Cigarettes

• Author: James G. Wigmore
• Pages: 147-305



 4

Cigarettes

“The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization.

It is also a defective product. The cigarette is the seatbeltless car, the

lead-painted cribs, the car with faulty brakes, the open unguarded man-

hole, the rickety ladder, the fouled maggoty meat, the Daikon shield, the

smokestack spewing fumes . . .”

—Procter, R.N. “Golden Holocaust, Origins of the

Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition” ()

“In our opinion, it is not sucient for the tobacco industry to merely con-

cede the obvious point that smoking is a cause of disease when it is evident

that decades of misinformation has resulted in a public that is massively

ignorant about the risks of smoking low-tar cigarettes, nicotine addiction,

and second-hand smoke exposure.”

—Cummings et al, “The Cigarette Controversy” 

Cigarettes did not become the most addictive and destructive human-

made artifacts by accident, they were created that way in order to make

obscene amounts of money.

4.01 HISTORY

“[Smoking is] hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to

the Lungs.”

—King James I of England, “A Counterblaste to Tobacco” ()

 | Wigmore on Nicotine and Its Drug Delivery Systems

“I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell

it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty”

—Warren Buf‌fett, quoted in Burrough, Bryan, and John Helyar,

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco ()

On  November , Philip Morris celebrated the th anniversary of

the Marlboro cigarette by having invitation-only parties in  US cities. It

is estimated that Marlboro cigarettes alone have caused the deaths of .

million Americans since  and are expected to kill another . million

over the next  years (–).

This section on the history of cigarettes does not focus on the quaint

stories of the servants who rushed in with a jug of water because they

thought that Walter Raleigh was on f‌ire when he was smoking, or the

invention of the Bonsack machine, which could make the same num-

ber of cigarettes as – workers, or the marketing genius of advertis-

ing agencies. The history of cigarettes especially in the th, th, and

st centuries, is one of lies, deceit, coverups, greed, misinformation,

perversion of science, racism, and fake news by the tobacco industry

to maintain its huge prof‌its, by encouraging the use of one of the most

dangerous products ever invented by humans. This strategy is still being

used by politicians and petroleum companies who deny the science of

climate change. In fact, a recent documentary has shown that some of the

“experts” who testif‌ied for the tobacco industry in court have reappeared

to testify for the petrochemical industry.

Documents have shown that the tobacco industry considers the World

Health Organization (WHO) to be one of its leading enemies (), so

it is not surprising that the tobacco industry showed its political muscle

by getting the US President to withdraw funding from the WHO in May

, which fortunately has been reversed by a newly elected President.

The numerous court cases against the tobacco industry have resulted

in the release of over  million internal documents which show inter alia

that tobacco companies:

• Knew in the s that cigarette smoking caused cancer but vigor-

ously denied it ().

 Oreskes, Naomi, & Erik M. Conway Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of

Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Lon-

don: Bloomsbury Press, ).

Cigarettes | 

• Altered the pH of the cigarette to allow faster absorption of (and

hence addiction to) nicotine (, , ).

• Funded research institutions, scientists, and scientif‌ic journals

to create doubt and controversy about health harms of cigarettes

(, , , , ).

• Funded research to show that type A behavior, and not cigarette

smoking, causes cancer and lung disease () and that smoking

prevents Alzheimer’s disease ().

• Encouraged the view among smokers that low tar cigarettes were

safer ().

• Used movies, and now social media, to glamorize nicotine addiction

and vaping/smoking (, , , ).

• Distorted the history of Nazi Germany and tobacco control ()

and promoted the view that smoking is free will (, ).

• Encouraged cigarette smoking in the military by giving out free

cigarettes and other promotions ().

• Promoted the excuse that air pollution kills more people than ciga-

rettes and that air pollution is more toxic than cigarettes ().

• Manipulated research to promote its interests and suppressed

research showing the harms of cigarette smoking ().

The tobacco industry has also continued the creation of doubt and

spread misinformation even to , during the worst pandemic in

 years:

• Promoted the studies (later withdrawn) that nicotine and smok-

ing helped prevent COVID-, even though a study of . million

adults in the UK found that smoking increased the risk of COVID-

related death by % (–).

This again shows why my decision of not to include any published

studies with tobacco/nicotine/vaping authors or journals, or those with

a conf‌lict of interest, was appropriate to this industry and the drug they

provide.

Although the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the

United States and tobacco companies on  February  cost the tobacco

industry $ billion over  years, Big Tobacco advertised more after the

MSA and more than made up for loss of money by encouraging smoking

in China and less developed countries ().