Fighting aids

Fighting the Ads

“We have been asked by our client to come up with a package design... a design that is attractive to kids... while this cigarette is geared to the youth market. No attempt (obvious) can be made to encourage persons under twenty-one to smoke.” This excerpt is from a letter from a Lorillard account executive to a marketing professor on August 13, 1970, years before big tobacco executives (including those from Lorillard) swore under oath that they have never targeted their products at youth. The tobacco industry (also called “big tobacco”) has been keeping records including statements like this since they began their businesses. Up until a court ruling in 1998 (the Master Settlement Agreement), these documents have been kept a secret from the public. After years of suspecting the tobacco companies (Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard) were targeting their deadly products at teens, we finally had the proof we needed to support...