Fighting the tobacco giants - Government should defy lobbyists

Tobacco conglomerates spent decades challenging the science that proved nicotine was addictive. They dishonestly spent decades rubbishing the science that identified their products as cancerous and the root cause of fatal diseases.

International tobacco spent millions, probably billions in today’s terms, to shout down the scientists and doctors who identified their products as killers. They did this knowing that at least one third of their customers would die because of smoking. This cynical rearguard action cost millions of smokers’ lives but because it generated billions in profits and tax revenues it was regarded as acceptable business practice.

The tobacco giants continue to behave in this immoral way in societies where public health authorities are not as assertive or as well-resourced as they are in the West, where ignorance is still their best and last ally. They unashamedly suggest that they are in the free choice business rather than an addiction-creation, life-shortening business where profit is measured in dollars but never balanced with their customers’ premature deaths.