Ethical Issues of the Tobacco Industry

Tobacco Ethical Issues

The five ethical issues that I have selected from thetruth.com are: misrepresenting cigarettes as a safe consumable good, using flavored tobacco to appeal to a larger demographic, referring to children as “replacement” smokers, cigarette butts kill fish and micro-organisms, and helping minorities get jobs to buy cigarettes.
Misrepresenting cigarettes According to the information available on thetruth.com, big tobacco has been implying they are producing a safe consumable good. They have manipulated flavors and nicotine levels in cigarettes, as well as implied that “light” cigarettes are safer, when they have the same amount of tar and nicotine.
Flavored tobacco There are reports of tobacco being flavored to appeal to a larger demographic. The site indicates that while candy cigarettes are now illegal, there are still over 45 candy flavored tobacco products.
Replacement smokers Big tobacco has been trying to market children since they realized that children are the replacement smokers. They made candy cigarettes, used cartoon characters as mascots, use suggestive ads (that make kids look cool with a cigarette); they have even gone as far as advertising at children’s height levels.
Butts kill fish and micro-organisms Studies show that cigarette butts that have been discarded by smokers have killed fish and micro-organisms. The tobacco companies are not admitting that the discarded butts people throw out the windows or on the ground are killing the wildlife.
Helping minorities get jobs to buy cigarettes Big tobacco launched a campaign in 1989 to help them get jobs and be seen as a friend. They also marketed to homeless people to get them addicted to smoking.

I would have to tell my friend that while thetruth.com is using the information to reflect big tobacco in the worst possible light, they do have validity. As a manager in a tobacco company, I have to deal with the negative press all the time. The information that they are providing to the public, specifically adolescents, is all from internal tobacco documentation. The documents that the website posts, were never meant to see the light of day. I’ll tell you this much, if I didn’t work for the tobacco industry, I would be siding with thetruth.com. They make a pretty compelling argument. They site almost all of their facts, and after some checking, they are pretty accurate in their statements.
We have to figure out how to market to children to replace the smokers who are dying every day. The first thought we had was to strategically place cigarette smokers in movies to make smoking look cool. We also spent billions of dollars in advertising to get kids to smoke. Having ads at their eye level, having cartoon characters as the center of the ad campaign, we tried everything we could think of in terms of advertising. We even had candy cigarettes to get kids to pretend to smoke.
We needed more, advertising wasn’t enough. Our next option was to flavor the tobacco, studies showed that kids liked sweeter tastes; we contemplated adding honey to tobacco. Even though the candy cigarettes are now illegal, we still have about 45 flavors of tobacco. We are hoping to not only attract kids, but also to attract others who don’t like the taste of regular tobacco.
We have long been considered an industry providing a safe consumable good to the general public. But thanks to thetruth.com and internal industry documents being leaked to the public we are not being seen in an even more negatively. We are being brought into the spotlight to answer to some of these accusations, and we don’t have a leg to stand on. We have even tried to change the name of some of the big tobacco companies to take some of the heat off. If we change the name, people may not make the connection that we still in the tobacco business.
There is no refuting that cigarette butts can poison the wildlife in the area where people are discarding them. They can get into the rivers and streams and poison fish and micro-organisms or even get stuck in their throats if a fish or frog thinks it’s a fly. There have not been too many studies into this particular issue, but it sure seems like common sense to me. If you put chemicals into a pristine condition, you will alter the delicate balance of the ecosystem.
The issue I find most dis-hearting is the minorities. Big tobacco companies have long considered minorities a target. We have even tried marketing campaigns to get homeless people to smoke. We have tried to appeal to the minorities by trying to be seen as a friend, and help them get jobs. While on the surface, we looked like we were trying to help out minorities, but in actuality, it was just a rouse to get them to start or keep on smoking.
The triple bottom line strategy that could be effective for all of the above listed issues, would be burnishing their reputation and build goodwill. While tobacco companies do have anti-smoking ads on their websites, thetruth.com suggests that the tobacco companies have been manipulating the nicotine content in their cigarettes to keep people addicted. Tobacco companies have to realize that publicly they have a bad name. Website and TV ads depicting cancer patients, who have had their voice box removed due to throat cancer caused by smoking, do not help the tobacco companies’ image. They could sponsor anti-smoking campaigns and not have an ulterior motive in doing it. I think that they are only sponsoring it because they were mandated to do so. I think it would harbor some good will if these companies would actually care about the people that are using their product. The companies should be thrilled that so many people still smoke, considering people know that it’s bad for them and it’s an expensive as well. The companies need to realize how important the people that use their product are, without people smoking there would be no draw a profit. For a long time, they have been focusing on children since they are most impressionable and easy to manipulate. How does the public view companies that try and take advantage of children? I think that spending billions of dollars to promote a product that people know are bad for them is not good business. But obviously, these companies know what works; otherwise they wouldn’t be making billions of dollars a year. In a perfect world tobacco companies would admit that their product is dangerous and not add any extra chemicals to their product. This would add another aspect by reducing litigation expense. I can’t locate an accurate number on how much money has been spent in litigation or how much big tobacco has paid out in hush money. But I would estimate those numbers to be in the high millions if not billions. There have been a number of lawsuits in the media regarding tobacco companies and a huge amount of money paid out, but what has it accomplished? They have paid into anti-smoking campaigns, but there has been no actual legislation concerning tobacco regulations.

References
Truth. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thetruth.com/facts/

References: Truth. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thetruth.com/facts/