Social Costs/Social Values Project

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The Social Costs/Social Values Project was a joint multinational tobacco company project undertaken in 1979 to develop unified, global measures to combat the social cost and passive smoking arguments against smoking, and to slow or reverse the declining social acceptability of smoking worldwide.

The social costs argument against smoking held that smoking puts additional financial burdens on society by increasing on-the-job absenteeism, medical costs, cleaning costs, and fire loss. The argument proved persuasive in convincing employers to voluntarily ban smoking from their workplaces. The passive smoking argument held that the smoker not only harms himself, but that secondhand smoke threatens the health of nonsmokers.

The tobacco industry viewed these two arguments as distinct threats.

The Social Costs/Social Values Project was created to counter these arguments, to support the view that smoking is a normal behavior, and to elicit the benefits of smoking to society.

The Social Costs/Social Values project was carried out through the international tobacco company organization ICOSI, the International Committee on Smoking Issues. The bulk of the effort was coordinated by the ICOSI subcommittee called the Social Acceptability Working Party, or SAWP.

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