Tobacco Advertises Danger of Cigarettes

Guest: Stanton Glantz, PhD, Truth Initiative Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control, University of California, San Francisco, and Director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education A jarring series of advertisements began airing on network TV, online and an in print this week, paid for by US tobacco companies.   “Smoking kills on average 1,200 Americans every day,” reads one ad. “More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol, combined.” Another one says, “RJ Reynolds Tobacco, Philip Morris USA, Altria and Lorillard, intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.”  The ads are pretty basic: that slightly robotic voice reads as black text appears on a white background. They’ve been a long time coming, too. A judge actually ordered tobacco companies to air these so-called “corrective statements” ten years ago.  You can read the internal documents tobacco companies have been court-ordered to release here: https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/