Tobacco funding: time to quit

Tobacco companies are not philanthropic institutions. As long ago as 1967 the late Senator Robert Kennedy said, "the cigarette industry is peddling a deadly weapon. It is dealing in people's lives for financial gain".

The Australian tobacco industry is dominated by three big companies (or in modern political parlance, three "great big" companies), British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco - all overseas-owned, with decisions made not in Sydney or Melbourne but in London and New York.

These are tough and ruthless multinational corporations, promoting and selling a product that kills one in two of its regular users. They have known for sixty years that their product is lethal. During this time almost one million Australians have died because they smoked - while the tobacco companies have denied and downplayed the evidence, doing their utmost to oppose and delay any action that might be effective in reducing smoking. Around the world their products cause five million deaths a year - a figure which will only increase as their drive into developing countries bears lethal fruit.

The new Chief Executive of Imperial Tobacco, Alison Cooper, was recently reported in the UK media as still refusing to accept that smoking causes cancer. Small wonder that only last week a survey of the reputations of the UK's largest 150 companies had Imperial Tobacco at 147 and British American Tobacco at a rock bottom 150.

There is massive evidence from once-confidential industry documents now available following litigation in the US that for decades tobacco companies have acted more cynically than even tobacco campaigners might have thought - summarised by a quote from an industry executive - "We don't smoke this shit, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid."

And as if all this were not enough, the industry has been found guilty of racketeering in the US.

Tobacco companies have only one aim, in London, New York or Canberra. In line with their responsibility to their shareholders, they spend money with the sole purpose of benefiting their interests.

So why would anybody want to take money from this pariah industry?

The Australian Electoral Commission website reports that in recent years both the Philip Morris company and British American Tobacco have been generous donors to the Liberal Party and the National Party. During the year 2008/9 Philip Morris contributed $158,000 to the Liberal and National parties around Australia.

No doubt in addition to direct contributions there is also much indirect funding from groups supporting and representing tobacco companies, but this is much harder to pin down.

The only reason for these contributions is to further the interests of tobacco companies. The website of the British American Tobacco company is quite explicit about political donations: "Such payments can only be made for the purpose of influencing the debate on issues affecting the company or Group..."

A review of tobacco industry political donations in the US, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, concluded that, "tobacco industry monetary contributions are closely related to the way a legislator votes on tobacco issues", and "The more campaign contributions received by a Congress member, the more likely he/she votes pro-tobacco on tobacco-related bills".

Political donations are not simply about an intention to buy direct support: they are also about much less tangible benefits gained through indirect support, influence, contacts, access and credibility.

The Greens and Democrats took the lead in refusing tobacco industry funding, followed by the ALP. The other major parties understand the dangers of smoking; they know exactly why tobacco companies want to give them money; it is hard to imagine that they would knowingly take money from drug dealers - and yet they seem content to accept contributions from an industry whose products cause more than 80 per cent of Australia's drug deaths. Surely there is something awry with the moral radar of anyone who accepts this kind of blood money.

The argument we sometimes hear that this is a "legitimate industry" is old and tired. If cigarettes were a new product they would not be allowed on the market. Our parliaments have decreed that the product is so harmful that it should not be sold to children and adolescents, should not be advertised, and that its sales should be subject to ever-increasing controls. This is no ordinary product, no ordinary industry.

The Australian government now leads the world in action to reduce smoking, complementing strong action in most jurisdictions (other than the Northern Territory, whose lack of interest in tobacco remains a mystery).

It is time for all political parties to refuse tobacco funding, or for legislation that forbids such contributions from companies that still seek to oppose the work and recommendations of governments and health authorities, and whose products cause 15,000 Australian deaths each year when used precisely as intended. Then we can be assured that all parties are making policy on this vital public health issue free of the taint of association with tobacco companies, and free of any suspicion that their policies might be influenced by these disreputable, lethal donors.

Australian cigarette tax is all smokes and mirrors

THE first cigarette I smoked was a Peter Stuyvesant, described in its advertisements as "the international passport to smoking pleasure".

Hiding under the family home at Holland Park, I didn't really get the feeling I was on the Champs-Elysees. Perhaps the copy writers had it wrong.

Maybe I should have tried Benson and Hedges – "when only the best will do".

I remember the packaging – the pale blue of Belair packets, the heavily seriphed type of the Chesterfield packs, the white and blue of Rothmans, the red circle on white of Lucky Strikes and the dark red of the Lark brand which boasted "charcoal filters".

All gone, victims of another piece of political grandstanding by a Federal Government obsessed with the creation of shimmering PR images designed to dance on the political horizon until the federal election. Cigarettes will from 2012 be sold in plain packaging and the price will go up by $2.60 or more a packet. Wow! Another first for Australia!Watching Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on television announcing this, I cringed. The tobacco companies, he crowed, would hate the move and would fight it. "Bring it on" was the message from Action Man Rudd.

"PM gets tough on Tobacco Giants" was the message the PM's office was shovelling. Was this the same Man of Steel who'd tossed his ETS out the window the moment the political wind shifted?

Was it the same tower of strength who hung Environment Minister Peter Garrett out to dry when there was overwhelming evidence that despite the Prime Minister's office having been advised that the ceiling insulation scheme was fatally flawed, it insisted that it be rushed out into the suburbs regardless?

The same, and now he is challenging the tobacco companies to the best of 15 rounds to be fought bareknuckle with no quarter given, this titanic struggle to take place beneath the banner of a health initiative.

It's a stunt, and a transparent one. Of course the tobacco companies will fight it as Rudd hoped they would. They're defending their individual brands but in provoking this conflict, the PM is trying to portray himself as the fearless warrior unsheathing his sword to wage a holy war against the ravages of smoking-related disease.

People will stop smoking, we are told, if cigarettes are sold in plain packets. Crap. People will keep smoking because smoking is addictive and it's really hard to stop. I know what I'm talking about here.

People stop smoking because they are afraid it will kill them.

If this move is going to stop people smoking then why is the Government hoping that increasing the price will tip billions of extra dollars into the Treasury's coffers?

The other insupportable claim that is being woven around the announcement is that if cigarettes are sold in plain packaging, people who have not previously smoked will not take up the habit. Crap. People smoke because it's always been viewed as slightly outrageous and not something that "really nice" people do. It's marginally rebellious. It's a nose-thumb at society and its anti-smoking regulations.

Attractive packaging may well sway smokers in their selection of brand, the gold of the B&H exerting more visual allure than the blue and white of the Winfields, but it won't drive them to take smoking up in the first place.

If the Government is right in its approach, which is plainly an attempt to deflect attention away from the policy disasters now mounting around it, then it has unwittingly stumbled upon the answer to the social evil of binge drinking. Henceforth, all alcohol must be served in plain packaging. No more exotic beer labels or fine artwork on wine bottles which will now just read Fourex beer or Lindemans chardonnay.

This move, if the Government's case for tobacco is well-founded, will cause young people to lose all interest in drinking because it's the packaging that's been attracting them, not the product which lies within.

Putting up the price of cigarettes merely means more kids will go hungry. Thirty-eight per cent of unemployed people smoke, as do 50 per cent of indigenous Australians. They're not going to stop because it's become more expensive, which means the extra money will have to come from somewhere.

The tobacco companies will take legal action which will drag on. In due course, the PM's initiative may be disallowed by the courts but it doesn't matter.

The extra money will continue to be squeezed from smokers and the packaging issue can be held up as a "health initiative" until the election, which is all that was ever intended of it. If this is not the most cynical government in Australian political history, will someone please tell me which was.