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Tobacco industry strategies to promote the benefits of nicotine: Evidence from previously secret industry documents
Methods: Qualitative analysis of previously secret tobacco industry documents from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (legacy.library.ucsf.edu), triangulated with data from national newspapers, trade press, and the Internet from the 1970s through the present.
Results: The industry has worked for decades to promote the benefits of nicotine and downplay its addictiveness. Strategies included promoting comparisons between nicotine addiction and addiction to socially acceptable substances such as caffeine and chocolate. These comparisons appeared in highly-publicized scientific meetings and in numerous scientific publications, and in interviews with the press. In addition, tobacco companies have funded and published scientific studies of the benefits of nicotine on cognition and other areas of performance and mood regulation, promoting the benefits of nicotine on performance using examples accessible to the public such as driving a car or flying a plane, and, finally, funding and publishing scientific studies of the medicinal benefits of nicotine for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Discussion: The tobacco industry has implemented strategies to promote the benefits of nicotine to scientific and lay audiences, and to minimize concerns about nicotine addiction. These strategies complement the recent introduction of novel nicotine containing tobacco products and electronic cigarettes. These efforts may normalize nicotine use, encourage uptake of nicotine containing products, or continued long term use of nicotine.
Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health educationPublic health or related education
Public health or related research
Learning Objectives:
Describe origins of tobacco industry strategies to promote nicotine as a beneficial substance.
Describe tobacco industry ties to scientists and third-party groups that have historically been allies or received industry funding.
Compare current and past strategies used to promote nicotine-containing tobacco products.
Keyword(s): Tobacco Use
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have led numerous studies related to tobacco and nicotine and public health, have served as a writer for the 2014 Surgeon
General's Report on tobacco, nicotine, and public health, and and am the lead investigator of this study of industry strategies to promote the benefits of nicotine.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.