Tobacco company knew smoking was deadly in the ’80s, memo shows

MONTREAL—An internal memo showing that Imperial Tobacco has known cigarettes to be deadly and addictive since the 1980s has been entered into evidence in Quebec’s $27 billion class-action lawsuit against Big Tobacco, despite repeated objections from the company’s lawyers.

In the memo, Bob Bexon, Imperial Tobacco’s former director of Marketing Research and Development, admits that the only thing keeping tobacco companies in business is the addictiveness of cigarettes.

“The only remaining ‘benefit’ of cigarette smoking is the psychological assist it provides in terms of stress reduction,” Bexon writes in the confidential memo. “If our product was not addictive we would not sell a single cigarette next week in spite of these positive psychological attributes.”

Bexon’s 10-page handwritten memo was sent as an update to senior management on “Project Viking,” an internal evaluation from 1986 to 1987 that sought to assess smokers’ health concerns. Imperial Tobacco lawyer Suzanne Côté had argued against the document being introduced as evidence on the grounds that it was not pertinent and based on hearsay.

“The crux of the problem is personal health,” Bexon writes. “Social unacceptability, passive smoking effects, price, aroma, after effects are all distant seconds to the key smoker’s concern that they are damaging their health — contributing to their own death.

“Death is not the entire problem,” Bexon goes on. “The key health issue is lung cancer. Fear of cancer as much as fear of mortality with its public perception of slow lingering painful etc. (sic) is a real problem.”

This document strikes a major blow to Canada’s three tobacco industry giants — Imperial Tobacco Ltd.; Rothmans, Benson & Hedges; and JTI-Macdonald — who are on trial in Quebec Superior Court in the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history.

The suit is an amalgamation of two major class actions. The Cécilia Létourneau case was first filed in 1998. It is seeking $17.8 billion in damages on behalf of the 1.78 million smokers in Quebec considered to be clinically addicted to cigarettes. The Jean-Yves Blais case is seeking $9.45 billion in damages for the estimated 90,000 Quebec residents afflicted by emphysema or lung, larynx, or throat cancer.

All three tobacco companies on trial had publicly denied that smoking was addictive and dangerous until June 9, 2000, when Imperial Tobacco and JTI-Macdonald stunned a Senate committee that proposed raising taxes on cigarettes by agreeing to the tax hike and admitting their products were addictive and carcinogenic.

Bexon’s letter has now provided lawyers, politicians, and the public with evidence that Imperial Tobacco knew the truth about their products for well over a decade before coming clean in 2000.

Given the inflammatory nature of the document, Imperial Tobacco is not expected to make this case about who knew what and for how long. In Côté’s opening remarks on March 12, she conceded that tobacco companies manufacture dangerous products, but said they have always done so in accordance with federal regulations.

Côté also pointed out that the public has known about the risks associated with smoking for a long time, and that smokers should therefore accept the consequences for the choices they make.

The complex trial is expected to last at least two years with hundreds of internal documents still to come.

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Geoffrey Lansdell