IT IS no secret that tobacco firms have long funded African American civil rights organisations. Now internal documents have revealed that the industry coordinated some of the campaigns that black leaders waged against tobacco taxation.
Valerie Yerger and Ruth Malone of the University of California, San Francisco, trawled 40 million documents released into the public domain as part of the $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement between US states and tobacco companies. They found that the industry had targeted black groups not just to get more African Americans smoking, but to exploit the civil rights movement and buy political influence. Their study lists over 90 black organisations that received support or money from cigarette makers, and they estimate black groups still get about $25 million a year (Tobacco Control, vol 11, p 336).
Among the documents is an internal memo from Kentucky-based tobacco giant Brown & Williamson, outlining its 鈥淔air Share鈥� agreement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the civil rights lobby group formed in 1941. 鈥淐learly, the sole reason for B&W鈥檚 interest in the black and Hispanic communities is the actual and potential sales of B&W products within these communities鈥︹�� it reads. 鈥淭his relatively small and often tightly knit community can work to B&W鈥檚 marketing advantage, if exploited properly.鈥� In return for sponsorship, B&W, and cigarette manufacturers Philip Morris Companies and RJ Reynolds, were allowed to hand out cigarettes and advertise at events.
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But this was more than just a marketing campaign. By funding political groups, the tobacco giants expected these organisations to put the case against taxing tobacco. 鈥淭hey were able to borrow the moral authority of the civil rights movement and wrap their corporate strategy in this honourable struggle,鈥� says Makani Themba, director of the Praxis Project, a community health advocacy group based in Washington DC.
Black leaders were powerful allies for the cigarette industry, as they could argue that the poor 鈥� and hence ethnic minorities 鈥� are hit particularly hard by such taxes. For example, former congressman Mervyn Dymally, then chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group of black Congress members, and a recipient of tobacco funding, argued in 1987 that excise taxes would 鈥渃onsiderably magnify the incidence, prevalence and the enormity of poverty鈥�. Two memos from the Tobacco Institute, funded by the tobacco companies, make it clear that it coordinated Dymally鈥檚 campaign.
Dymally did not respond to New Scientist鈥檚 request for comment. But all the tobacco companies involved deny any wrong doing or underhand motives. A spokesman for RJ Reynolds said the money gives the company 鈥渁n opportunity to have our side of the story heard鈥�. B&W鈥檚 spokesman said that its donations are motivated by 鈥渁 spirit of giving鈥�.
Today about 45,000 African Americans a year die from smoking-related diseases, one for every $555 of tobacco funding black groups receive annually.