In early Virginia, "tobacco notes" were legal tender; Benjamin Franklin used tobacco as collateral to get a loan from France to help fund the Revolution. "[image-nocss] You have to realize how dependent the nation was on this one crop," Simeonidis said. "Tobacco was king!"
With that, Simeonidis outlined what he called the "three phases of the American government's relationship to tobacco."First came the "blissful marriage," in which tobacco funded major U.S. initiatives, including the Revolution and the Civil War (paid for in large part with the first-ever federal excise tax on tobacco). In 1900, 80% of men smoked at least one cigar a day. In 1940, Emily Post suggested nonsmokersa major minority at the timeneeded to "adapt" to smokers' habits.
And in 1976, U.S. consumption of cigarettes peaked at an average 2,905 cigarettes per person, or eight sticks a day for every man, woman and child in the country. Even as recently as 1992, Marlboro was hailed as "the most-valuable brand" in the world. "With economic dependency and social acceptance, the tobacco industry wielded great power," Simeonidis said. But by 1950, that began to change, as the tobacco/government relationship entered its second stage.
The suspicion and betrayal that led to an "angry divorce" began in 1939, when the first study was published linking tobacco to health issues, Simeonidis said. Eleven years later, a second, more-widely reported study really got the anti-smoking ball rolling, eventually leading to the surgeon general conclusion in 1964 that smoking causes lung cancer.
"The effect was monumental, and what followed was years of marketing legislation and taxes,' Simeonidis said. By the time the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) was signed in 1999, the divorce was complete, and much of the communication between the government and tobacco companies was done in the courtroom.With tobacco regulation put in the hands of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) this past year, the relationship has reached phase three, what Simeonidis calls a "remarriage of convenience."
"Congratulations," Simeonidis mockingly extolled the conference attendees, "you and the government are now partners."
In the year since, that relationship has already seen its ups and downs. First came additional marketing restrictions, including one court ruling that said limiting advertising to black and white print is a violation of the First Amendment; an appeal is expected. In the meantime, a ban on using terms such as "lights" and "low tar" in marketing kicks in this June, and the FDA is currently collecting a list of tobacco ingredients in what it aims to turn into safer tobacco products.
"They've got to figure out how to make a [cigarette] product safe, or safer," Simeonidis said. "I think they're going to be working on that for a long time. Then they'll move on to smokeless and so on. I think cigars will be pretty far down that list."
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of tobacco regulation.)
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