Twenty Years After Racketeering Judgment and Findings, the Tobacco Industry Continues to Follow the Same Playbook
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights marks landmark anniversary with renewed warning about industry influence and the need for independent public health leadership
Berkeley, CA—Twenty years ago this month, a federal court delivered one of the most important public health rulings in American history.
On Aug. 17, 2006, after a nine-month trial and decades of evidence, the nation's largest cigarette manufacturers were found liable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for engaging in a decades long conspiracy to deceive the American people about the health risks and addictiveness of their products.
The court found that tobacco companies lied to consumers, manipulated scientific research, misrepresented the addictiveness of nicotine, downplayed the hazards of secondhand smoke, and marketed deadly products despite knowing the devastating consequences. Tobacco companies were forced to add millions of pages of these once secret internal documents that outlined the historical strategies to defraud Americans; these documents are now accessible at the Tobacco Documents Library housed at the University of California, San Francisco.
The court judgment exposed an industry built on fraud and deception. Twenty years later, the products have changed. Technology has evolved. But the industry's playbook in pursuit of influence and deception remains strikingly familiar.
The companies, including Philip Morris International, the parent company of ZYN manufacturer Swedish Match, Altria, and Reynolds American continue introducing new nicotine products while investing heavily in lobbying, litigation and sophisticated marketing campaigns designed to normalize nicotine use. From partnerships that connect nicotine products with sports, music and military culture to social media campaigns targeting younger audiences, today's tobacco industry has modernized its image without abandoning its business model of addiction.
Recent reporting has also documented contributions from major tobacco company Altria to the privately funded White House ballroom project, while White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles previously worked as a lobbyist representing tobacco industry interests. At the same time, FDA decisions involving flavored electronic cigarettes and modified risk marketing orders for nicotine pouches such as ZYN have intensified debate about the importance of ensuring public health decisions remain grounded in independent science and free from political and corporate influence.
"The RICO decision proved that the tobacco industry's deception wasn't a series of isolated incidents. It was a coordinated business strategy," said Cynthia Hallett, MPH, President and CEO of the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "Twenty years later, we continue to see that same playbook, simply around new products. Cigarettes have given way to nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes, and the tobacco industry fights fiercely against any laws or regulations that would protect the public. Television commercials have become social media influencer campaigns and lifestyle branding. But the objective remains unchanged: protect profits by protecting addiction. The American people deserve complete confidence that decisions affecting their health are driven by science and the public interest, not the deep pockets of Big Tobacco."
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights has a unique connection to the landmark RICO case. ANR participated as a public health intervenor during the litigation, and today its Board of Directors is chaired by Sharon Y. Eubanks, JD, the former Director of the U.S. Department of Justice's Tobacco Litigation Team and lead attorney in the federal government's successful RICO case against the tobacco industry.
"The federal court concluded that the tobacco industry engaged in a decades-long pattern of fraud because the evidence demanded that conclusion," said Sharon Y. Eubanks, Chair of the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights Board of Directors. "The central lesson of that case remains just as relevant today. Powerful corporations whose profits depend on addiction will continue seeking to shape public opinion and public policy. That is precisely why transparency, scientific integrity and accountability remain indispensable to protecting public health."
As Americans for Nonsmokers Rights celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, it views the 20th anniversary of the RICO decision as both a milestone and a call to action.
For five decades, ANR has exposed tobacco industry interference, defended smokefree protections, advanced evidence based public health policy and helped communities across the country stand up to one of the world's most powerful industries. While tobacco companies continue introducing new nicotine products, reinventing their marketing and political strategies, and making false claims and arguments against smokefree and commercial tobacco prevention protections, ANR remains committed to ensuring those tactics are exposed and challenged.
"The greatest lesson from the RICO decision is not simply that the tobacco industry lied," Hallett said. "It is that industries built on addiction will continue to reinvent themselves, their messaging and their political strategies unless they are met with strong public health leadership and accountability. Fifty years after ANR was founded, that mission has never been more important."
Twenty years after the RICO decision, ANR is calling on policymakers, regulators, researchers and the public to remember the lesson that case taught us. The tobacco industry should never be taken at its word. Every new product, every marketing campaign and every effort to influence public policy deserves rigorous scrutiny.
As ANR begins its next 50 years, the organization remains committed to ensuring that history is remembered, industry misconduct is exposed, and future generations are savvy to industry manipulation and prepared to reject commercial tobacco and nicotine products.
Resources
Read more about the historic case in Bad Acts: The Racketeering Case Against the Tobacco Industry, written by Sharon Y. Eubanks and Stanton A. Glantz, APHA publishing, May 2012.
Read more about ANR’s role in the historic DOJ case here.
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Formed in 1976, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR) is the leading national lobbying organization (501 (c) 4), dedicated to nonsmokers' rights, taking on the tobacco industry at all levels of government, protecting nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke, and preventing tobacco and nicotine addiction among youth. ANR pursues an action-oriented program of policy and legislation.