Removing all doubt about the toll of tobacco
A2006 federal court verdict determined that Altria, Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies had committed at least 145 violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The 1,682-page ruling found the companies manipulated cigarettes to enhance addiction, suppressed scientific research, and marketed to youth while denying that low-tar cigarettes are as harmful as other cigarettes and that secondhand smoke causes heart disease and cancer in nonsmokers. The court concluded that the companies’ “fraudulent conduct has permeated all aspects of their operations” and that they “have not ceased engaging in unlawful activity.”
The tobacco companies then maneuvered the legal system for 11 years to delay publication of court-ordered “corrective statements.” The statements finally airing on national television this year represent an important step forward, as does the $1 cigarette tax recently approved by Oklahoma lawmakers after many years of debate. Fighting Big Tobacco is difficult, especially when the stakes are so high. According to Oklahoma Ethics Commission records, tobacco companies or their trade associations have registered 14 lobbyists in Oklahoma this year. Nine of them represent tobacco companies named in the racketeering verdict.
Over the next several months, the Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center will release a series of reports summarizing internal tobacco industry documents that tell the story — in the words of tobacco company executives and their lobbyists — of a highly successful 50-year campaign to influence Oklahoma laws. The database of more than 600 Oklahoma-specific tobacco industry documents reveals how they defeated or weakened critical measures that would have reduced tobacco sales while promoting their own legislative language. Tobacco companies wrote or helped write many of Oklahoma’s tobacco-related laws still in effect today. The documents also show these out-of-state companies have worked behind the scenes to nurture close working relationships with and provide funding to Oklahoma-based organizations willing to serve as front groups to fight against effective prevention policies and programs.
Current Oklahoma laws fall short of protecting youth and helping current smokers quit. For example, loopholes in our smoking laws still expose thousands of workers and patrons to secondhand smoke while fostering destructive social norms in bars frequented by young people. Raising the legal age to purchase tobacco to 21 is needed to help reduce experimentation and addiction among high school students. Limits on tobacco product marketing would help counteract sophisticated tobacco industry tactics. If these and other important prevention measures fail to advance at the state level, Oklahoma communities need permission to act. Oklahoma and Tennessee are the only states with comprehensive tobacco company-written clauses prohibiting cities from taking such actions.
An estimated 88,000 Oklahoma children alive today will ultimately die early due to smoking. Most smokers in Oklahoma became addicted as children and are trying to quit. Smoking causes heart disease, cancers, emphysema, stroke, low birth-weight babies and other deadly outcomes. It kills an estimated 7,500 Oklahomans each year, our state’s leading cause of preventable death. Every pack of cigarettes sold in the state costs $15 in excess health care costs and lost productivity.
As the saying goes, the first step in solving any problem is to know we have one. The racketeering verdict, the Oklahoma-specific internal tobacco industry documents and the ongoing, tragic health effects should remove all doubt.