Despite Web site, ads, Big Tobacco not making amends

I was surprised that I didn’t realize what commercial I was watching from the outset. Still,… I was surprised that I didn’t realize what commercial I was watching from the outset. Still, shortly into the 30-second ad, the name Phillip Morris came up and a moment of hilarious realization occurred when I realized that what I thought for sure was some sort of church commercial turned out to be produced by a cigarette company.

A sincere sounding voice talked about how protecting children is paramount, and explained that Phillip Morris has donated millions of dollars to charities, all because they care about people and wish to protect them. The final message the commercial left was that anyone interested in finding out more about the Morris’ charitable exploits could visit their Web site.

Being the inquisitive person with nothing else to do over spring break that I was, I went to my computer and visited. The site features loads of information about smoking and the diseases it causes, links to surgeon general reports issued since 1964 concerning smoking and its health consequences and lists the company’s missions and goals.

Further browsing produced only links to charities and services that the cigarette company provides, with messages in several locations heralding Phillip Morris’ concern for tobacco users, and support of government regulation. My expectations of having pop-up ads saying “All the cool kids smoke” went unfulfilled and everything about the company from the Web site and the commercial made the corporation seem well intentioned and generous.

Despite the multitude of ways in which the site tried to convince me that they were working to better humanity, no warm, happy feelings of well being overcame me. The only thing I could think of the entire time was that Phillip Morris had contracted quite a good public relations firm to clean up their image.

I could not get past the fact that this company’s strategy of selling cigarettes to people now involved providing them links to reports exclaiming the inherent dangers of smoking. While they were at it, the company made sure everyone knows about their multimillion-dollar donations to youth smoking prevention programs. Incidentally, they are forced by the Department of Justice tobacco lawsuit settlement to fund youth smoking prevention programs.

Their commercials did not feature a rugged cowboy or an anthropomorphic camel, but a message from Phillip Morris saying that they care about my health. If this were true, if Phillip Morris cared about anything beyond the value of its own stock, then it would pull its product from the market.

So a more accurate statement would be that Phillip Morris cares about my health once and only once I am sick enough to represent a legal threat.

This aside, the most disturbing aspect of this situation is the extent that public relationsfirms now spin things. If the corporation simply said that its cigarettes are a product marketed towards adults who can make their own decisions, I would still hate the company, but I wouldn’t laugh at it. Instead, Phillip Morris goes out of its way to make itself appear a caring and charitable educator, offering such sagely advise as “smoking is bad for your health.”

And while we in the United States listen to this company explaining that smoking is unhealthful and that they do not intend children to smoke, Phillip Morris announced on March 14 that it is expanding its company into Indonesia, a country which is considerably more lax when it comes to marketing laws than the United States and western Europe are.

So we are left to see the facade of a corporation that knows it is lying, but lies anyway in an effort to spin decades of bad press. For some unfathomable reason, it is acceptable for companies to veil their true motives, mock responsibility and somehow escape complete condemnation.

I will only believe that the Phillip Morris corporation actually cares about anybody’s health when I see them pull their product off the market completely, and I will only acknowledge that they are a charitable organization when I see cigarette executives jumping out of their limousines to help old ladies cross the street.

It would be refreshing if Phillip Morris came out truthfully and explained that it wishes to profit from our addictions and our bad habits, rather than trying to pretend to be Mother Teresa, a family physician and our eighth grade health teacher all rolled into one.

Sam Morey sells cigarette cartons wholesale out of his dorm room. Send your orders to smorey88@hotmail.com.