Tobacco funds snuff anti-smoking efforts
Industry pumped millions into state to sway public opinion
By Burt Hubbard, Rocky Mountain News
May 10, 2004
The tobacco industry funneled millions of dollars into Colorado during the 1980s and 1990s in an attempt to derail ballot measures, defeat anti-smoking legislation and overturn city smoking bans using a trained grass-roots army of smokers and top consultants, according to internal industry memos.
State voters will likely face a November ballot measure to raise cigarette taxes 64 cents a pack and use the proceeds for health care and tobacco-cessation programs. Tobacco companies have yet to take a stand on the measure. Still, it could be the latest chapter in a long and expensive history of Colorado battles between the industry and antismoking forces.
Brendan McCormick, director of media affairs for Philip Morris USA, said tobacco's approach to any public policy issue is straightforward.
"I can tell you our involvement in the political process is pretty open and transparent in terms of communicating our views to a range of audiences," McCormick said.
According to documents uncovered in smoking lawsuits filed across the country, industry tactics previously have included:
� A 1986 experiment in Colorado by R.J. Reynolds Co. to recruit and train smokers to rise up and fight anti-smoking legislation. The tobacco company credited the tactic for killing an indoor air pollution bill in the state legislature, defeating a smoking ban in one town and overturning bans in two other towns.
� Spending more than $5 million to defeat a 1994 ballot measure that would have raised cigarette taxes to fund health care.
� Efforts in 1989 and 1991 to take away cities' ability to impose smoking bans and give the power to the state.
� A 1993 plan to set aside money to fight a ballot measure to liberalize the initiative process for fear it would lead to more anti-smoking amendments. A memo outlined an industry plan to give $40,000 to the group trying to overturn Amendment 2, the anti-gay rights measure, inferring that smokers, too, are the victim of discrimination.
� Sending an employee of a consultant to a Fort Collins anti-smoking meeting in December 1992 disguised as a student to learn more about their opponents' tactics.
"They are the sharpest, most creative minds out there as far as protecting their business interests," said Anne Landman, a Mesa County resident who has done extensive research into tobacco industry documents and tactics since 1998. "They are amazing."
Recruiting a partisan army
The big battles began in the mid-1980s when several Colorado cities emulated San Francisco and passed partial smoking bans through campaigns that focused on the tobacco's industry's reputation, Landman said.
"They had no credibility with voters, so they had to go underground," she said.
Documents involved in lawsuits depict the industry's efforts in Colorado.
The earliest was an R.J. Reynolds effort dubbed the Partisan Project. A Nov. 14, 1986, memo to Reynolds' chairman Edward Horrigan described its intent.
"Simply stated, the ultimate goal of the Partisan Project is a new environment characterized by several million people across the country speaking out against any and all forms of unfair smoker discrimination and harassment whenever and wherever it is encountered," the memo said.
Colorado was chosen as the first test market for the strategy. Well- known political consultant Walt Klein and Associates was hired to profile 2,000 smokers culled from the company's data base.
Klein used the profile to tell Reynolds how to reach out to the group.
"Our targets are, by and large, not college graduates," the consultant's report said. "Communication vehicles should be planned accordingly. A standard corporate annual report format would not catch much attention here, but easy to read flyers and brochures with lots of pictures might."
Recruitment in Colorado began in December 1986 with smokers trained to contract lawmakers, testify before committees and write letters to newspapers.
It didn't take long for the company to claim its first victory. A bill in the state legislature that would have required employers to provide smoke-free areas at the request of workers and mandate no-smoking sections in restaurants passed the Senate, but died in a House committee in early May 1987.
Reynolds officials now have no comment on the plan.
Four letters spell disaster
Other memos said the Colorado successes, including overturning smoking bans in Telluride and Greenwood Village, prompted the company to expand the project in hopes of creating an army of 5 million people.
Not all their efforts were successful, however. Pancho Hays, lobbyist for the Tobacco Institute, recalls that one state senator changed her vote from no to yes on the bill after she received a letter from a tobacco supporter covered with four-letter words and threatening her.
"That was the biggest disaster ever," Hays said.
The most intense battle took place over statewide ballot measures to hike the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack to fund health care and tobacco-cessation programs.
Between 1988 and 1992, the industry, under the umbrella of the Tobacco Institute, thwarted, through legal challenges, efforts to get the tax on the ballot.
By 1993, though, the tobacco industry became convinced that it couldn't stop the measure, a proposed amendment to the state constitution, from reaching the ballot, but wanted to take steps to make it more difficult, the memos said.
Groups frequently hire firms to collect enough voter signatures to get their measures to the ballot. According to a March 11, 1993, memo, the institute set aside $153,000 to "increase difficulty for opposition to retain various professional signature gathering firms to assist their efforts" and to investigate whether tax proponents illegally used federal and state funds for the drive.
In spring 1994, the industry toyed with a novel way to defeat the measure - sponsor a competing ballot proposal that might garner more support.
The tax increase would only be 25 cents a pack and the money would go for either prison construction, public schools or anti-gang programs.
A survey paid for by the Smokeless Tobacco Council found "support for an alternative measure, increasing tobacco taxes to fund prison construction, is quite high."
However, the idea was discarded.
Tobacco in the constitution
Then on July 29, 1994, before the tax increase was even on the ballot, the industry came out with a 24-page detailed plan on how to defeat the measure and finance the campaign.
The budget was about $5.4 million, divided among the tobacco companies according to their market share in Colorado, the plan said. It would become the most expensive campaign in the state's history.
The plan included polling, focus groups to hone the message to voters and $50,000 for open records requests and court challenges in an effort to show the campaign for the tax increase illegally used taxpayer funds.
The Tobacco Institute would use "push" questions as part of telephone polls to identify which arguments against the tax would succeed among nonsmokers, the plan said. The respondents would then be sent campaign literature targeted to their responses, it said.
Landman said the questions were along the lines of whether the respondent would vote for tax if he or she knew it "would line the pockets of rich doctors."
Hays, who was campaign manager for the now-closed Tobacco Institute, said the research led the campaign to target its message carefully.
"It was different than anything that had been done before," Hays said.
The first set of commercials depicted a woman in a kitchen saying she didn't smoke, but had friends that did and thought the tax was unfair, he said.
The next set charged that tax proponents broke the law by using taxpayer money to promote the measure.
And the last and most effective ads said the tax increase didn't belong in the constitution and showed pictures of the state's constitution, Hays said.
"The public bit on that big time," he said.
Before the campaign began, the tax led with 70 percent support. On Election Day, it didn't reach 40 percent.
Sent to the head of the table
Those weren't the only ballot measures the industry tried to influence.
The March 1993 memo also said that $40,000 would be spent trying to challenge the signatures for another measure that would make it easier to get initiatives on the ballot. The fear was it would encourage more anti-smoking measures, the memo said.
And it said it would give $40,000 to the group trying to overturn Amendment 2, the anti-gay rights measure passed in 1992, as part of a strategy to "foster alliance with tolerance campaigns."
Other memos laid out the tobacco industry's strategy before the Colorado legislature.
With the number of cities in Colorado enacting smoking bans rising, the industry wanted legislation that would pre-empt local control and place the power in the hands of the state, according to several memos written in 1988 and 1990.
"There is no question that a statewide 'Clean Indoor Air Act' with moderate provision is an alternative much more desirable than the status quo in Colorado," said a June 1988 Tobacco Institute memo.
It said that it was "essential that trade, professional and business organizations be identified" as the bill's sponsors and listed the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry and the Colorado Restaurant Association.
Peter Meersman, executive director of the restaurant group, said the memo was probably just someone's conjecture.
"As far as whether or not they are going to try and put us out front, those discussions didn't take place," Meersman said. "We're not in bed with those people."
Philip Morris' McCormick said it is not uncommon for groups to "work with others that have similar positions to ours. I don't think that is unique to the tobacco industry."
And finally there was the memo from an unnamed person hired by the industry to sneak into a meeting of an anti-smoking group in Fort Collins in December 1992.
"I signed in as student and hoped that my baggy clothes and backpack would make this credible," the memo said.
The person's plans to take notes were thwarted when he was seated at the head of the table, the memo said.
After describing the strategy discussed at the meeting, the person ended the memo with a piece of advice for future "plants."
"Would advise future 'plants' to arrive late and leave early, avoiding the awkward small talk with other attendees that might create suspicion."
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