ETS (Environmental tobacco smoke) Media Strategy

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

ETS Media Strategy

This report, found in the files of Victor Han (Director of Communications for Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs) describes the threat posed to the tobacco industry of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 1993 rating of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) as a Group A Human Carcinogen:

Indirectly, ETS will have considerable influence on all other tobacco-related legislation, including taxation, marketing freedoms, etc. Of critical importance will be the effect on consumers, practically deprived of more and more locations in which they can smoke, and psychologically given more incentive to quit.

The report characterizes the EPA as "at worst corrupt and controlled by environmental terrorists," and states that

...without an effort to build considerable reasonable doubt about [EPA's case against secondhand smoke]--particularly among consumers--then virtually all other efforts [to fight the ETS issue] will be diminished in effectiveness.

PM lays out its strategy not to fight the ETS issue on its merits, but instead to work to destroy the credibility of the government agency that declared it dangerous:

The credibility of the EPA is defeatable, but not on the basis of ETS alone. It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA's enemies against it at one time.

The paper describes how the media's focus would be taken off of ETS by the generation of non-ETS stories stories that focus on "general EPA bashing by credible, authoritative sources," "EPA ineptitude and, when possible, corruption."

Title ETS MEDIA STRATEGY
Date 19930200/E
Type REPORT, CHART, GRAPH, TABLE, MAPS
Bates 2023920090/0101
Master Bates 2023920035/0101
Collection Philip Morris
Pages 12
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/sav88e00

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