Tobacco industry sponsorship of arts organizations

Tobacco control advocates frequently seek to denormalize smoking and delegitimize the tobacco industry. One tobacco industry response to these efforts is the development of relationships with other organizations and institutions, who thereby become the industry's explicit or implicit allies. To explore the relationship of the tobacco industry with arts organizations, we searched for and analyzed approximately 400 internal tobacco industry documents, released as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement and available at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu. The industry has, through philanthropy and sponsorship, developed relationships with many arts institutions, notably visual arts and museums, and dance and other performing arts organizations. The tobacco industry's pragmatic reasons for philanthropy are usually not directly about selling cigarettes, but rather about keeping the policy environment favorable to the industry. Arts philanthropy provides tobacco companies with goodwill from numerous publics, image enhancement, association with artistic qualities, improved employee morale, and a variety of allies in the policy arena. Some tobacco control advocates have begun to work with community arts organizations, but public health professionals have thus far failed to capitalize on these efforts. Arts organizations could be allies of tobacco control, instead of the tobacco industry. However, in order to counter the influence of the tobacco companies, advocates must understand and address the issues and concerns of arts organizations.