SAMPLE LETTER: HARM REDUCTION LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS
DATE
The Honorable State Legislator
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE ZIP
Dear Legislator:
As public health organizations committed to reducing the devastating toll of tobacco use,
we urge you to reject a tobacco industry scheme to enlist the state of XXX in helping them
promote smokeless tobacco products as part of a so-called “tobacco harm reduction”
strategy. These efforts have included asking states to promote smokeless tobacco as less
harmful than smoking, taxing smokeless tobacco at a lower rate, and even diverting
tobacco prevention funding to study or implement this approach.
There is little, if any, evidence that this approach will reduce the number of people who
smoke or the death and disease caused by tobacco use. Rather, it is likely to encourage kids
to start using tobacco and discourage current smokers and other tobacco users from
quitting. The result would be more tobacco users and more death and disease caused by
tobacco, not less.
Tobacco companies are advancing this strategy to increase sales, not reduce harm. Facing
big declines in cigarette smoking, the largest cigarette companies have bought the largest
smokeless tobacco companies and are aggressively promoting smokeless tobacco products.
Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) now owns U.S. Smokeless Tobacco, while
Reynolds American owns American Snuff Company. Their goal is to prevent their current
customers from quitting and to addict new ones. If these companies were serious about
wanting smokers to switch to smokeless, they would not spend vast amounts more
marketing cigarettes than they do marketing smokeless. Current marketing expenditures
for cigarettes are 18 times the amount for smokeless. They would also support higher
taxes on cigarettes or even raise prices on cigarettes themselves. Rather than support this
risky and unproven scheme, we urge you to implement scientifically-proven strategies to
reduce tobacco use. These include higher tobacco taxes, strong smoke-free policies and
effective programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. Scarce taxpayer
resources should be devoted to evidence-based methods of reducing tobacco use and the
death, disease and billions in health care costs it causes, not to helping tobacco companies
sell more of their deadly and addictive products.
These “harm reduction” strategies are not new, and no one should be fooled by them.
Tobacco companies have presented “harm reduction” as their alternative to preventing and
reducing tobacco use ever since the first Surgeon General’s report alerted the public to the
deadly consequences of smoking in 1964. To address health concerns and keep smokers
from quitting, the tobacco industry rolled out supposedly safer products such as filtered,
“light” or “low-tar” cigarettes. Each time, these products turned out to be no safer, and the
result was an increase in the number of people, including children, who start using tobacco
and a reduction in the number of people who quit. There is no reason to believe this time
would be any different.
There is ample evidence that tobacco companies continue to mislead the American people.
The same tobacco companies pushing “harm reduction” have been found guilty in federal
court of violating civil racketeering laws by engaging in a decades-long fraud to deceive the
American people. Here is what the judge concluded in her 2006 verdict:
[This case] is about an industry… that survives, and profits, from selling a highly
addictive product which causes diseases that lead to a staggering number of deaths
per year, an immeasurable amount of human suffering and economic loss, and a
profound burden on our national health care system. Defendants have known many of
these facts for at least 50 years or more. Despite that knowledge, they have
consistently, repeatedly and with enormous skill and sophistication, denied these facts
to the public, the Government, and to the public health community.
Importantly, the judge concluded, “The evidence in this case clearly establishes that
Defendants have not ceased engaging in unlawful activity.…” In short, tobacco companies
continue to deceive the American people, and their “harm reduction” claims cannot be
trusted.
Rather than listening to tobacco companies, we urge you to listen to our nation’s most
trusted health experts and what they say about smokeless tobacco:
Smokeless tobacco harms health and is not a safe alternative. The National Cancer
Institute, the American Cancer Society, the U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health
Organization and the U.S. Public Health Service have all concluded that smokeless tobacco
products sold in the United States are addictive and cause serious disease, including cancer.
Smokeless tobacco is not an effective method to quit smoking. The U.S. Public Health
Service has stated that “the use of smokeless tobacco products is not a safe alternative to
smoking, nor is there evidence to suggest that it is effective at helping smokers quit.” In
fact, some smokeless products are marketed as a way to get a nicotine fix when smokers
can’t smoke, which discourages smokers from quitting. A 2009 study found that it was
more likely for American smokeless tobacco users to switch to cigarettes than for smokers
to switch to smokeless.
Tobacco companies have long marketed smokeless tobacco to kids. They have
transformed smokeless tobacco from a product used primarily by older men to one used by
boys and young men. The industry’s own documents outline a “graduation strategy”
designed to entice kids with sweet-flavored, easy to use, low-nicotine products, before
graduating them to stronger products. Our state shouldn’t help them by sending a message
to kids that smokeless tobacco is safe or acceptable.
Our organizations welcome innovative strategies to reduce the death and disease caused
by tobacco use. However, we want to make sure they are effective and supported by sound
science, and not just another tobacco industry scheme to sell more tobacco products.
If tobacco companies want to promote smokeless tobacco to help smokers quit, or claim a
tobacco product is less harmful, federal law establishes clear paths for them to do that
through review by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The law requires
tobacco companies to provide scientific evidence to support any claims they want to make,
and includes safeguards to protect public health and prevent consumer deception. Instead
of complying with the law, tobacco companies are trying to make an end run around it and
seeking to enlist states in their efforts. STATE and other states should reject these harmful
schemes.
Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year marketing cigarettes and smokeless
tobacco products, often in ways that entice kids. They don’t need STATE or any other state
to help them market their products. Instead, STATE should be doing everything it can to
implement proven strategies to reduce tobacco use and save lives.
Sincerely,