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SW: fixed link to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (its all in caps on SW)
'''Project Brass''' was a 1993 [[Philip Morris]] (PM) project designed to confuse the public regarding the health dangers of exposure to secondhand smoke, and to minimize the damage that the secondhand smoke issue was causing the tobacco industry. Project Brass was PM's response to the Risk Assessment issued on January 7, 1993 by the [[U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]] that classified secondhand tobacco smoke (also known as environmental tobacco smoke [[Environmental Tobacco Smoke]], or ETS) as a Group A Human Carcinogen, the same rating the agency gives to asbestos, radon gas and vinyl chloride. On March 23, 1993 the PR company [[Leo Burnett Worldwide]] presented PM with a proposal titled ''Project Brass: A Plan of Action for the ETS Issue'', which reveals the potency of the threat the ETS issue posed to the tobacco industry. The report Burnett states,
<blockquote><b>"For the first time, [EPA] report provides alleged proof of link between ETS and cancer...Shifts argument from 'personal choice' to 'smoking is unhealthy for everyone'...Arms antis with scientific proof to go to OSHA...Fuels emotional hysteria of antis...Will likely accelerate efforts to prohibit/restrict smoking further...Alters image of smoker [from] 'Bad for him/her,' to 'smoker is bad for all of us.'...Puts further pressure on volume/revenue/profit trends."</b></blockquote>
Strategies Burnett designed to help PM fight the ETS issue were to 1) broaden the ETS issue to encompass ''total'' indoor air quality (thus deflecting attention away from the ETS issue), 2) use "credible third parties" to help the company fight public health measures, and 3) to "create a sense of doubt about the EPA ETS report" [Page 30 of the cited document].
PM did in fact employ, and in 2007 continues to employ, many of the strategies Burnett first proposed in 1993. For example, PM continues to to "frame the issue as a bigger one that just ETS" by claiming ventilation is the best solution to secondhand smoke. In fact, eliminating smoking indoors is the simplest, most effective and inexpensive way to deal with problems caused by secondhand smoke. Still, on its website PM USA states:
In reality, no manufacturer of ventilation or air purification systems will warrant their products to protect health in the case of secondhand tobacco smoke.[http://www.no-smoke.org/document.php?id=267]
PM also creates third party [[front group]]s that advocate ventilation, like the "[[Hospitality Coalition for Indoor Air]]." In virtually every venue where a public health smoking restriction is proposed, some business group (either existing or newly-appeared) will claim that the law is too much "government intervention." The "anti-government" strategy was proposed in 1993 by Burnett in Project Brass. (See the strategy Burnett describes on Page 25 of the cited document, titled "Raise Flag of Government Intervention: Attempts to shift focus from EPA ETS report to one of the government interfering again"). Its profits threatened, PM also had another goal: to convince financial analysts that the ETS issue was not a long term threat to PM's growth and earnings and to get them to "maintain a positive financial outlook on PM." [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gin58e00]
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