Santa Fe Natural to stop describing its cigarettes as ‘natural,’ ‘additive-free’
Advocates say wording change doesn’t go far enough in preventing smokers from thinking products are healthier
An agreement by Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. to stop labeling its Natural American Spirit cigarettes as “natural” and “additive-free” won’t go far enough toward protecting consumers from mistakenly thinking the highpriced smokes are healthier than other cigarettes, anti-tobacco advocates said Thursday.
The agreement with the Food and Drug Administration by the company and its current owner, Reynolds American Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., was disclosed in a motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New Mexico, the Market-Watch website reported.
The company has used the terms, along with a logo featuring a pipesmoking American Indian in a feathered headdress, since a group of investors more than three decades ago founded the enterprise in Santa Fe, where a small headquarters remains.
Reynolds American, the tobacco giant that acquired Santa Fe Natural in 2002 for $340 million, says it has grown American Spirit into a top 10 best-selling cigarette. A Japanese buyer in 2015 paid $5 billion for overseas rights to the brand.
“While the Jan. 19, 2017, agreement requires the company to remove the terms ‘additive-free’ and ‘natural’ from its product labels, advertising and promotional materials, it would be permitted to continue to use the term ‘Natural’ as part of its brand name,” said a statement from Truth Initiative and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The public-health groups also said the deal — labeled “confidential — not for public disclosure” in a Feb. 24 court filing — wouldn’t prevent the cigarette maker from continuing to list ingredients simply as tobacco and water, “which would continue the deception that because of the lack of additives, these products are safer than other cigarettes. The agreement also fails to address the use of ‘organic,’ another misleading term.”
A company spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Since 2000, Santa Fe Natural has been subject to a Federal Trade Commission consent order requiring that ads include a statement saying, “No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.” Ads also state that “Organic tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.”
But, starting in 2015, law firms in various states began filing lawsuits seeking class-action status for claims that smokers are misled by American Spirit’s packaging and promotional materials. More than a dozen legal actions were consolidated in federal District Court in Albuquerque, where a judge has set a May 12 hearing on whether to toss the case.
Reynolds said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that American Spirit sales could suffer without the “natural” and “additive-free” labels, which the Food and Drug Administration targeted in a 2015 letter directing the company to submit plans for “corrective action.”
Because of the recent agreement with the FDA to drop the terms, Market-Watch reported, the company argues in its motion that a judge should dismiss the lawsuit “because this is the very conduct that Plaintiffs seek to enjoin. … Plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief are now moot.”