“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds…
We knew the world would not be the same…
A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.”
These words, shared by the late J. Robert Oppenheimer describing the sentiment of his team of scientists when watching the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon, ring eerily true to the recent announcement that Philip Morris International will now build its first factory in the United States since Watergate — in Colorado.
Yes. That company.
The same Philip Morris described by public health experts as a “merchant of death and disease,” whose products are responsible for millions of American deaths. The same company that lied to the American people for generations about the deadliness of their products. The same Philip Morris International that sells tobacco and nicotine products outside the United States, and is in league with the Philip Morris “Altria” company that sells those products here.
I thought of these words from Oppenheimer as I have now begun to experience the backlash of a giant tobacco industry that is rising again, having seemingly once again fooled the American public that its products are “safer.” Chief among these new, “safer” products are the wildly popular, highly addictive “Zyn” nicotine pouches that have given Philip Morris and the industry fresh profits, with some saying, “Big Tobacco may have its biggest new hit since cigarettes.”
That’s what this new, 600,000-square-foot factory — receiving millions of dollars in tax incentives from the city of Aurora and the blessing of Gov. Jared Polis — is about.
If this is a mere “new jobs” announcement that should be universally lauded and accepted, why are my recent words the target of a calculated smear campaign by the giant company?
It started when I wrote an op-ed in another newspaper condemning the approval of this project and reminding the public of Philip Morris’ track record of death and destruction. Within days, Philip Morris international contacted the that news organization and demanded it take down my piece. The company took the time to dissect my dissent line by line and used sophisticated-sounding legal arguments (which, after a bit of digging, I have learned is their go-to play to intimidate newsrooms into pulling down criticism of their products).
Thankfully, the newspaper did not back down.
I was somewhat touched, to be honest, that the company even had noticed, and I went on with my week. But the saga was far from over.
In what easily could have been content provided by Philip Morris’ public relations team, Aurora City Council member Curtis Gardner wrote an opinion piece attacking me and extolling the jobs and economic benefits Aurora could expect — conveniently leaving out the potential harms of this decision.
Again, I was surprised a busy councilman would have noticed my article, and was slightly flattered by it, to be honest. But it still wasn’t over.
The very next day I received a phone call from the CEO of one of Colorado’s top public relations firms pressuring me to back down from the piece. When I asked if they had conflicts of interest, they quietly admitted Philip Morris was a client of theirs. I brushed them off and hung up.
We can never be silent in the face of addiction for profit, particularly an industry that has proven for a century that it will lie, cheat and intimidate to get its deadly products sold at the expense of America’s families.
I share this saga because I believe the public is woefully underinformed as to the sophistication and inner workings of how Big Tobacco (and other large addiction industries, like Big Marijuana) can shut down the voices of public health and safety. When we allow giant companies into the addictive drug business, whether it is nicotine or anything else, they hire the best lawyers, lobbyists, and PR firms in the state and proceed with a brilliant strategy to mislead the public.
Beyond my experience, history informs us well of how this sophisticated strategy works. Researchers have found over the past 75 years the Big Tobacco industry conspired to silence negative research about its products and paid scientists to deliver research downplaying the harms.
The industry then incorporated promises of “regulation” and introduced “safer” products — simultaneously manipulating and denying both the addictive nature of its products and its marketing to children. This was all the while backed up by one of history’s most well-resourced lobbying and PR campaigns to mislead the public.
Many in the public think we won the war against Big Tobacco, and this playbook is in the dustbin of history. The widely publicized “Master Settlement” with the tobacco industry, amounted to more of a legal armistice than a victory for the public.
The tobacco industry is back. Its profits are growing; its investments in marijuana and nicotine brands are reintroducing the industry back into daily American life, and the old playbook has been fully reimplemented.
Big Tobacco 2.0 is this generation’s critical fight and we cannot back down.
Because Polis and the Aurora City Council have welcomed them to Colorado with open arms, the pushback won’t be easy. It is now incumbent upon our journalists, public health associations, and the good people of this state not to allow the industry to lie, cheat, and intimidate its way into our schools and communities as it has done historically.
We must expose whom Philip Morris is hiring and what information and news reports are unduly influenced by the industry’s PR and legal teams. We must question their marketing tactics. We must fight for the truth at every opportunity.
Above all, we must protect our most vulnerable populations. It is well-documented that the tobacco industry predicates itself on targeting minorities, youth, and poorer communities. We know where their new nicotine products are going to be targeted.
Returning to the work of Oppenheimer, he struggled with his role in introducing the nuclear bomb, musing that his efforts had “dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war.”
Suppose we reintroduce Big Tobacco to America through this historic, giant new factory. Will we ponder, as Oppenheimer did, whether we allowed them to “dramatize so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil” of their influence on the next generation?
Luke Niforatos is co-founder and executive vice president of the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions.
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