Profits Over People: Tobacco Industry Activities to Market Cigarettes and Undermine Public Health in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

This report, commissioned by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in the summer of 2001, summarizes previously secret tobacco industry documents from the two tobacco industry market leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC): Philip Morris International (PMI) and British-American Tobacco Company (BAT). PMI documents were downloaded off a company web site and BAT documents were obtained from the Guildford Depository in the United Kingdom. Over one thousand documents were reviewed in preparing this report... The report details tobacco company activities under four general themes: general plans and strategies; secondhand smoke; promotional campaigns; and tobacco smuggling. Within all of these themes, there is private confirmation of behavior and motives that the industry publicly denies. These include: company research into and deliberate targeting of the youth (“young adult”) market; acknowledgement that the primary goal of “youth smoking prevention” campaigns is to shore up the public image of tobacco companies; acknowledgement that the secondhand smoke issue and restrictions on smoking in public places constitute an enormous threat to tobacco company revenues; development of marketing campaigns, distribution channels, and levels of production aimed deliberately at supporting and encouraging the large market in smuggled cigarettes.