Death for Sale

How Big Tobacco sells its product. It's more than just advertising.

Big Tobacco spends billions each year to promote their addictive and deadly product. They have done everything they can to connect themselves to “cool” things like — sponsoring sports teams and concerts — all so people will think more positively about smoking. Well, we’re not buying it.

And we can prove this wasn’t an accident. In 1998 when the tobacco companies were sued (and lost) lots of document were found that showed just what they had been doing for years. Things like…

"Younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers. If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle." (Young Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company internal memorandum, February 29, 1984)

Cigarette companies claim they don’t intentionally market to young people, but the facts say something else.

"Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens. The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris." (1981 report by researcher Myron E. Johnson, sent to Robert E. Seligman, vice president of research and development, Philip Morris)

We encourage you to gather as much truth as you can and form your own opinion.