple packages! Like chocolate? They have those, too. Yes, and for you orange lovers, they’ve got that covered as well. Then there’s snus, which has already made its way to Minnesota, so you know everyone else is already doing it. But it gets better. How about finely-milled dissolvable tobacco that comes in strips that contain nicotine. Smell? No way. Smoke? Nope. Just a strip o’ nicotine on your tongue.

“Then there’s orbs, which are basically tobacco Tic-Tacs,”?Sheldon said. “Just put it in your mouth and let it dissolve; that’s basically the nicotine delivery system. There’s also the strips, which are just like breath strips. This is the wave of the future for the tobacco industry. Certainly they’re aware that more and more states are going smoke-free. What they’re doing is saying, “When you can’t smoke, check these out. When you’re at work and you can’t smoke use these. Then when you get home, go ahead and pull out your cigarettes.’”

But ClearWay again fought back. The Tobacco Modernization Act of 2010 has expanded the definition of tobacco products to include these types of dissolvable products, so by the time they migrate to Minnesota, they will be regulated. It’s ClearWay’s attempt to stay one step ahead of the serial killer carrying the big knife.

“It really brought our tobacco statutes in line with the 21st century,” Moilanen said. “The tobacco industry reacted to our smoking bans around the country by introducing new smokeless tobacco products, but this bill will help, so when it does come to Minnesota it will be regulated -they will not be able to sell them to minors, they will be put behind counters, not on the shelf next to candy and gum. And they’ll be taxed as tobacco products as well.”

This battle will wage on, it seems, infinitely. In other words, don’t expect the tobacco industry to wave a white, nicotine-stained flag anytime soon.

In April 1994, tobacco industry executives testified under oath on Capitol Hill that nicotine wasn’t addictive – and that cigarettes didn’t kill.
(Tobacco executives, top left, in 1994. Bottom, Goldman Sachs employees, today.)

That hearing was memorable, and a turning point for tobacco companies. It opened the spigot of litigation and legislation. Since then, the tobacco industry has paid out hundreds of billions of dollars in lawsuits and settlements. Now the federal government is regulating cigarettes under a law passed last year.

The Goldman Sachs executives testifying today before the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations could take a lesson from the tobacco industry’s experience. “Goldman Sachs is to Wall Street as Philip Morris is to tobacco,” said one former tobacco industry executive who was at the Congressional hearing sixteen years ago. At that time, Phillip Morris held an estimated 45 percent share of the U.S. cigarette market.

His advice to Goldman Sachs executives: “If these guys come across as arrogant or confrontational, it won’t be good for them.”

Fabrice Tourre said in his testimony today that “to the average person the utility of these products may not be obvious.” But viewers of his testimony may hear a different message – that the average person isn’t smart enough to understand what Wall Street does.

To the former tobacco executive, it doesn’t sound much different than the message some in the tobacco industry sent back in the 1990s. “What people heard from big tobacco was ‘if you’re stupid enough to believe us when we say cigarettes don’t kill, that’s your own problem.’”

Of course, cigarettes aren’t Collateralized Debt Obligations. Lung cancer is easier to understand than a CDO or derivative. It’s too early to know if public outrage, Congressional investigations, lawsuits and regulatory reform will change change the culture and incentives of Wall Street, but the road ahead for investment bankers could be bumpy.

Cbsnews

Victor DeNoble has traveled the land the past 15 years accompanied by a frozen monkey brain, a frozen human brain, a true-life tale of corporate espionage, a stand-up comedian’s timing and a million reasons not to smoke.

But no preaching.

“I’m not here to tell people what to do,” DeNoble told about 200 students at Chavez High School on Tuesday afternoon.

The message, though, was easily discernible. And, coming as it did from a former behavioral scientist for Philip Morris, it was profound.

It’s a message the 60-year-old DeNoble is bringing to Stockton for the first time this week, with additional visits scheduled for today at Plaza Robles and New Vision high schools, and at Venture Academy on Thursday.

Thirty years ago, DeNoble was assigned by Philip Morris to develop a safe substitute for nicotine, a chemical that makes tobacco addictive but also causes the heart to race, sometimes dangerously. His research with countless rats and a drug-addicted capuchin monkey named Sarah led to his discovery of the long-term changes to the brain that smoking causes.

Eventually, DeNoble developed a nicotine-free cigarette, but Philip Morris wasn’t interested because it feared the new product would kill its other brands. Executives with the company also sought to silence DeNoble from publicizing his research about tobacco’s brain-changing properties, but eventually he tipped off the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

DeNoble testified before Congress in 1994, revealing the lies of the tobacco industry. Cigarette companies have paid out more than $700 billion in legal damages.

Ever since, DeNoble has been speaking to students for Kaiser Permanente’s “Don’t Buy the Lie” program. Students attending the program this week have the opportunity to win $1,000 in an anti-smoking billboard design competition. The winners’ creations will appear on billboards in the Stockton area.

DeNoble arrives at his school visits bearing organs – the monkey Sarah’s brain and the brain of a 63-year-old man who was dying of cancer in the early 1980s.

“After you’re dead, can I have your brain?” DeNoble recalled asking the man.

The Chavez students roared.

The man asked DeNoble, “What are you going to do with my brain?”

DeNoble replied, “Well, I’m going to take it out of your head, I’m going to cut it in half, I want to look in the middle, I want to see if your brains cells are changed by the nicotine.”

The man soon died and DeNoble got his brain as well as invaluable research material. DeNoble showed the brain to the Chavez students, holding it in hands covered by blue surgical gloves and jogging around the school’s auditorium as some students stood and craned their necks and others squealed in low-grade horror.

“He was funny and entertaining, funny but still informative,” said Alicia Moore, 18, a senior in Chavez’s health sciences academy who wants to become a nurse.

Moore said she never knew before DeNoble’s visit that smoking causes chemical changes in the brain. She admitted that once when she was younger, she took a few puffs.

“I have tried a cigarette,” she said. “When I was in elementary school, I stole my mom’s one time when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t a good experience. I didn’t like it.”

By Roger Phillips, Recordnet

About 200 South Mississippi teenagers will soon be on the front lines in the battle against Big Tobacco.

“Second hand smoke affects the development of a baby’s brain.”

“Smoking while you’re pregnant affects the development of the child.”

Those were just some of the messages they heard Tuesday during a LEAD Conference in Biloxi. LEAD stands for Leadership, Engagement, and Activism Development. The high school students learned how to lead the movement against smoking, especially among young people.

“This is basically a call to action. We want to disseminate the message among as many people as possible. And with us reaching this group, we certainly hope we can make a difference,” said Dena Pope, Youth Programs Coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Health Office of Tobacco Control.

The teens created eye-catching posters and bandanas, with words that inform people about the deadly effects of tobacco use. They also learned how small, inexpensive toys can be effective tools in spreading the message that tobacco kills.

One instructor held up baby doll with a piece of paper attached.

“I put a fact on there, representing how second hand smoke affects children,” he explained.

According to the Mississippi Health Department, 20-percent of Mississippi youth are smokers. And 69,000 high school students in our state will eventually die from smoking.

Some of the teens at the conference know first-hand about the dangers of smoking. Jennifer Ladner of Ocean Springs High School lost her grandfather to a smoking-related illness.

“The tobacco industry is really targeting youth. They’re really using us as targets, as replacement smokers as they call us,” said Ladner. “We really need to step up and for our generation to speak and get the word out there that tobacco is not a good thing.”

Jennifer helped push for a no-smoking ordinance in parks around Ocean Springs. She wants to inspire other teens to join her and become an anti-smoking activist.

“They can stand up for anything they believe in and they can make an impact as youth,” said Ladner.

The LEAD Conference was part of the Mississippi Health Department’s Generation Free Program. Members will make other stops this week in Jackson, Greenville and Tupelo.

By Trang Pham-Bui, Wlox