Tobacco Industry: The ABC of corporate irresponsibility

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Tobacco Industry The ABC of corporate
irresponsibility

• Martin Dockrell
• Director of Policy Research
• Action on Smoking Health

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The AB C

• Beyond direct health effects the tobacco
• industry is responsible for global suffering
• Animal cruelty
• Blighted environments
• Child labour

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Animal cruelty
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Animal cruelty

• Disappointed with sales of their safer
  cigarette Premiers, RJR conducted experiments to
  determine whether strong addictions helped
  overcome the unpleasantness of smoking
• Monkeys in the control were given cocaine
  injections while the experimental group were
  forced to smoke
• Even so the monkeys couldnt be persuaded

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Animal cruelty

• I am sorry to hear that the samples from the
  animals who smoked Premier cigarettes were
  relatively low in cocaine content As are human,
  baboons are very sensitive to draw resistance
• Bates No51147764-7669

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Cruel to be kind The Cigarette Packed with
Helpful Effects

• A tobacco industry funded research project pumped
  nicotine into the hearts of pregnant rats.
• It concluded that nicotine is relatively benign
  to humans in normal doses and that has a wide
  array of potentially beneficial effects.

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And cruelty lights
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Blighted Environments
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Tobacco money does grow on trees

• 200 000 hectares of woodland is cleared every
  year for tobacco farming
• 80 of trees cut down in some parts of Malawi are
  used in tobacco curing
• One tree is consumed for every 300 cigarettes
• Thats 18 billion trees per year

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Pesticides

• 450 types and 25.6 million pounds of pesticides
  are used each year on US tobacco crops alone
• A dose of less than 1/1000 ounce of Aldicarb is a
  lethal to a human.
• 168,000 pounds in the US in a single year
• It has been found in groundwater in 27 states

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Pesticides

• In Nayarit, Mexico (pop 1 million) government
  reports 300 cases of pesticide poisoning and
  several deaths per year.
• Mexican tobacco workers often live, work and
  sleep in the fields
• Carcinogenic and endocrine disruptor pesticides
  survive the production process and can still be
  detected even in secondhand smoke

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Child labour
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Child labour

• In Brazil 53 000 children work on tobacco farms.
  1 in 3 is aged under 14
• Exposure to agrochemicals causes damage to the
  eyes, skin and internal organs
• BAT say Family Labour is an essential part of
  life on the small holdings where tobacco is
  grown

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Child labour

• In India there is evidence of forced labour
• Big Tobacco puts pressure on local schools to
  rearrange schedules to free children to work in
  the fields
• An estimated 325 000 children in India work in
  Beedi manufacture

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Steal from the poor to give to the rich

• 84 of smokers live in developing and
  transitional economy countries.
• In the UK 10 of women and 12 of men in the top
  SEG smoke compared to 35 of women and 40 of men
  in the lowest SEG.
• The poorest households in Bangladesh spend almost
  10 times as much on tobacco as on education.

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