History of Tobacco
IN THE BEGINNING . . .
Author: Gene Borio

Huron Indian myth has it that in ancient times, when the land was barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth a woman to save humanity. As she traveled over the world, everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes. And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn. And when the world was rich and fertile, she sat down and rested. When she arose, there grew tobacco.

Prehistory:
Although small amounts of nicotine may be found in some Old World plants, including belladonna and Nicotiana africana, and nicotine metabolites have been found in human remains and pipes in the Near East and Africa, there is no indication of habitual tobacco use in the Ancient world, on any continent save the Americas. The sacred origin of tobacco and the first pipe (Schoolcraft) c. 6000 BCE: Experts believe the tobacco plant, as we know it today, begins growing in the Americas. c.1 BCE: Experts believe American inhabitants have begun finding ways to use tobacco, including smoking (in a number of variations), chewing and in probably hallucinogenic enemas (by the Peruvian Aguaruna aboriginals). c. 1 CE: Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the Americas. (American Heritage Book of Indians, p.41). 470-630 CE: Between 470 and 630 A.D. the Mayas began to scatter, some moving as far as the Mississippi Valley. The Toltecs, who created the mighty Aztec Empire, borrowed the smoking custom from the Mayas who remained behind. Two castes of smokers emerged among them. Those in the Court of Montezuma, who mingled tobacco with the resin of other leaves and smoked pipes with great ceremony after their evening meal; and the lesser Indians, who rolled tobacco leaves together to form a crude cigar. The Mayas who settled in the Mississippi Valley spread their custom to the neighboring tribes. The latter adapted tobacco smoking to their own religion, believing that their god, the almighty Manitou, revealed himself in the rising smoke. And, as in Central America, a complex system of religious and political rites was developed around tobacco.

(Imperial Tobacco Canada, Tobacco History ) 600-1000 CE: UAXACTUN, GUATEMALA.

First pictorial record of smoking: A pottery vessel found here dates from before the 11th century. On it a Maya is depicted smoking a roll of tobacco leaves tied with a string. The Mayan term for smoking was sik'ar

The Chiapas Gift, or The Indians' Revenge?

Columbus' sailors find Arawak and Taino Indians smoking tobacco. Some take up the habit and begin to spread it worldwide.

1492-10-12: Columbus Discovers Tobacco; "Certain Dried Leaves" Are Received as Gifts, and Thrown Away. On this bright morning Columbus and his men set foot on the New World for the first time, landing on the beach of San Salvador Island or Samana Cay in the Bahamas, or Gran Turk Island. The indigenous Arawaks, possibly thinking the strange visitors divine, offer gifts. Columbus wrote in his journal, the natives brought fruit, wooden spears, and certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance.

As each item seemed much-prized by the natives; Columbus accepted the gifts and ordered them brought back to the ship. The fruit was eaten; the pungent "dried leaves" were thrown away.

1492-10-15: Columbus Mentions Tobacco. "We found a man in a canoe going from Santa Maria to Fernandia. He had with him some dried leaves which are in high value among them, for a quantity of it was brought to me at San Salvador" -- Christopher Columbus' Journal
1492-11: Jerez and Torres Discover Smoking; Jerez Becomes First European Smoker Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, in Cuba searching for the Khan of Cathay (China), are credited with first observing smoking. They reported that the natives wrapped dried tobacco leaves in palm or maize "in the manner of a musket formed of paper." After lighting one end, they commenced "drinking" the smoke through the other. Jerez became a confirmed smoker, and is thought to be the first outside of the Americas. He brought the habit back to his hometown, but the smoke billowing from his mouth and nose so frightened his neighbors he was imprisoned by the holy inquisitors for 7 years. By the time he was released, smoking was a Spanish craze.

1493: Ramon Pane, a monk who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, gave lengthy descriptions about the custom of taking snuff. He also described how the Indians inhaled smoke through a Y-shaped tube. Pane is usually credited with being the first man to introduce tobacco to Europe.
1497: Robert Pane, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, writes the first report of native tobacco use to appear in Europe, "De Insularium Ribitus."
1498: Columbus visits Trinidad and Tobago, naming the latter after the native tobacco pipe.
1499: Amerigo Vespucci noticed that the American Indians had a curious habit of chewing green leaves mixed with a white powder. They carried two gourds around their necks -- one filled with leaves, the other with powder. First, they put leaves in their mouths. Then, after dampening a small stick with saliva, they dipped it in the powder and mixed the adhering powder with the leaves in their mouths, making a kind of chewing tobacco.
(Imperial Tobacco Canada, )

Further Reading:
Chapter 1: Discovery
Chapter 2: The Sixteenth Century--Sailors Spread the Seeds
Chapter 3: The Seventeenth Century--"The Great Age of the Pipe"
Chapter 4: The Eighteenth Century--Snuff Holds Sway
Chapter 5: The Nineteenth Century--The Age of the Cigar
Chapter 6: The Twentieth Century, 1900-1950--The Rise of the Cigarette
Chapter 7: The Twentieth Century, 1950-1999--The Battle is Joined
Chapter 8: The New Millennium
Notes

Timeline:

• c. 6000 BC: Experts believe the tobacco plant, as we know it today, begins growing in the Americas.
• c. 1 BCE: Experts believe American inhabitants begin finding ways to use tobacco, including smoking (via a number of variations) and in enemas.
• c. 1 CE: Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the Americas. (American Heritage Book of Indians, p.41).
• 600-1000 CE: UAXACTUN, GUATEMALA. First pictorial record of smoking: A pottery vessel found here dates from before the 11th century. On it a Maya is depicted smoking a roll of tobacco leaves tied with a string. The Mayan term for smoking was sik'ar

• 1492-10-15: Columbus Discovers Smoking
• 1497: Robert Pane, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, writes the first report of native tobacco use to appear in Europe.
• 1518: MEXICO: JUAN DE GRIJALVA lands in Yucatan, observes cigarette smoking by natives (ATS)
• 1519: MEXICO: CORTEZ conquers AZTEC capitol, finds Mexican natives smoking perfumed reed cigarettes.(ATS)
• 1530: MEXICO: BERNARDINO DE SAHAGUN, missionary in Mexico, distinguishes between sweet commercial tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and coarse Nicotiana rustica.(ATS)
• 1531: SANTO DOMINGO: European cultivation of tobacco begins
• 1534: CUBA, SANTO DOMINGO: "Tall tobacco"Ρsweet, broadleaved Nicotiana tabacumΡtransplanted from Central American mainland to Cuba and Santo Domingo.(ATS)
• 1548: BRAZIL: Portuguese cultivate tobacco for commercial export.
• 1554: ANTWERP: 'Cruydeboeck' presents first illustration of tobacco. (LB)
• 1535: CANADA: Jacques Cartier encounters natives on the island of Montreal who use tobacco.
• 1556: FRANCE: Tobacco is introduced. Thevet transplants Nicotiana tabacum from Brazil, describes tobacco as a creature comfort. (ATS)
• 1558: PORTUGAL: Tobacco is introduced.
• 1559: SPAIN: Tobacco is introduced.
• 1560: PORTUGAL, FRANCE: Jean Nicot de Villemain, France's ambassador to Portugal, writes of tobacco's medicinal properties, describing it as a panacea. Nicot sends rustica plants to French court.
• 1564 or 1565: ENGLAND: Tobacco is introduced by Sir John Hawkins and/or his crew. For the next twenty years in England, tobacco is used cheifly by sailors, including those employed by Sir Francis Drake.
• 1566: FRANCE: Nicot sends snuff to Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, to treat her migraine headaches. She later decrees tobacco be termed Herba Regina
• 1568: FRANCE: Andre Thevet provides first description of tobacco use. In Brazil, he wrote, the people smoke it and it cleans the "superfluous humours of the brain". Thevet smoked it himself. (LB)
• 1570: Claimed first botanical book on tobacco written by Pena and Lobel of London.(TSW)
• 1571: SPAIN: MEDICINE: Monardes, a doctor in Seville, reports on the latest craze among Spanish doctors--the wonders of the tobacco plant, which herbalists are growing all over Spain. Monardes lists 36 maladies tobacco cures.
• 1573: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Drake returns from Americas with 'Nicotina tobacum'. (LB)
• 1575: MEXICO: LEGISLATION: Roman Catholic Church passes a law against smoking in any place of worship in the Spanish Colonies
• 1577: ENGLAND: MEDICINE: Frampton translates Monardes into English. European doctors look for new cures--tobacco is recommended for toothache, falling fingernails, worms, halitosis, lockjaw & cancer
• 1580: CUBA: European cultivation of tobacco begins
• 1585: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Drake introduces smoking to Sir Walter Raleigh (BD)
• 1586: Ralph Lane, first governor of Virginia, teaches Sir Walter Raleigh to smoke the long-stemmed clay pipe Lane is credited with inventing (BD).(TSW)
• 1586: GERMANY: 'De plantis epitome utilissima' offers one of first cautions to use of tobacco, calling it a "violent herb". (LB)
• 1586: ENGLAND: Tobacco Arrives in English Society. In July 1586, some of the Virginia colonists returned to England and disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused a sensation. William Camden (1551-1623) a contemporary witness, reports that "These men who were thus brought back were the first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant which they call Tabacca and Nicotia, or Tobacco" Tobacco in the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed." (BD)
• 1587: ANTWERP: First published work totally on tobacco, 'De herbe panacea', with numerous recipies and claims of cures. (LB)
• 1588: Hariot writes about tobacco in Virginia
• 1590: LITERATURE: Spenser's Fairy Queen: earliest poetical allusion to tobacco in English literature. (Book III, Canto VI, 32).
• 1595: ENGLAND: Tabacco, the first book in the English language devoted to the subject of tobacco, is published
• 1595: Matoaka is born to Chief Powhatan. She is given the nickname Pocahontas--"Frisky," "Playful One" or "Mischief"
• 1596: LITERATURE: Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humor is acted on the 25th of November, 1596, and printed in 1601. In Act III, Scene 2, Bobadilla (pro) and Cob (con) argue about tobacco. (BD)

Seventeenth Century--"The Great Age of the Pipe"

Tobacco comes into use as "Country Money" or "Country Pay" in the colonies. Tobacco continues to be used as a monetary standard--literally a "cash crop"-- throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, lasting twice as long as the gold standard.

So prominent is the place that tobacco occupies in the early records of the middle Southern States, that its cultivation and commercial associations may be said to form the basis of their history. It was the direct source of their wealth, and became for a while the representative of gold and silver; the standard value of other merchantable products; and this tradition was further preserved by the stamping of a tobacco-leaf upon the old continental money used in the Revolution. --19th century historian (DB)

• 1600s: Popes ban smoking in holy places. Pope Urban VIII (1623-44) threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take snuff in holy places.
• 1600: BRAZIL: European cultivation of tobacco begins
• 1600: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh persuades Queen Elizabeth to try smoking
• 1601: TURKEY: Smoking is introduced, and rapidly takes hold while clerics denounce it. "Puffing in each other's faces, they made the streets and markets stink," writes historian Ibrahim Pecevi.
• 1602: ENGLAND: Publication of Worke of Chimney Sweepers by anonymous author identified as 'Philaretes' states that illness of chimney sweepers is caused by soot and that tobacco may have similar effects. (LB)
• 1602: ENGLAND: Roger Markecke writes A Defense of Tobacco, in response to Chimneysweeps (LB)
• 1603: ENGLAND: Physicians are upset that tobacco used by people without physician prescription; complain to King James I.(TSW)
• 1604: ENGLAND: King James I writes "A Counterblaste to Tobacco"
• 1604: ENGLAND: King James I increases import tax on tobacco 4,000%
• 1605: ENGLAND: Debate between King James I and Dr. Cheynell.(TSW)
• 1606: SPAIN: King Philip Ill decrees that tobacco may only be grown in specific locations--including Cuba, Santo Domingo, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Sale of tobacco to foreigners is punishable by death.
• 1606+: ADVERTISING: ENGLAND: America and advertising begin to grow together. One of the first products heavily marketed is America itself. Richard Hofstadter called the Virginia Company's recruitment effort for its new colony, "one of the first concerted and sustained advertising campaigns in the history of the modern world." The out-of-place, out-of-work "gentlemen" in an overpopulated England were sold quite a bill of goods about the bountiful land and riches to be had in the New World. Daniel J. Boorstin has mused whether "there was a kind of natural selection here of those people who were willing to believe in advertising."
• 1607: JAMESTOWN saga begins
• 1610: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Bacon writes that tobacco use is increasing and that it is a custom hard to quit. (LB)
• 1610: ENGLAND: Edmond Gardiner publishes William Barclay's The Trial of Tobacco and provides a text of recipies and medicinal preparations. BArclay defends tobacco as a medicine but condemns casual use(LB)
• 1612: CHINA: Imperial edict forbidding the planting and use tobacco.(TSW)
• 1612: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe raises Virginia's first commercial crop of "tall tobacco."
• 1614: SPAIN: King Philip III establishes Seville as tobacco center of the world. Attempting to prevent a tobacco glut, Philip requires all tobacco grown in the Spanish New World to be shipped to a central location, Seville, Spain. Seville becomes the world center for the production of cigars. European cigarette use begins here, as beggars patch together tobacco from used cigars, and roll them in paper(papeletes). Spanish and Portuguese sailors spread the practice to Russia and the Levant.
• 1614-04: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe and Pocahontas (Rebecca) are married
• 1614: ENGLAND: First sale of native Virginia tobacco in England; Virginia colony enters world tobacco market, under English protection
• 1614: ENGLAND: "[T]here be 7000 shops, in and about London, that doth vent Tobacco" -- The Honestie of this Age, Prooving by good circumstance that the world was never honest till now, by Barnabee Rych Gentleman (BD)
• 1614: LITERATURE: Nepenthes, or the Vertues of Tabacco, by William Barclay; Edinburgh, 1614. Recommends exclusively tobacco of American origin (BD)
• 1616-06-03: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe and Pocahontas arrive in London
• 1617: Dr. William Vaughn writes:
Tobacco that outlandish weede
It spends the braine and spoiles the seede
It dulls the spirite, it dims the sight
It robs a woman of her right
• 1617: MONGOLIA: Emperor places death penalty on using tobacco.(TSW)
• 1619: ENGLAND: An unhappy King James I incorporates British pipe makers.(TSW)
• 1619: JAMESTOWN: First Africans brought into Virginia. John Rolfe writes in his diary, About the last of August came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty negars.
• 1619: JAMESTOWN: First shipment of wives for settlers arrives. Future husbands had to pay for his prospective mate's passage (120 lbs. of tobacco).
• 1620: ENGLAND: 40,000 lbs of tobacco imported from Virginia. (LB)
• 1620: Trade agreement between the Crown & Virginia Company bans commercial tobacco growing in England, in return for a 1 shilling/lb. duty on Virginia tobacco.
• 1621: Sixty future wives arrive in Virginia and sell for 150 pounds of tobacco each. Price up since 1619.(TSW)
• 1621: ENGLAND: Tobias Venner publishes "A briefe and accurate treatise, comcerning....tobacco" claiming medicinal properties, but condeming use for pleasure. (LB)
• 1624: Pope threatens excommunication for snuff users; sneezing is thought too close to sexual ecstasy
• 1628: Shah Sefi punishes two merchants for selling tobacco by pouring hot lead down their throat.(TSW)
•In 1629, Niewu Amsterdam's Gov. Wouter Van Twiller appropriated a farm belonging to the Dutch West India Company in the Bossen Bouwery ("Farm in the woods") area of Manhattan island, and began growing tobacco. The first Dutch references to the Indians' name for the area appear around 1640.
• 1631: European cultivation of tobacco begins in Maryland
• 1632: MASSACHUSETTS forbids public smoking
• 1633: CONNECTICUT Settled; first tobacco crop raised in Windsor
• 1633: TURKEY: Sultan Murad IV orders tobacco users executed as infidels. As many as 18 a day were executed. Some historians consider the ban an anti-plague measure, some a fire-prevention measure.
• 1634: RUSSIA: Czar Alexis creates penalties for smoking: 1st offense is whipping, a slit nose, and trasportation to Siberia. 2nd offense is execution.(TSW) (BD)
• 1634: EUROPE: Greek Church claims that it was tobacco smoke that intoxicated Noah and so bans tobacco use.(TSW)
• 1635: FRANCE: King allows sale of tobaccco only following prescription by physician.(TSW)
• 1637: FRANCE: King Louis XIII enjoys snuff and repeals restricions on its use.(TSW)
• 1638: CHINA: Use or distribution of tobacco is made a crime punishable by decapitation.
• 1639: NEW YORK CITY: Governor Kieft bans smoking in New Amsterdam
• 1640: Greenwich Village, NY is known to Native Americans as (var.) Sapponckanican-- "tobacco fields," or "land where the tobacco grows."
• 1647: TURKEY: Tobacco ban is lifted. Pecevi writes that tobaco has now joined coffee, wine and opium as one of the four "cushions on the sofa of pleasure."
• 1647: Colony of Connecticut bans public smoking: citizens may smoke only once a day, "and then not in company with any other."
• 1650: Colony of Connecticut General Court orders -- no smoking by person under age of 21, no smoking except with physicians order.(TSW)
• 1660: ENGLAND: THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY The court of Charles II returns to London from exile in Paris, bringing the French court's snuffing practice with them; snuff becomes an aristocratic form of tobacco use. During Charles' reign (1660-1685), the growing of tobacco in England, except for small lots in physic gardens, is forbidden so as to preserve the taxes coming in from Virginian imports.
• 1661: VIRGINIA Assembly begins institutionalizing slavery, making it de jure.
• 1665: EUROPE: THE GREAT PLAGUE Smoking tobacco is thought to have a protective effect.
• 1665: HEALTH: ENGLAND: Samuel Pepys describes a Royal Society experiment in which a cat quickly dies when fed "a drop of distilled oil of tobacco."
• 1666: Maryland faces oversupply; bans production of tobacco for one year.
• 1675: SWITZERLAND: The Berne town council establishes a special Chambres de Tabac to deal with smokers, who face the same dire penalties as adulterers.
• 1676: Heavy taxes levied in tobacco by Virginia Governor BERKELEY lead to BACON'S REBELLION, a foretaste of American Revolution. (ATS)

The Eighteenth Century--Snuff holds sway
• ENGLAND: George III's wife known as "Snuffy Charlotte"
• FRANCE: Napoleon said to have used 7 lb. of snuff per month
• 1700: RUSSIA: Peter the Great smokes and repeals bans on smoking.(TSW)
• 1701: MEDICINE: Nicholas Andryde Boisregard warns that young people taking too much tobacco have trembling, unsteady hands, staggering feet and suffer a withering of "their noble parts."
• 1705: VIRGINIA Assembly passes a law legalizing lifelong slavery. . . . all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not christians in their native country . . . shall be . . . slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to christianity afterwards."
• 1713: Inspection regulations passed to keep up standards of Virginia leaf exports (not effective until 1730). (ATS)
• 1724: Pope Benedict XIII learns to smoke and repeals bans on smoking.(TSW)
• 1727: ECONOMY: "Tobacco notes" attesting to quality and quantity of one's tobacco kept in public warehouses are authorized as legal tender in Virginia. Used as units of monetary exchange throughout 18th Century.
• 1730: LEGISLATION: Virginia Inspection Acts come into effect, standardizing and regulating tobacco sales and exports to prevent the export of "trash tobacco"--shipments diluted with leaves and household sweepings, which were debasing the value of Virginia tobacco. Inspection warehouses were empowered to verify weight and kind and kind of tobacco.
• 1730: VIRGINIA: BUSINESS: First American tobacco factories begun in VirginiaΡsmall snuff mills
• 1747: LEGISLATION: Maryland passes its own Maryland Inspection Act to control quality of exports.
• 1750: RHODE ISLAND BUSINESS: Gilbert Stuart builds snuff mill in Rhode Island, ships his products in dried animal bladders.
• 1758: LEGISLATION: Virginia Assembly passes wildly unpopular "Two Penny Act," forbidding payment in percentage of tobacco crop to some public officials, such as clergy. The crop was small at this period, making tobacco a seller's market. The law mandating a regular salary for these officials severely cut the clergy's real income.
• 1753: SWEDEN: Swedish Botanist Carolus Linnaeus names the plant genus, nicotiana. and describes two species, nicotiana rustica. and nicotiana tabacum."
• 1760: BUSINESS: Pierre Lorillard establishes a "manufactory" in New York City for processing pipe tobacco, cigars, and snuff. P. Lorillard is the oldest tobacco company in the US.
• 1761: ENGLAND: John Hill performs perhaps first clinical study of tobacco effects, warns snuff users they are vulnerable to cancers of the nose.
• 1761: ENGLAND: Dr. Percival Pott notes incidence of cancer of the scrotum among chimneysweeps, theorizing a connection between cancer and exposure to soot.
• 1762: General Israel Putnam introduces cigar-smoking to the US. After a British campaign in Cuba, "Old Put" returns with three donkey-loads of Havana cigars; introduces the customers of his Connecticut brewery and tavern to cigar smoking (BD)
• 1763: Patrick Henry argues a tobacco case.The clergy had been paid in tobacco until a late 1750s Virginia law which decreed they should be paid in currency at the rate of 2 cent/lb, when tobacco was selling for 6 cents/lb. The law was vetoed by the Crown, but was still sometimes adhered to in Virginia, and some clergy sued their parishes. Henry defended one such parish (Hanover County) in court. He berated England's interference in domestic matters, and convinced the jury to give the plaintiff/clergyman only one penny in damages.
• 1771-12-17: FRANCE: French official is condemned to be hanged for admitting foreign tobacco into the country.
• 1776: AMERICAN REVOLUTION Along "Tobacco Coast" (the Chesapeake), the Revolutionary War was variously known as "The Tobacco War." Growers had found themselves perpetually in debt to British merchants; by 1776, growers owed the mercantile houses millions of pounds. British tobacco taxes are a further grievance. Tobacco helps finance the Revolution by serving as collateral for loans from France.
• 1780-1781: VIRGINIA: "TOBACCO WAR" waged by Lord Cornwallis to destroy basis of America's credit abroad (ATS)
• 1781: Thomas Jefferson suggests tobacco cultivation in the "western country on the Mississippi." (ATS)
• 1788: BUSINESS: Spanish NEW ORLEANS opened for export of tobacco by Americans in Mississippi valley. (ATS)
• 1789-1799: FRENCH REVOLUTION French masses begin to take to the cigarito, as the form of tobacco use least like the aristocratic snuff.
• 1791: HEALTH: ENGLAND: London physician John Hill reports cases in which use of snuff caused nasal cancers.
• 1794: The U.S Congress passes its first tax on tobacco. The tax of 8 cents applies only to snuff, not the more plebian chewing or smoking tobacco. The tax is 60% of snuff's usual selling price.
• 1795: Sammuel Thomas von Soemmering of Maine reports on cancers of the lip in pipe smokers.
• 1798. Famed physician Benjamin Rush writes on the medical dangers of tobacco and claims that smoking or chewing tobacco leads to drunkenness.

The Nineteenth Century--The Age of the Cigar

• 1800: CANADA: Tobacco begins being commercially grown.
• 1805: LEWIS AND CLARK explore Northwest, using gifts of tobacco as "life insurance."
• 1810: CONNECTICUT: Cuban cigar-roller brought to Suffield to train local workers. (ATS)
• 1820: American traders open the Santa Fe trail, find ladies of that city smoking "seegaritos." (ATS)
• 1826: ENGLAND is importing 26 pounds of cigars a year. The cigar becomes so popular that within four years, England will be importing 250,000 pounds of cigars a year.
• 1826: MEDICINE: The purified form of the nicotine compound is obtained
• 1828: GERMANY: Heidelberg students Ludwig Reimann and Wilhelm Heinrich Posselt write exhaustive dissertations on the pharmacology of nicotine, concluding it is a "dangerous poison."
• 1830s: First organized anti-tobacco movement in US begins as adjunct to the temperance movement. Tobacco use is considered to dry out the mouth, "creating a morbid or diseased thirst" which only liquor could quench.
• 1830: PRUSSIA: Prussian Government enacts a law that cigars , in public, be smoked in a sort of wire-mesh contraption designed to prevent sparks setting fire to ladies' "crinolines" and hoop skirts. (BD)
• 1832: AGRICULTURE: TUCK patents curing method for Virginia leaf.
• 1839: AGRICULTURE: NORTH CAROLINA: SLADE "yallercure" presages flue-cured Bright tobacco. Charcoal used in flue-curing for the first time in North Carolina. Not only cheaper, its intense heat turns the thinner, low-nicotine Piedmont leaf a brilliant golden color. This results in the classic American "Bright leaf" variety, which is so mild it virtually invites a smoker to inhale it.(RK), (ATS)
• 1836: USA: Samuel Green of the New England Almanack and Farmers Friend writes that tobacco is an insectide, a poison, a fillthy habit, and can kill a man. (LB)
• 1842: Opium War. Treaty of Nanjing forces China to accept opium from British traders
• 1843: FRANCE: SEITA monopoly begins manufacture of cigarettes.
• 1843: MEDICINE: The correct molecular formula of nicotine is established
• 1845: ART: Prosper Merimee's novel, Carmen, about a cigarette girl in an Andalusian factory, is published
• 1846-1848: MEXICAN WAR US soldiers bring back a taste for the darker, richer tobacco favored in Latin countries, leading to an explosive increase in the use of the cigar.
• 1847: ENGLAND: Philip Morris opens shop; sells hand-rolled Turkish cigarettes.
• 1849: BUSINESS: J.E. Liggett and Brother is established in St. Louis, Mo., by John Edmund Liggett
• 1852:Washington Duke, a young tobacco farmer, builds a modest, two-story home near Durham, NC, for himself and his new bride. The house, and the log structure which served as a "tobacco factory" after the Civil War may still be seen at the Duke Homestead Museum.
• 1852: Matches are introduced, making smoking more convenient.
• 1853-1856: EUROPE: CRIMEAN WAR British soldiers learn how cheap and convenient the cigarettes ("Papirossi") used by their Turkish allies are, and bring the practise back to England.
• 1854: ENGLAND: BUSINESS: London tobacconist Philip Morris begins making his own cigarettes.
• 1856-1857: ENGLAND: A running debate among readers runs in the British medical journal, Lancet. The argument runs as much along moral as medical lines, with little substantiation.(RK)
• 1857: BUSINESS: James Buchanan "Buck" Duke is born to Washington "Wash" Duke, an independent farmer who hated the plantation class, opposed slavery, and raised food and a little tobacco.
• 1859: Reverend George Trask publishes tract "Thoughts and stories for American Lads: Uncle Toby's anti-tobacco advice to his nephew Billy Bruce". He writes, "Physicians tell us that twenty thousand or more in our own land are killed by [tobacco] every year (LB)
• 1860: The Census for Virginia and North Carolina list 348 tobacco factories, virtually all producing chewing tobacco. Only 6 list smoking tobacco as a side-product (which is manufactured from scraps left over from plug production).
• 1860: BUSINESS: Manufactured cigarettes appear. A popular early brand is Bull Durham.
• 1860: BUSINESS: MARKETING: Lorillard wraps $100 bills at random in packages of cigarette tobacco named "Century," in order to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the firm (BD)
• 1861-1865: USA: THE CIVIL WAR: Tobacco is given with rations by both North and South; many Northerners are introduced to tobacco this way. During Sherman's march, Union soldiers now attracted to the mild, sweet "bright" tobacco of the South, raided warehouses--including Washington Duke's--for some chew on the way home. Some bright made it all the way back. Bright tobacco becomes the rage in the North.
• 1862: First federal USA tax on tobacco; instituted to help pay for the Civil War, yields about three million dollars.(TSW)
• 1863: SUMATRA: Nienhuys creates Indonesian tobacco industry Dutch businessman Jacobus Nienhuys travels to Sumatra seeking to buy tobacco, but finds poor growing and production facilities; his efforts to rectify the situation are credited with establishing the indonesian tobacco industry.
• 1863: US Mandates Cigar Boxes. Congress passes a law calling for manufacturers to create cigar boxes on which IRS agents can paste Civil War excise tax stamps. The beginning of "cigar box art."
• 1864: AGRICULTURE: WHITE BURLEY first cultivated in Ohio Valley; highly absorbent new leaf proves ideal for sweetened chewing tobacco.
• 1864: BUSINESS: 1st American cigarette factory opens and produces almost 20 million cigarettes.
• 1864: First tax levied on cigarettes.
• 1865-70: NEW YORK CITY: Demand for exotic Turkish cigarettes grows in New York City; skilled European rollers imported by New York tobacco shops. (ATS)
• 1868: UK: Parliament passes the Railway Bill of 1868, which mandates smoke-free cars to prevent injury to non-smokers.
• 1873: BUSINESS: Philip Morris dies. (Yes, that Philip Morris)
• 1873: Myers Brothers and Co. markets "Love" tobacco with them of North-South Civil War reconcilliation.
• 1874: BUSINESS: Washington Duke, with his sons Benjamin N. Duke and James Buchanan Duke, builds his first tobacco factory
• 1875: BUSINESS: Allen and Ginter offer a reward of $75,000 for cigarette rolling machine. (LB)
• 1875: BUSINESS: R. J. Reynolds founds R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to produce chewing tobacco, soon producing brands like Brown's Mule, Golden Rain, Dixie's Delight, Yellow Rose, Purity.
• 1875: BUSINESS: Richmond, VA: Allen & Ginter cigarette brands ("Richmond Straight Cut No. 1," "Pet") begin using picture cards to stiffen the pack and give the buyer a premium. Some themes: "Fifty Scenes of Perilous Occupations," "Flags of All Nations," boxers, actresses, famous battles, etc. The cards are a huge hit.(RK)
• 1875: ART: Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen, based on Merimee's novel about a cigarette girl in an Andalusian factory, opens.
• 1876: Benson & Hedges receives its first royal warrant from Edward VII, Prince of Wales.
• 1878: BUSINESS: J.E. Liggett & Brother incorporates as Liggett & Myers Company. By 1885 Liggett is world's largest plug tobacco manufacturer; doesn't make cigarettes until the 1890's
• 1878: BUSINESS: Trading cards and coupons begin being widely used in cigarette packs.
• c.1880s: USA: Women's Christian Temperance Movement publishes a "Leaflet for Mothers' Meetings" titled "Narcotics", by Lida B. Ingalls. Discusses evils of tobacco, especially cigarettes. Cigarettes are "doing more to-day to undermine the constitution of our young men and boys than any other one evil" (p. 7). (LB)
• c.1880s: ADVERTISING: Improvements in transportation, manufacturing volume, and packaging lead to the ability to sell the same branded product nationwide. What can be sold nationwide can and must be advertised nationwide. Advertising agencies sprout like wildflowers. The most advertised product throughout most of the 19th century: elixirs and patent medicines of the "cancer cure" variety.
• c.1880s: ENGLAND: BUSINESS: Mssrs. Richard Benson and William Hedges open a tobacconist shop near Philip Morris in London.(RK)
• 1880: Bonsack machine granted first cigarette machine patent
• 1881: BUSINESS James Buchanan ("Buck") Duke enters the manufacturered cigarette business, moving 125 Russian Jewish immigrants to Durham, NC. First cigarette: Duke of Durham brand. Duke's factory produces 9.8 million cigarettes, 1.5 % of the total market.
• 1883: BUSINESS: Oscar Hammerstien receives patent on cigar rolling machine.(TSW)
• 1884: BUSINESS: Duke heads to New York City to take his tobacco business national and form a cartel that eventually becomes the American Tobacco Co. Duke buys 2 Bonsack machines., getting one of them to produce 120,000 cigarettes in 10 hours by the end of the year. In this year Duke produces 744 million cigarettes, more than the national total in 1883. Duke's airtight contracts with Bonsack allow him to undersell all competitors.
• 1886: USA Patent received for machine to manufacture plug tobacco. (LB)
• 1886: Tampa, FL: Don Vicente Martinez Ybor opens his first cigar factory. Others follow. Within a few years, Ybor city will become the cigar capital of the US.
• 1887: PALESTINE: A traveler reports that the Arabs of the Syrian Desert get giddy and headaches from a few whiffs of tobacco. They smoke a local plant 'Hyoscyamus'. (LB)
• 1887: USA: Advice from the cigar and tobacco price list of M. Breitweiser and Brothers of Buffalo, Item #5 -- "If you think smoking injurious to your health, stop smoking in the morning". (LB)
• 1887: USA: Two men held pipe smoking contest that lasted one and a half hours. Victory was declared when one man filled his pipe for the tenth time, his oppenent did not. (LB)
• 1887: His contracts with Bonsack unknown to his competitors, Buck Duke slashes prices, sparking a price war he knew he'd win.
• 1889: SCIENCE: Nicotine and nerve cells reported on. Langley and Dickinson publish landmark studies on the effects of nicotine on the ganglia; they hypothesize that there are receptors and transmitters that respond to stimulation by specific chemicals. (RK)
• 1889: USA: BUSINESS: Buck Duke is spending $800,000 marketing his cigarettes. (LB)
• 1889-04-23: BUSINESS: The five leading cigarette firms, including W. Duke Sons & Company, form the American Tobacco Company. It's president is Buck Duke.
• c.1890s: USA: Women's Christian Temperance Movement publishes "Narcotics", by E. B. Ingalls. Pamphlet discusses evils of numerous drugs, tobacco, cocaine, ginger, hashish, and headache medicines. Offers 16 suggestions to workers. (LB)
• 1890: Peak of chewing tobacco consumption in V. S., three pounds per capita. (ATS)
• 1890: "Tobacco" appears in the US Pharmacopoeia, an official government listing of drugs.
• 1890s: RESEARCH: Pure nicotine is first synthesized.
• 1890: 26 states and territories have outlawed the sale of cigarettes to minors (age of a "minor" in a particulary state could be anything from 14-24.)
• 1890: BUSINESS: Dukes establish the American Tobacco Company, which will soon monopolize the entire US tobacco industry. ATC will be dissolved in Anti-Trust action in 1911.
• 1890: LITERATURE: My Lady Nicotine, Sir James Barrie, London
• 1892: POLITICS: Reformers petition Congress to prohibit the manufacture, importation and sale of cigarettes. The Senate Committee on Epidemic Diseases, while agreeing that cigarettes are a public health hazard, finds that only the states have the authority to act. The committee urges the petitioners to seek redress from state legislatures.
• 1893: The state of Washington bans the sale and use of cigarettes.
• 1894: BUSINESS: By now, Philip Morris has passed from the troubled Morris family, and is controlled by the Thompson family (RK).
• 1894: BUSINESS: Brown & Williamson formed as a partnership in Winston-Salem, making mostly plug, snuff and pipe tobacco. (RK).
• 1898: SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR: Congress raises taxes on cigarettes 200%
• 1898: IN COURT: Tennessee Supreme Court upholds a total ban on cigarettes, ruling they are "not legitimate articles of commerce, because wholly noxious and deleterious to health. Their use is always harmful."
• 1899: Lucy Payne Gaston, who claims that young men who smoke develop a distinguishable "cigarette face," founds the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League, which grows by 1911 to the Anti-Cigarette League of America, and by 1919 to the Anti-Cigarette League of the World.
• 1899: The Senate Finance Committee, in secret session, rolls back the wartime excise tax on cigarettes.(RK)
• 1899: BUSINESS: Liggett & Myers taken into Duke's Tobacco Trust. Duke has finally won the Bull Durham brand of chew.
• 1899: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company incorporates.

Twentieth Century--The Rise of the Cigarette
1900-1950: Growing Pains

• 1900: LEGISLATION: Washington, Iowa, Tennessee and North Dakota have outlawed the sale of cigarettes.
• 1900: STATISTICS: 4.4 billion cigarettes are sold this year. The anit-cigarette movement has destroyed many smaller companies. Buck Duke is selling 9 out of 10 cigarettes in the US.
• 1900: US Supreme Court uphold's Tennessee's ban on cigarette sales. One Justice, repeating a popular notion of the day, says, "there are many [cigarettes] whose tobacco has been mixed with opium or some other drug, and whose wrapper has been saturated in a solution of arsenic.".
• 1900: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds reluctantly folds his company into Duke's Tobacco Trust
• 1901: ENGLAND: END OF AN AGE: QUEEN VICTORIA DIES. Edward VII, the tobacco-hating queen's son and successor, gathers friends together in a large drawing room at Buckingham Palace. He enters the room with a lit cigar in his hand and announces, "Gentlemen, you may smoke."
• 1901: BUSINESS: Duke fuses his Continental Tobacco and American Tobacco companies into Consolidated Tobacco.
• 1901: BUSINESS: UK: Duke's Consolidated buys the British Ogden tobacco firm, signalling a raid on the British industry.
• 1901: BUSINESS: UK: Imperial is born. The largest British tobacco companies unite to combat Duke's take-over, forming the Bristol-based Imperial Tobacco Group.
• 1902: BUSINESS: In an end to the war, Imperial and American agree to stay in their own countries, and unite to form the British American Tobacco Company (BAT) to sell both companies' brands abroad.
• 1901: 3.5 billion cigarettes smoked; 6 billion cigars sold
• 1902: Philip Morris sets up a corporation in New York to sell its British brands, including one named "Marlboro."
• 1902: BUSINESS: ENGLAND: King Albert, long a fan of Philip Morris, Ltd., appoints the Bond St. boutique royal tobacconist.(RK)
• 1902: USA: Sears, Roebuck and Co catalogue (page 441) sells "Sure Cure for the Tobacco Habit". Slogan "Tobacco to the Dogs". The product "will destroy the effects of nicotine". (LB)
• 1903-08: The August Harpers Weekly says, "A great many thoughtful and intelligent men who smoke don't know if it does them good or harm. They notice bad effects when they smoke too much. They know that having once acquired the habit, it bothers them . . . to have their allowance of tobacco cut off."
• 1904: BUSINESS: Cigarette coupons first used as "come ons" for a new chain of tobacco stores.
• 1904: BUSINESS: Duke forms the American Tobacco Co. by the merger of 2 subsidiaries, Consolidated and American & Continental. The only form of tobacco Duke does not control is cigars--the form with the most prestige.
• 1904: MEDICINE: The first laboratory synthesis of nicotine is reported
• 1904: New York CIty. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer says
• 1904: Kentucky tobacco farmers form a violent "protective association" to protect themselves against rapacious tactics of large manufacturers, mostly the Duke combine. They destroy tobacco factories, crops, and even murder other planters. Disbanded in 1915.
• 1905: POLITICS: Indiana legislature bribery attempt is exposed, leading to passage of total cigarette ban
• 1905: U.S. warships head to Nicaragua on behalf of William Albers, a Amaerican accused of evading tobacco taxes
• 1905: REGULATION: "Tobacco" does not appear in the US Pharmacopoeia, an official government listing of drugs. "The removal of tobacco from the Pharmacopoeia was the price that had to be paid to get the support of tobacco state legislators for the Food and Drug Act of 1906. The elimination of the word tobacco automatically removed the leaf from FDA supervision."--Smoking and Politics: Policymaking and the Federal Bureaucracy Fritschler, A. Lee. 1969, p. 37
• 1906 BUSINESS: Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company is formed
• 1906 BUSINESS: R.J. Reynolds introduces Prince Albert pipe tobacco
• 1906-06-30: Pure Food and Drug Act prohibits sale of adulterated foods and drugs, and mandates honest statement of contents on labels. Food and Drug Administration begins; originally, nicotine is on the list of drugs; after tobacco industry lobbying efforts, nicotine is removed from the list.
• 1907: REGULATION: Teddy Roosevelt's Justice Department files anti-trust charges against American Tobacco.
• 1907-01-26: REGULATION: Congress enacts law prohibiting campaign contributions by corporations to candidates for national posts.
• 1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."
• 1908: CANADA: LEGISLATION: The Tobacco Restraint Act passed. Bans sales of cigarettes to those under 16; never enforced.
• 1908: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds release, Prince Albert pipe tobacco, "the Joy Smoke.", catapulting Reynolds to a national market. (RK)
• 1909: 15 states have passed legislation banning the sale of cigarettes.
• 1909: SPORTS: Baseball great Honus Wagner orders American Tobacco Company take his picture off their "Sweet Caporal" cigarette packs, fearing they would lead children to smoke. The shortage makes the Honus Wagner card the most valuable of all time, worth close to $500,000.
• 1910: TAXES: Federal tax revenues from tobacco products are $58 million, 13% from cigarettes.
• 1910: THE STATE OF TOBACCO: Per capita consumption: 138/year. Because of the heavy use of the inexpensive cigarette by immigrants, New York still accounts for 25% of all cigarette sales. The New York Times editorializes praises the Non Smokers Protective League, saying anything that could be done to allay "the general and indiscriminate use of tobacco in public places, hotels, restaurants, and railroad cars, will receive the approval of everybody whose approval is worth having." (RK)

• 1911: BUSINESS: THE INDUSTRY IN 1911:

•Duke's American Tobacco Co. controls 92% of the world's tobacco business. •Leading National Brand: Fatima, (first popular brand to be sold in 20-unit packs; 15 cents) from Liggett & Myers, a Turkish/domestic blend. Most popular in Eastern urban areas. Other Turkish/domesitc competitors: Omar (ATC); Zubelda (Lorillard); Even the straight domestic brands were seasoned with a sprinkling of Turkish, like Sweet Caporals (originally made for F.S. Kinney and later for American Tobacco) •Leading Brand in Southeast: Piedmont, an all-Bright leaf brand. •Leading Brand in New Orleans: Home Run, (5 cents for 20) an all-Burley leaf brand.
• 1911: Tobacco -growing is allowed in England for the first time for more than 250 years.
• 1911-05-29: "Trustbusters" break up American Tobacco Co. US Supreme Court dissolves Duke's trust as a monopoly and in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890). The major companies to emerge are: American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company (Durham, NC), Lorillard and BAT. RJ Reynolds says, "Now watch me give Buck Duke hell."
• 1911: Dr. Charles Pease states position of the NonSmokers' Protective League of America.
• 1912: BUSINESS: Newly freed Liggett & Myers introduces "Chesterfield" brand cigarettes, with the slogan: They do satisfy.
• 1912: BUSINESS: George Whelan puts his United Cigar Stores company under a holding company, Tobacco Products Corporation, and starts buying small tobacco independents.
• 1912: USA: Reprint of report of the perfection of a nicotine oil spray. This makes it easier to apply the nicotine extract as an insecticde to plants. (LB)
• 1912: USA: The members of the Non-Smokers' Protective League received editorial ridicule in various newspapers. One newspaper states, "Smoking may be offensive to some people, but ecourages peace and morality". Pipes and cigars are easily defended, but cigarettes may be a problem. (LB)
• 1912: HEALTH: First strong connection made between lung cancer and smoking. Dr. I. Adler is the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking in a monograph.
• 1912: USA: Article on substitutes for tobacco, such as ground coffee, coffee bean, hemp, leaves of the tomato or potato or holly or camphor, or "the egg plant, and the colt's foot". (LB)
• 1912: USA: Article titled "How some men stop smoking"; in which they never stop for more than a few hours. The question is raised, "How can we break ourselves of it? -- not the tobacco, but the thought that we ought to stop it?" (LB)
• 1912: SINKING OF THE TITANIC Men in tuxedos are observed smoking cigarettes as they await their fate. (RK)
• 1913: American Society for the Control of Cancer is formed to inform the public about the disease. It will later become the American Cancer Society.(RK)
• 1913: BUSINESS: Birth of the "modern" cigarette: RJ Reynolds introduces Camel
• 1913-14: ADVERTISING: Prince Albert tobacco uses Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians in its ads.
• 1914: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate is 0.6 per 100,000 (US Census Bureau); 371 cases reported in the US. (RK).
• 1914: OPINION: Thomas Edison writes to Henry Ford that the health danger of cigarettes actually lies in "the burning paper wrapper" which emits acrolein. Acrolein has an irreversible "violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. . . I employ no person who smokes."
• 1915: BUSINESS: Liggett & Myers reconstitutes Chesterfield in the Camel mode; shortens slogan to: They Satisfy.
• 1915: BUSINESS: Thorne Bros. sell majority stake in Montgomery Ward to tobacco interests.

• 1915: POETRY:
Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.
It satisfies no normal need. I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean.
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.
I like it.
--Graham Lee Hemminger,
Penn State Froth, Tobacco

• c. 1915: OPINION: Release of poster with quote from biologist Davis Starr Jordan, "The boy who smokes cigarettes need not be anxious about his future, he has none" (LB)
• 1916: Henry Ford publishes anti-cigarette pamphlet titled "The Case against the Little White Slaver". (LB)
• 1916: BUSINESS: To compete with the phenomenal success of RJR's Camel, American introduces Lucky Strike, the name revived from an 1871 pipe tobacco brand that referenced the Gold Rush days. On the package, the motto: "It's Toasted!" (like all other cigarettes.)
• 1917: BUSINESS: American Tobacco unleashes an ad campaign for Lucky Strike aimed at women: "Avoid that future shadow," warns one ad, comparing ladies' jowls.
• 1917-18: WORLD WAR I Cigarette rations determined by market share, a great boost to Camel, which had over a third of the domestic market.

•Virtually an entire generation return from the war addicted to cigarettes.

• Turkish leaf is unavailable; American tobacco farmers get up to 70 cents/pound.
• Those opposed to sending cigarettes to the doughboys are accused of being traitors. According to General John J. Pershing.


•You ask me what we need to win this war. I answer tobacco as much as bullets.
•Tobacco is as indispensable as the daily ration; we must have thousands of tons without delay.

• 1918: War Department buys the entire output of Bull Durham tobacco. Bull Durham advertises, "When our boys light up, the Huns will light out."

• 1918: Frederick J. Pack publishes his "Tobaco and Human Efficiency," the most comprehensive compilation of anti-cigarette opinion to date. (RK)
• 1919: HEALTH: Washington University medical student Alton Ochsner is summoned to observe lung cancer surgery--something, he is told, he may never see again. He doesn't see another case for 17 years. Then he sees 8 in six months--all smokers who had picked up the habit in WW I.
• 1919: Richard Joshua (R.J.) Reynolds, 68, dies.
• 1919: The 18th Admendment ratified by states. (LB)
• 1919: Evangelist Billy Sunday declares "Prohibition is won; now for tobacco". The success of alcohol prohibition suggusted to some the possibility of tobacco prohibition (LB)
• 1919: Lucy Payne Gaston's tactics are attracting lawsuits; she is asked to resign from Anti-Cigarettel League of the World.
• 1919: BUSINESS: George Whelan Tobacco Products picks up tiny Philip Morris & Company, Ltd. Inc, including PM's brands Cambridge, Oxford Blues, English Ovals, Players, and Marlboro
• 1919: BUSINESS: Manufactured cigarettes surpass smoking tobacco in poundage of tobacco consumed. (RK)
• 1919: BUSINESS: ADVERTINSING: Lorillard unsuccessfully targets women with its Helmar and Murad brands. (RK)
• 1920-06-11: Republican party leaders, meeting in the "smoke-filled room" (Suite 408-10 of Chicago's Blackstone Hotel) engineered the presidential nomination of Warren G. Harding.
• 1921: BUSINESS: RJR spends $8 million in advertising, mostly on Camel; inaugurates the "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel" slogan. (RK)
• 1921: Iowa becomes first state to add its own cigarette tax (2 cents a pack) onto federal excise levy (6 cents).(RK)
• 1922: BUSINESS: RJR takes Industry leadership. from American for first time.(RK)
• 1922: BUSINESS: Manufactured cigarettes surpass plug in poundage of tobacco consumed to become US's highest grossing tobacco product. (RK)
• 1922: OPINION: "Is There a Cigarette War Coming?" in Atlantic magazine says, "scientific truth" has found "that the claims of those who inveigh aginst tobacco are wholy without foundation has been proved time and again by famous chemists, physicians, toxicologists, physiologists, and experts of every nation and clime." (RK)
• 1922: Lucy Payne Gaston runs for President of the U.S. against "cigarette face" Warren G. Harding, whom she asks to quit smoking. Within two years they both will be dead, he of a stroke mid-term, she of throat cancer. (There is no record of her ever having smoked.)
• 1923: BUSINESS: Camel has 45% of the US market.
• 1923: ARTS: "Confessions of Zeno" by Italo Svevo
• 1923: BUSINESS: Camel has over 40% of the US market. • 1924: Lucy Payne Gaston dies of throat cancer.
• 1924: STATISTICS: 73 billion cigarettes sold in US
• 1924: BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Marlboro, a women's cigarette that is "Mild as May"
• 1924: Durham, NC: James B. Duke creates Duke University.Duke gives an endowment to Trinity College. Under provisions of the fund, Trinity becomes Duke University
• 1925: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate is 1.7 per 100,000 (US Census Bureau)(RK)
• 1925: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' Marlboro, "Mild as May," targets "decent, respectable" women. "Has smoking any more to do with a woman's morals than has the color of her hair?" A 1927 ad reads, "Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, and repose in so many handbags."
• 1925: BUSINESS: Helen Hayes, Al Jolson and Amelia Earhart endorse Luckies
• 1925: BUSINESS: Both Percival Hill and Buck Duke die by end of the year; Duke was 69. George Washington Hill becomes President of American Tobacco Co. Becomes known for creating the slogans, "Reach for a Lucky" and "With men who know tobacco best, it's Luckies two to one"
• 1925: SOCIETY: Women's college Bryn Mawr lifts its ban on smoking.
• 1925: OPINION: "American Mercury" magazine: "A dispassionate review of the [scientific] findings compels the conclusion that the cigarette is tobacco in its mildest form, and that tobacco, used moderately by people in normal health, does not appreciably impair either the mental efficiency or the physical condition." (RK)
• 1926: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Old Gold cigarettes with expensive campaigns. John Held Flappers, Petty girls, comic-strip style illustrations and "Not a Cough in a Carload" helped the brand capture 7% of the market by 1930.
• 1926: BUSINESS: Lloyd (Spud) Hughes' menthol Spud Brand and recipe sold to Axton-Fisher Tobacco Co., which markets it nationally.
• 1926: BUSINESS: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield targets women for second-hand smoke in "Blow some my way" ad.
• 1927: LEGISLATION: Kansas is the last state to drop its ban on cigarette sales.
• 1927: BUSINESS: British American Tobacco (BATCo) acquires Brown & Williamson, and introduces the 15-cent-pack Raleigh. Raleigh soon reintroduces the concept of coupons for merchandise.
• 1927: ADVERTISING: Luckies target women A sensation is created when George Washington Hill aims Lucky Strike advertising campaign at women for the first time, using testimonials from female movie stars and singers. Soon Lucky Strike has 38% of the American market. Smoking initiation rates among adolescent females triple between 1925-1935.
• 1928: HEALTH: Lombard & Doering examine 217 Mass. cancer victims, comparing age, gender, economic status, diet, smoking and drinking. Their New England Journal of Medicine report finds overall cancer rates only slightly less for nonsmokers, but finds 34 of 35 site-specific (lung, lips, cheek, jaw) cancer sufferers are heavy smokers.(RK).
• 1929: HEALTH: Statistician Frederick Hoffman in the "American Review of Tuberculosis" finds "There is no definite evidence that smoking habits are a direct contributory cause toward malignant growths in the lungs."(RK).
• 1929-Spring: ADVERTISING: Edward Bernays mounts a "freedom march" of smoking debutantes/fashion models who walk down Fifth Avenue during the Easter parade dressed as Statues of Liberty and holding aloft their cigarettes as "torches of freedom."
• 1929: BUSINESS: Whelan's Tobacco Products Corporation crashes shortly before the market; Philip Morris is picked up by Rube Ellis, who calls in Leonard McKitterick to help run it. (RK)
• 1929: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys a factory in Richmond, Virginia, and finally begins manufacturing its own cigarettes.

• 1930: BRAND CONSUMPTION:
RANK BRAND BILLIONS SOLD

1. Lucky Strike Regulars 43.2 billion
2. Camel 35.3 billion
3. Chesterfield Regulars 26.4 billion
4. Old Gold Regulars 8.5 billion
5. Raleigh 85s 2 billion

• 1930: HEALTH: 2,357 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. (RK) The lung cancer death rate in white males is 3.8 per 100,000.
• 1930: RESEARCH: Researchers in Cologne, Germany, made a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking.
• 1930: TAXES: Federal tax revenues from tobacco products are over $500 million, 80% from cigarettes.
• 1930: BUSINESS: The successors of the Tobacco Trust, led by RJ Reynolds, hike cigarette prices (at the beginning of the Depression), leaving a perfect opening for Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and other small manufacturers to counter with low-priced brands.
• 1931-06: Cigarette Price Wars begin. Cigs sold for 14 cents a pack, 2-for-27 cents in the depths of the depression. Even with cheap leaf prices and manufacturing costs, and with "Luckies" advancing, RJReynolds President S. Clay Williams ups "Camel" prices a penny a pack. Others follow suit. The major TCs are seen as greedy opportunists. Dime-a-pack discount cigs eat into the majors' market share, taking as much as 20% of the market in 1932; PM releases "Paul Jones" discount brand. In 1933, TCs lower prices. Discounts maintain 11% of the market for the rest of the 30s (RK)
• 1931: Parliament features the first commercial filter tip: a wad of cotton, soaked in caustic soda.
• 1932: BUSINESS: Zippo lighter invented by George G. Blaisdell
• 1933: LEGISLATION: The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 institutes price supports, saves tobacco farmers from ruin.
• 1933: BUSINESS: B&W introduce a menthol cigarette, Kool, to compete with Axton-Fisher's Spud, the only other mentholated brand.
• 1933: BUSINESS: Philip Morris resuscitates and revitalizes its Philip Morris as a tony, but only premium-priced ("Now only 15 cents") "English Blend" brand.
• 1933: ADVERTISING: Page boy Johnny Roventini is discovered in the New Yorker hotel and soon becomes the world's first living trademark, his distinctive voice making the famous, "Call for Philip Morris."
• 1933: ADVERTISING: Chesterfield begins running ads in the New York State Journal of Medicine, with claims like, "Just as pure as the water you drink . . . and practically untouched by human hands."
• 1934: LEGISLATION: Garrison Act is passed outlawing marijuana and other drugs; tobacco is not considered.
• 1936: BUSINESS: B&W introduces Viceroy, the first serious brand to feature a filter of cellulose acetate. (RK)
• 1936: BUSINESS Viceroy intorduces a cellulose filter that it claimed removed half the particles in smoke.
• 1936: BUSINESS: RJR discontinues Red Kamel brand
• 1937: Federal Government establishes the National Cancer Institute at Bethesday, MD (RK)
• 1937: BUSINESS: 'Printers Ink' reports that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and Ligett & Myers Tobacco Co. each spent at least two million dollars on advertising in the first half of 1937. (LB)
• 1937: BUSINESS: By the end of the year, Camels are ouselling Luckies and Chesterfield by about 40%. (RK)
• 1938: LEGISLATION: Agricultural Adjustment Act is passed again, this time authorizing marketing quotas.
• 1938: RESEARCH: Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reports that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers.
• 1938: MEDIA: Consumer Reports rates 36 cigarette brands.

•CR notes that Philip Morris lays "great stress in their advertising upon their substitution of glycol for glycerine. The aura of science surrounding their 'proofs' that this makes a less irritating smoke, does not convince many toxicologists that they were valid. Of the many irritating combustion products in tobacco smoke, the modification of one has probably little more than a psychological ffect in reducing irritation felt by the smoker." •In blindfold tests, finds little to distinguish brands •Knocks "the obvious bias of cigarette manufacturers, as well as of the 'scientists' whm they directly or indirectly subsidize." •Rates nicotine content, finding:
•Chesterfield: 2.3 mg nicotine
•Marlboro: 2.3 mg nicotine
•Philip Morris: 2.2 mg nicotine
•Old Gold: 2.0 mg nicotine
•Camel: 1.9 mg nicotine
•Lucky Strike: 1.4 mg nicotine(RK)

• 1939: HEALTH: "Tobacco Misuse and Lung Carcinoma" by Franz Hermann Muller of the University of Cologne's Pathological Institute finds extremely strong dose relationship between smoking and lung cancer.
• 1939: BUSINESS: Tobacco companies are found price-fixing.
• 1939: BUSINESS: ATC introduces "king size" Pall Mall. With Pall Mall and Lucky Strike, American will rule the 40s.
• 1939: Fortune magazine finds 53% of adult American males smoke; 66% of males under 40 smoke.
• 1939: GERMANY: Hermann Goring issues a decree forbidding the military to smoke on the streets, on marches, and on brief off duty periods.
• 1939-1945: WORLD WAR II As part of the war effort, Roosevelt makes tobacco a protected crop. General Douglas McArthur makes the corncob pipe his trademark by posing with it on dramatic occasions such as his wading ashore during the invasion and reconquest of the Philippines. Cigarettes are included in GI's C-Rations. Tobacco companies send millions of free cigs to GI's, mostly the popular brands; the home front had to make do with off-brands like Rameses or Pacayunes. Tobacco consumption is so fierce a shortage develops. By the end of the war, cigarette sales are at an all-time high.
• 1940: HEALTH: 7,121 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. (RK)
• 1940: CONSUMPTION: Adult Americans smoke 2,558 cigarettes per capita a year, nearly twice the consumption of 1930.
• 1940: MEDIA: As most tobacco-ad-laden newspapers refused to report the growing evidence of tobacco's hazards, muckraking pioneer George Seldes starts his own newsletter in which he covered tobacco. "For 10 years, we pounded on tobacco as one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America," he told R. Holhut, editor of The George Seldes Reader.

• 1940: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE BY COMPANY:

•1. RJR
•2. ATC
•3. Liggett & Myers
•4. Brown & Williamson
•5. Philip Morris (7%)

• 1940: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE BY BRAND:

•1. Camel (RJR) (24%)
•2. Lucky Strike (ATC) (22.6%)
•3. Chesterfield (18%)
•-- Combined 10 cent brands (12%)
•4. Raleigh (B&W) (5.1%)
•5. Old Gold (3%)
•5. Pall Mall (PM) (2%)

• 1941: MEDIA: Reader's Digest publishes "Nicotine Knockout"
• 1941: HEALTH: Dr. Michael DeBakey, in an article, cites a correlation between the increased sale of tobacco and the increasing prevalence of lung cancer.
• 1942: BUSINESS: Luckies uses the dye shortage to change its package from green to white. It's slogan: "Lucky Strike green has gone to war." Ad campaign coincides with US invasion of North Africa. Sales increase 38%.
• 1942: HEALTH: British researcher L.M. Johnston successfully substituted nicotine injections for smoking Johnston discusses aspects of addiction including tolerance, craving and withdrawal symptoms. He concludes: Clearly the essence of tobacco smoking is the tobacco and not the smoking. Satisfaction can be obtained from chewing it, from snuff taking, and from the administration of nicotine. The experiment is reported in the British medical journal Lancet.
• 1942: LITIGATION: 17-year-old Rose Cipollone begins smoking Chesterfields.
• 1942: ARTS: FILM: Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart, and Now Voyager with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid are released.
• 1942: GERMANY: The Federation of German Women launch a campaign against tobacco and alcohol abuse; restaurants and cafes are forbidden to sell cigarettes to women customers.
• 1942: ADVERTISING: Brown and Williamson claims that Kools would keep the head clear and/or give extra protection against colds.
• 1943: ADVERTISING: Philip Morris places an ad in the National Medical Journal which reads: "'Don't smoke' is advice hard for patients to swallow. May we suggest instead 'Smoking Philip Morris?' Tests showed three out of every four cases of smokers' cough cleared on changing to Philip Morris. Why not observe the results for yourself?"
• 1943-07: GERMANY: LEGISLATION: a law is passed forbidding tobacco use in public places by anyone under 18 years of age.
• 1945: GERMANY: Cigarettes are the unofficial currency. Value: 50 cents each
• 1946: A letter from a Lorillard chemist to its manufacturing committee states: "Certain scientists and medical authorities have claimed for many years that the use of tobacco contributes to cancer development in susceptible people. Just enough evidence has been presented to justify the possibility of such a presumption." (Maryland "Medicaid" Lawsuit 5/1/96)
• 1947: CULTURE: "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," Written by Merle Travis for Tex Williams, is national hit. The lyric "Puff, Puff, Puff, And if you smoke yourself to death" is later used in Cipollone case as defense that Rose Cipollone knew cigarettes were dangerous.
• 1947: LITIGATION: Grady Carter begins smoking Lucky Strikes
• 1948: HEALTH: The Journal of the American Medical Association argues, "more can be said in behalf of smoking as a form of escape from tension than against it . . . there does not seem to be any preponderance of evidence that would indicate the abolition of the use of tobacco as a substance contrary to the public health."
• 1948: HEALTH: Lung cancer has grown 5 times faster than other cancers since 1938; behind stomach cancer, it is now the most common form of the disease.
• 1949: LEGISLATION: Agricultural Adjustment Act is passed again, this time authorizing price supports.
• 1949: STATISTICS: 44-47% of all adult Americans smoke; over 50% of men, and about 33% of women.

Twentieth Century--The Rise of the Cigarette 1950 + : The Battle is Joined

The Fifties
When the decade begins, 2% of cigarettes are filter tip; by 1960, 50% of cigarettes are filter tips.

• 1950: BRAND CONSUMPTION:
RANK BRAND BILLIONS SOLD
1. Camel 98.2 billion
2. Lucky Strike Regulars 82.5 billion
3. Chesterfield Regulars 66.1 billion
4. Commander 39.9 billion
5. Old Gold Regulars 19.5 billion


• 1950: MEDIA: TV pop-music series "Your Hit Parade" starts its 7-year-run; one of the first hits on TV; it is sponsored by Lucky Strike.
• 1950: ADVERTISING: Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" wins TV Guide's commercial of the year. (Cheerleaders sing: "Yes, Luckies get our loudest cheers on campus and on dates. With college gals and college guys a Lucky really rates.")
• 1950: STATISTICS: American cigarette consumption is 10 cigarettes per capita, which equals over a pack a day for smokers.
• 1950: HEALTH: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer.
•In the May 27, 1950 issue of JAMA, Morton Levin publishes first major study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer. •In the same issue, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases," by Ernst L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham of the United States, found that 96.5% of lung cancer patients interviewed were moderate heavy-to-chain-smokers. •In the Sept. 30, 1950 British Medical Journal, a study by Richard Doll and Bradford Hill found that heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to contract lung cancer.
• 1951: MEDIA: TV series "I Love Lucy" begins its run. It is the top-rated show for four of its first six full seasons. It is sponsored by Philip Morris.
• 1951: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tip brand, emphasizing taste.
• 1952: USA: Federal Trade Commission slaps Philip Morris on wrist concerning claims about Di-Gl reducing irritation. (LB)
• 1952: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Kent cigarettes, with the "Micronite" filter. At the press conference at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Lorillard boasted that the "Micronite" filter offered "the greatest health protection in cigarette history." Its secret: asbestos.
• 1952: BUSINESS: Hollingsworth & Vose gets 100% indemnity agreement from Lorillard on filters.
• 1952: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers widely publicizes the results of tests run by Arthur D. Little, Inc. showing that "smoking Chesterfields would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs." The ads run, among other places on the nationally popular Arthur Godfiey radio and television show.
• 1952: READER'S DIGEST republishes Roy Norr's "Cancer by the Carton" article from the "Norr Newsletter about Smoking and Health" (NYC)
• 1953: Dr. Ernst L. Wynder's landmark report finds that painting cigarette tar on the backs of mice creates tumors--the first definitive biological link between smoking and cancer.
• 1953-12-15: Tobacco executives meet (for first time since price-fixing scandal of 1939) to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes. Participants included John Hill of Hill & Knowlton, and the following tobacco company presidents: Paul D. Hahn (ATC), O. Parker McComas (PM), Joseph F. Cullman (B&H), J. Whitney Peterson, U.S. Tobacco Co.
• 1954: AGRICULTURE: Hurricaine Hazel devastates tobacco-growing areas of North Carolina.
• 1954: LITIGATION: First tobacco liability suit, Pritchard vs. Liggett & Myers (dropped by plaintiff 12 years later).
• 1954: LITIGATION: Eva Cooper sues R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for her husband's death from lung cancer. He had smoked Camels. The court rules there was no evidence smoking caused his cancer.
• 1954: LITIGATION: Philip Morris hires David R. Hardy to defend the company against a lawsuit brought by a Missouri smoker who had lost his larynx to cancer. This case was the beginning of PM's association with Shook, Hardy & Bacon. The case was won in 1962; the jury deliberated one hour.
• 1954-01-04: BUSINESS: Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) announced in a nationwide 2-page ad, A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers The ads were placed in 448 newspapers across the nation, reaching a circulation of 43,245,000 in 258 cities. TIRC's first scientific director noted cancer scientist Dr. Clarence Cook Little, former head of the National Cancer Institute (soon to become the American Cancer Society). Little's life work lay in the genetic origins of cancer; he tended to disregard environmental factors.
• 1954-04: BUSINESS: TIRC releases A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy, a booklet quoting 36 scientists questioning smoking's link to health problems. (The booklet) was sent to 176,800 doctors, general practitioners and specialists . . . (plus) deans of medical and dental colleges . . . a press distribution of 15,000 . . . 114 key publishers and media heads . . . . days in advance, key press, network, wire services and columnist contacts were alerted by phone and in person . . . and . . . hand-delivered (with) special placement to media in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. The story was carried by hundreds of papers and radio stations throughout the country . . . . staff-written stories (were) developed with the help of Hill & Knowlton, Inc. field offices. (Hill & Knowlton memo, May 3, 1954.)
• 1954: BUSINESS: RJR intorduces its Winston filter tips brand, emphasizing taste, not health.
• 1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys Benson & Hedges, and in the bargain gets its president, Joseph Cullman III
• 1954: ADVERTISING: Life Magazine runs ads for L&M featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell testimonials for the brand's new "miracle product," the "alpha cellulose" filter that is "just what the doctor ordered." These ads will figure prominently in the Cipollone trial 30 years later.
• 1954: ADVERTISING: Marlboro Cowboy created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett. "Delivers the Goods on Flavor" ran the slogan in newspaper ads. Design of the campaign credited to John Landry of PM. At the time Marlboro had one quarter of 1% of the American market.
• 1955: Regulation: FTC publishes rules prohibiting references to the "throat, larynx, lungs, nose, or other parts of the body" or to "digestion, energy, nerves, or doctors."
• 1955: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco is still #1 in US, with 33% of the market. Philip Morris is sixth.
• 1955: TV: CBS' "See It Now" airs first TV show linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer and other diseases. (For the first time on TV, Edward R. Murrow is not seen smoking. He had not quit; he felt it was "too late" to stop. Murrow died of lung cancer in 1965.)
• 1955: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 30, switches from Chesterfield to L&Ms.)
• 1956: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate among white males is 31.0 in 100,000, resulting in 29,000 deaths.
• 1956: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard discontinues use of "Micronite" filter in its Kent cigarettes.
• 1956: BUSINESS: RJR's Salem, the first filter-tipped menthol cigarette is introduced
• 1957-07-12: Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney issues "Joint Report of Study Group on Smoking and Health," which stating that, "prolonged cigarette smoking was a causative factor in the etiology of lung cancer," the first time the Public Health Service had taken a position on the subject.
• 1957: MEDIA: Readers Digest article links smoking with lung cancer.
• 1957: MEDIA: Ad agency BBDO drops Readers Digest over tobacco article.

Barry McCarthy, onetime executive at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, said that in the 1950's, probably 1957, he was the account supervisor on the Reader's Digest business when the Digest ran one of its many anti-cigarette articles. American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike, was a major client at the same time. The article enraged J. T. Ross, American's public relations man, and he got the client to insist that B.B.D.O. decide between the magazine and the tobacco company. Since the latter billed $30 million or so, which was huge by 1950's standards, and the Digest a couple of million, the agency relucantly dropped the Digest--NYT, April 7, 1988; Advertising; RJR Flap Not the First In Cigarette Ad History By Philip H. Dougherty
• 1957: REGULATION: Pope Pius Xii suggests that the Jesuit order give up smoking.

There were only 33,000 jesuits in the world at that point, so the industry was not worried about losing this handful of smokers. They feared that the Pope or other church leaders might ask, as a magazine headline once put it, "When are Cigs a Sin?"--E. Whelan, "A Smoking Gun"

• 1957: REGULATION: Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is amended. The manufacturer must bear the burden of demonstrating the product is safe and effective. Products previously on the market, those "generally recognized among experts as safe," or "natural constituents of food" are exempt.
• 1957-03-01: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: At the cooperative British tobacco industry Tobacco Research Council laboratory at Harrogate, an internal report by Batco refers to cancer by the code name, zephyr: "As a result of several statistical surveys, the idea has arisen that there is a causal relation between zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking."
• 1957: HEALTH: The British Medical Research Council issues "Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of Lung," which states that "... a major part of the increase [in lung cancer] is associated with tobacco smoking, particularly in the form of cigarettes" and that "the relationship is one of direct cause and effect."
• 1958: BUSINESS SECRETS: Senior PM scientist J.E. Lincoln writes to Ross Millhiser, then-Philip Morris vice president and later vice chairman: "This compound [benzopyrene] must be removed from Marlboro and Parliament or sharply reduced. We do this not because we think it is harmful but simply because those who are in a better position to know than ourselves suspect it may be harmful." Four months later he wrote "that law and morality coincided . . . Act on the doctrine of uncertainty and get the benzpyrene (sic), etc., out of the cigarettes." Lincoln later became PM vice president of research. (AP)
• 1959-11: HEALTH: Dr Burney publishes an article in JAMA confirming the position of the Public Health Service on cigarettes' causitive relation to lung cancer.

The Sixties
By now, the distribution of free cigarettes at annual medical and public health meetings has stopped.
• 1961:06-01: POLITICS: The presidents of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association submit a joint letter to President Kennedy, pointing out the increasing evidence of the health hazards of smoking and urging the President to establish a commission.
• 1962: UK: First Report of the British Royal College of Physicians of London: Smoking and Health.
• 1962: STATISTICS: Per-capita consumption of cigarettes stands at 12 per day among adult Americans
• 1963:: LITIGATION: 7 tobacco liability suits are filed
• 1963:: LITIGATION: KC, MO. Local, 20-lawyer firm, Shook Hardy Bacon, wins John Ross case (filed in 1954) for Philip Morris. SHB goes on to become virtually synonymous with tobacco litigation.
• 1963:: BUSINESS: PM dispenses with tattooed sailors, et. al., and settles on the cowboy as the sole avatar of the Marlboro Man
• 1963-07-17: LITIGATION: B&W's General Counsel Addison Yeaman writes in a memo, "Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms." Yeaman was concerned about the upcoming Surgeon General's report, and was writing of "the so-called 'beneficial effects of nicotine': 1) enhancing effect on the pituitary-adrenal response to stress; 2) regulation of body weight."
• 1963:: INDONESIA: PT Hanjaya Mandala (HM) Sampoerna is established
• 1964-01-11: 1st Surgeon General's Report: Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service
• 1964:: LITIGATION: 17 tobacco liability suits are filed
• 1964: Tobacco industry writer suggests tobacco control advocates have psychiatric certification that they are not sufering from pyrophobia and suppressed fear of the 'big fire' or atom bomb
• 1964: BUSINESS: Marlboro Country ad campaign is launched. "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country." Marlboro sales begin growing at 10% a year.
• 1964-02-07: The American Medical Assn accepts a $10 million grant for tobacco research from six cigaret companies.
• 1964-02-28: The American Medical Assn supports the tobacco industry's objection to labeling cigarets as a health hazard, writes in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, "More than 90 million persons in the United States use tobacco in some form, and, of these 72 million use cigarets... the economic lives of tobacco growers, processors, and merchants are entwined in the industry; and local, state, and the federal governments are recipients of and dependent upon many millions of dollars of tax revenue."
• 1964-03-19: Rep. Frank Thompson Jr. (D-NJ) charges that the American Medical Assn has entered into a deal with tobacco-state congressmen to gain their votes against Medicare.
• 1964-09-10 to 10-15: BUSINESS: Sir Philip Rogers and Geoffrey Todd, senior officials of the British Research Council arrive in US on month-long fact-finding tour. Their reports will not be seen by the public until 10/2/96.
• 1965: RESEARCH: TIRC sets up secretive, lawyer-directed Special Projects division.
• 1965: RESEARCH:A study by the TIRC finds that said pregnant women who smoke have smaller babies and are more likely to give birth prematurely.
• 1965: RESEARCH: B&W's "Project Janus" begins issuing scientific reports on the health effects of smoking, about 30 substantial reports by 1978.
• 1965-08-01: UK: TV cigarette ads are taken off the air
• 1965: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American's share of the market sank from 35% in 1965 to 17.8% in 1971. By 1978 they were down to 12%.
• 1965: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the Surgeon General's Warnings on cigarette packs.
• 1966: Congress votes to send 600 million cigarettes to flood disaster victims in India
• 1966-01-01: Health warnings on cigarette packs begin
• 1966: BUSINESS: RJR's filter-tip Winston becomes top-selling cigarette in the US The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review
• 1967: 2nd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review
• 1967: William H. Stewart's Surgeon General's Report concludes that smoking is the principal cause of lung cancer; finds evidence linking smoking to heart disease
• 1967: Federal Trade Commission releases the first tar and nicotine report.
• 1967: FCC applies TV Fairness Doctrine to cigarette ads
• 1968: 3rd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1968 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review
• 1968. BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Virginia Slims brand, aimed at women
• 1968. LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 43, switches from L&M to Virginia Slims and Parliaments.
• 1968. BUSINESS: American Tobacco begins buying into Britain's Gallaher's
• 1968. BUSINESS: 'Bravo', the attempt to create a non-tobacco based (lettuce based) cigarette, fails (World Tobacco, 1968, p1) (LB)
• 1968. Motor Sports: Colin Chapman's Team Lotus becomes the first Formula One team to accept tobacco sponsorship.
• 1969: SUPREME COURT: U.S. Supreme Court applies the Fairness Doctrine to cigarettes, giving tobacco control groups "equal time" on the air to reply to tobacco commercials
• 1969: 4th Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1969 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review Confirms link between maternal smoking and low birth weight
• 1969: REGULATION: FCC issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette ads on TV and radio. Discussions, both in Congress and in private between legislators and tobacco companies, result in cigarette advertisers agreeing to stop advertising on the air in return for a delay in controls on the sale of cigarettes.
• 1969: BUSINESS: Philip Morris gains a controlling interest in the Miller Brewing Company (nee 1855), then only the 7th largest brewery.
• 1969. BUSINESS: American Tobacco drops "tobacco" from parent; American Brands, Inc. established with headquarters in Old Greenwich, CT, as parent company of American Tobacco Co.
• 1969. BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco drops "tobacco."
• 1969. MOTOR SPORTS: WINSTON CUP racing is born when NASCAR driver Junion Johnson suggests to RJR they sponsor not just a car, but the whole show.

The Seventies to the Present
Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised product in America Magazines and newspapers stop covering the issue in depth.

• 1970: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 19%.
• 1970: BRAND CONSUMPTION:
RANK BRAND BILLIONS SOLD
1. Winston 81.86 billion
2. Pall Mall 57.96 billion
3. Marlboro 51.37 billion
4. Salem 44.1 billion
5. Kool 40.14 billion


• 1970: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. becomes a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.
• 1970-03: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: "The Mouse House Massacre" A major research project on smoking and emphysema is dismantled. Former scientist Joseph E. Bumgarner told in a deposition how he and 25 other members of Reynolds' biological research division in Winston-Salem, N.C., were abruptly ordered to surrender their notebooks to the company's legal department and then were fired.
• 1970: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Roper Researchers tell Philip Morris, True answers on smoking habits might be difficult to elicit in the presence of parents. . . We recommend interviewing young people at summer recreation centers (at beaches, public pools, lakes, etc.)
• 1970 (approx): INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Philip Morris purchases the Institut fur Industrielle und Biologische Forschung GmbH, or INBIFO, a biological research facility in Cologne, Germany.
• 1970-04-01: LEGISLATION: Stronger mandatory cigarette label is required. Label is changed to read, "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health."
• 1970-12: RESEARCH: RJR closes down its "mouse house" facility in Winston-Salem, NC.
• 1971: 5TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1971: BUSINESS: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco becomes R.J. Reynolds Industries
• 1971-01-02: REGULATION: TV: Cigarette ads are taken off TV and radio as Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 takes effect. Broadcast industry loses c. $220 Million in ads (Ad Age, "History of TV Advertising")
• 1971: United Airlines introduces seperate sections for smokers and nonsmokers
• 1971: SPORTS: RJR sponsorship of NASCAR's Winston Cup Series begins.
• 1971: SPORTS: Virginia Slims Tennis begins.
• 1971-04: Cigarette manufacturers agree to put health warnings on advertisements. This agreement is later made into law.
• 1971: UK: Second British Royal College of Physicians of London Report: Smoking and Health Now Refers to cigarette death toll as "this present holocaust."
• 1971: UK: Cigarette Smoking and Health--Report by an Interdepartmental Group of Officials finds that, all things considered, tobacco use brings in more money than it costs in health and disability. Report is unknown to the public until the Guardian publishes an account on May 6, 1980.
• 1972: 6TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1972: HEALTH: ETS: Surgeon General's Report addresses first study of "public exposure to air pollution from tobacco smoke"
• 1972: LEGISLATION: Tobacco advertisements are required to carry health warnings
• 1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro becomes the best-selling cigarette in the world
• 1972: BUSINESS: Marlboro Lights introduced
• 1972-05: BUSINESS: Tobacco Institute memorandum from Fred Panzer (VP) to TI

President Horace R. Kornegay, Panzer describes the industry's strategy for defending itself in litigation, politics, and public opinion as "brilliantly conceived and executed over the years" in order to "cast doubt about the health charge" by using "variations on the theme that, `the case is not proved.'" The memorandum urges more intensive lobbying, and advocates public relations efforts to provide tobacco industry sympathizers with evidence "that smoking may not be the causal factor [in disease]." Until now, the industry has supplied symmpathizers with "too little in the way of ready-made credible alternatives."

• 1972-05:24: BUSINESS: SECRETS:

PM scientist Al Udow writes memo stating that rival brand Kool had the highest nicotine "delivery" of any king-size on the market. "This ties in with the information we have from focus group sessions and other sources that suggest that Kool is considered to be good for 'after marijuana' to maintain the 'high' or for mixing with marijuana, or 'instead." He wrote that Kool's high nicotine is a reason for its success, and that "we should pursue this thought in developing a menthol entry. . . The lessened taste resulting from the lowered tar can be masked by high menthol or other flavors. Many menthol smokers say they are not looking for high tobacco taste anyway. . . A widely held theory holds that most people smoke for the narcotic effect (relaxing, sedative) that comes from the nicotine. The 'taste comes from the 'tar' (particulate matter) delivery. . . . Although more people talk about 'taste,' it is likely that greater numbers smoke for the narcotic value that comes from the nicotine."
• 1973: 7TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1973 Finds cigar and pipe smokers' health risks to be less than cigarette smokers, but more than nonsmokers.
• 1973: Civil Aeronautics Board requires all airlines to create nonsmoking sections. This is the first federal restriction on smoking in public places.
• 1973: Arizona becomes the first state (in modern times) to pass a comprehensive law restricting smoking in public places.
• 1973: SPORTS: Marlboro Cup horse racing begins.
• 1973: SPORTS: Tennis' "Battle of the Sexes." Billie Jean King, wearing Virginia Slims colors, and Virginia Slims sequins on her chest, defeats Bobby Riggs.
• 1973: SCIENCE: RJR report on success of PM's Marlboro and B&W's Kool brands states, "A cigarette is a system for delivery of nicotine to the smoker in attractive, useful form. At normal smoke pH, at or below 6.0, the smoke nicotine is...slowly absorbed by the smoker. . . As the smoke pH increases above about 6.0, an increasing portion of the total smoke nicotine occurs in free form, which is rapidly absorbed by the smoker and...instantly perceived as a nicotine kick."
• 1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR director of marketing and planning R.A. Blevins Jr writes in a memo that free nicotine, advertising expenditures and cigarette size of Winstons and Marlboros all affected market share "independently and collectively," but that "the variability due to 'free nicotine' was significant and its contribution was over and above that of advertising expenditures and [cigarette size]."
• 1973-07-12: BUSINESS: RJR senior scientist Frank Colby sends Blevins a memo suggesting that the company "develop a new RJR youth-appeal brand based on the concept of going back--at least halfway--to the technological design of the Winston and other filter cigarettes of the 1950s," a cigarette which "delivered more 'enjoyment' or 'kicks' (nicotine)." Colby said that "for public relations reasons it would be impossible to go back all the way to the 1955-type cigarettes."
• 1974: 8TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1974
• 1974-01-07: Monticello, Minnesota decides to go non-smoking for a day, in a "D-Day" organized by Lynn Smith. The event goes statewide in November, and in 1977 goes national--the first Great American Smokeout.
• 1974: SPORTS: UST creates the Copenhagen Skoal Scholarship Awards Program for student athletes (in conjunction with the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Assn.)
• 1974: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 49, switches to True cigarettes.
• 1974: ADVERTISING: Joe Camel is born. Used in Poster for French ad campaign for Camel cigarettes.
• 1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: Harrogate lab in England is closed down.
• 1974: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PM pollsters try to find out why competing brands like Kool were slowing Marlboro's growth among young smokers.
• 1974: CANADA: The Canadian Council on Smoking and Health is formed. Charter members include the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Lung Association. The Non-Smokers' Rights Association is also formed. (NCTH)
• 1974: US Trade Act. The threat of punitive tariffs, as provided under Section 301, will be used to force Asian markets considered to have "unfair" or "discriminatory" trade restrictions to open up to U.S. tobacco companies' products and advertising.
• 1975: 9TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking 1975
• 1975. Military stops distribution of free cigarettes in rations.
• 1975. BUSINESS: American Brands assumes control of Britain's Gallaher's
• 1975: BUSINESS: PM's Marlboro overtakes Winston as the best-selling cigarette in the U.S.
• 1975-08-01: MINNESOTA Clean Indoor Air Act, the nation's first statewide anti-second-hand smoke law goes into effect to protect "the public health and comfort and the environment by prohibiting smoking in public places and at public meetings, except in designated smoking areas." It is the first law to require separation of smokers' and nonsmokers.
• 1976: 10TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Selected Chapters from 1971 through 1975 Reports
• 1976: LITIGATION: Norma Broin, a 20-year-old non-smoking Mormon, gets a job as a flight attendant for American Airlines (Broin vs. Philip Morris, et.al.)
• 1976: SOCIETY: Formation of the Cigarette Pack Collectors Association and first of its conventions. (LB)
• 1976: LITIGATION: Donna Shimp sues New Jersey Bell Telephone for not protecting her from second-hand smoke. Ruling in her favor, the judge said, "if such rules are established for machines, I see no reason why they should not be held in force for humans."
• 1976: TV: Death in the West--The Marlboro Story made by Thames Television
• 1976-07-23: UK: BUSINESS: BAT Industries is formed when Tobacco Securities Trust Company Limited (TST) merges with British-American Tobacco Company Limited (BATCo).
• 1976: SOCIETY: The Tobacco Institute provided funds to the Smithsonian Institute for the creation of a one-tenth scale model of the colonial ship Brilliant. The first cargo carried by the Brilliant was tobacco in 1775. (LB)
• 1977: 1st Great American Smokeout
• 1977: UK: Royal College of Physicians of London third report: "Smoking or Health."
• 1978: 11TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking, 1977-1978
• 1978: A Roper Report prepared for the Tobacco Institute concludes that the nonsmokers' rights movement is "the most dangerous development to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred."
• 1978: BUSINESS: Philip Morris obtains the international cigarette business of the Liggett Group Inc. and also takes on the Seven-Up Company.
• 1978: USA: A tobacco trade journal reports that "cigarette purchases are 2.5 times as great when an in-store display is present compared to when no advertising or display treatment is employed", and that cigarette sales drop when parents shop with their children. (Tobacco International, 22 Dec 1978, p. 33). (LB)
• 1979: 12TH Surgeon General's Report: Smoking and Health: A Report of the Surgeon GeneralDr Julius B. Richmond, first reviews health risks of smokeless tobacco.
• 1979: REGULATION: Minneapolis and St. Paul become the first U.S. cities to ban the distribution of free cigarette samples. (Dan Freeborn, MN Star-Tribune)
• 1979-01: ADVERTISING: Mother Jones magazine publishes "Why Dick Can't Stop Smoking." According to MoJo in 1996, As a professional courtesy, Mother Jones gave tobacco manufacturers advance notice of the cover story so they could pull their ads from the issue. Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and others responded by canceling their entire commitment: several years' worth of cigarette ads. In a show of corporate solidarity, many liquor companies followed suit.
• 1979: ADVERTISING: Tobacco Institute launches ad campaign against nonsmokers'-rights movement.

• 1979: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE:
•Filter cigarettes account for 90% of U.S. cigarette sales
•#4: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 11%. Only half ATC's cigarette volume have filters.

• 1979: BUSINESS: Top 20 Brands Sold:
Brand (Company) Billions of cigarettes (1979)
1. MARLBORO (Philip Morris) 103.6 11.
2. CARLTON (American) 15.0
3. WINSTON (R. J. Reynolds) 81.012.
4. GOLDEN LIGHTS (Lorillard) 13.23.
5. KOOL (Brown & Williamson) 56.7 13.
6. TAREYTON (American) 12.2 4.
7. SALEM (R.J. Reynolds) 53.2 14.
8. VICEROY (Brown & Williamson) 11.7 5.
9. PALL MALL (American) 33.9 15.
10.TRUE (Lorillard) 11.5 6.
11.BENSON & HEDGES (Philip Morris) 27.8 16.
12.RALEIGH (Brown & Williamson) 11.37.
13.CAMEL (R.J. Reynolds) 26.3 17.
14.VIRGINIA SLIMS (Philip Morns) 10.58.
15.MERIT (Philip Morris) 22.4 18.
16.NEWPORT (Lorillard) 9.8 9.
17.VANTAGE (R. J. Reynolds) 20.719.
18.PARLIAMENT (Philip Morris) 7.710.
19.KENT (Lorillard) 19.3 20.
20.L & M (Liggett) 7.5
Source: Business Week December 17,1979.

The Eighties
• 1980: 13TH Surgeon General's ReporT: The Health Consequences of Smoking for Women: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1980: LITIGATION: Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission of New York. US Supreme Court sets guidleines for the regulation of commercial speech:
•1. For an ad to be protected by the First Amendment, the advertsing must be lawful, and not misleading
•2. Given that, for an ad to be banned, the state's interest must be "substantial;"
•3. The ban must "directly advance" the state's interest; and •4. The ban must be no more extensive than necessary to further the state's interest.
• 1981: 14TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking - The Changing Cigarette: A Report of the Surgeon General.
• 1981: CONSUMPTION: Annual consumption peaks at 640 billion cigarettes, 60% of which are low-tar brands.
• 1981: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses a lobe of her right lung to cancer; continues to smoke cigarettes.
• 1981: LITIGATION: CBS Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen accuses Brown & Williamson of engaging in a lurid advertising campaign to get young people to smoke.
• 1980: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco's share of the US market has fallen to 11%.
• 1980: ENTERTAINMENT: Superman II: Lois Lane lights up. In fifty years of comic book appearnces, Lois Lane never smoked. For a reported payment of $42,000, the company purchases 22 exposures of the Marlboro logo in the movie featuring the children's comic book hero, and Lois Lane, strong role model for teenage girls, gets a Marlboro pack on her desk and begins chain smoking Marlboro Lights. At one point in the film, a character is tossed into a van with a large Marlboro sign on its side, and in the climactic scene the superhero battles amid a maze of Marlboro billboards before zooming off in triumph, leaving in his wake a solitary taxi with a Marloro sign on top. The New York State Journal of Medicine published an article titled "Superman and the Marlboro Woman: The Lungs of Lois Lane." Thoughout the 80s, "Superman II" is frequently re-run on TV in prime time.
• 1981: BUSINESS: Hamish Maxwell, 57, becomes CEO of Philip Morris (1981-1991), succeeding George Weissman
• 1981: Insurance companies begin offering discounts for nonsmokers on life insurance premiums
• 1981: Stanton Glantz at UCSF receives a copy of "Death in the West"
• 1981: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: 1981 PM study investigates the link between pricing and smoking levels
• 1982: 15TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking - Cancer: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1982: BUSINESS: Harrods' (department store) name goes on a a cigarette; this is one of the first instances of tobacco companies "renting names" of other companies (See "Harley Davidson" cigarettes) (LB)
• 1982: HEALTH: Surgeon General's Report (Koop) finds possibility that second-hand smoke may cause lung cancer.
• 1982: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone loses her right lung to cancer; continues to sneak cigarettes.
• 1982: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the No Net Cost Tobacco Program Act, requiring the government's Commodity Credit Corporation, which pays for the government tobacco purchases, to recover all the money it spends on the price-support program. Now taxpayers no longer pay for losses incurred by the program, though they still pay about $16 million a year in administrative costs to run it.
• 1983: 16TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Cardiovascualr Disease; A report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of coronary heart disease.
• 1983: LITIGATION: Cipollone suit filed; Rose finally quits smoking.
• 1983: REGULATION: San Francisco passes first strong workplace smoking restrictions, banning smoking in private workplaces.
• 1983-06-06: MEDIA: Newsweek runs a 4 page article, "Showdown on Smoking" on the nonsmokers' rights movement. Issues before & after carried 7-10 pages of cigarette ads. The June 6 issue carried none. Estimated loss of revenue as a result of publishing the article: $1 million. --Larry C. White, "Merchants of Death."
• 1983: BUSINESS: Philip Morris overtakes RJR to become the #1 tobacco co. in the US in sales.
• 1983: USA: BUSINESS: The creative director of a New York advertising agency spoke of working on tobacco advertisements, "We were trying very hard to influence kids who were 14 to start smoking". (Medical J of Australia, 5 March 1983, p.237). (LB)
• 1984: 17TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, A Report of the Surgeon General Cites smoking as a major cause of chronic obstructive lung disease.
• 1984: The Advocacy Institute, which pioneered the use of electronic media for tobacco control advocacy through the creation of the Smoking Control Advocacy Resource (SCARCNet), is founded .
• 1984: CESSATION: FDA approves nicotine gum as a "new drug" and quit-smoking aid
• 1984: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone dies of lung cancer at 58.
• 1984: REGULATION: Tobacco industry is required to turn over a general list of cigarette additives annually to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Smoking and Health. The List is then locked in a safe. Disclosure to any other party is a crime. OSH allowed to study the list, but lacks funds.
• 1984: SPORTS: Champion Diver Greg Louganis almost represents American Cancer Society at Olympics
• 1984-03: MEDIA: The Saturday Evening Post stops accepting tobacco advertising. The Post's publisher is Cory SerVaas, MD.
• 1984-04-15: BUSINESS: RESEARCH: Another "Mouse House Massacre" The Philip Morris labs at which nicotine researchers Victor DeNoble and Paul Mele worked are abruptly shut down.
• 1985: 18TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking - Cancer and Chronic Lung Disease in the Workplace: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1985: HEALTH: Lung cancer surpasses breast cancer as #1 killer of women.
• 1985: Stanford MBA student Joe Tye's 5 year old daughter becomes so delighted with a Marlboro billboard, she begins squealing with delight and says, "Look Daddy, horses!" Tye later founds STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco).
• 1985: LITIGATION: Brown & Williamson sues CBS and Chicago news commentator Walter Jacobsen for libel for his 1981 commentary. B&W wins a $3.05 million verdict--the largest libel award ever paid by a news organization.
• 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys food and coffee giant General Foods (Post's cereal, Jell-O, Maxwell House Coffee for $5.6 billion.
• 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys food and coffee giant General Foods (Post's cereal, Jell-O, Maxwell House Coffee for $5.6 billion.
• 1985: BUSINESS: Philip Morris begins publishing Philip Morris Magazine (1985-1992)
• 1985: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries buys food products company Nabisco Brands for $4.9B; renames itself RJR/Nabisco.. Ex-Standard Brands/Nabisco head Ross Johnson takes control of company.
• 1985: BUSINESS: A tobacco trade journal reports on the job of the tobacco "flavourist" and chemist. One job of the flavourist is to "ensure high satisfaction from an adequate level of nicotine per puff". One job of the chemist is "to ensure adequate levels of nicotine and tar in the smoke". (World Tobacco, March 1987, pp. 97-103).
• 1985-01-17: BUSINESS: B&W lawyer J. Kendrick Wells writes "Re: Document Retention" memo in reference to "removing the deadwood."
• 1985: SOCIETY: Ritz-Carlton Boston hosts a cigar-smoker private dinner party for 20 gentlemen. It soon becomes a regular event in Ritz-Carltons across the country.
• 1986: 19TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, A Report of the Surgeon General (C. Everett Koop) finds smokeless tobacco to be cancer-causing, and addictive.
• 1986: AUSTRALIA: LITIGATION: ETS: Leisel Sholem wins $50,000 in second-hand smoke suit, based on knowledge about ETS between 1975 and 1986.
• 1986: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Industries, Inc. becomes RJR Nabisco Inc.
• 1986: BUSINESS: Philip Morris sells off Seven-Up.
• 1986: BUSINESS: Ex-Philip Morris CEO George Weissman, begins reign as chairman of Lincoln Center (NYC).
• 1986: USA: The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress wrote a 19 page document titled "The proposed prohibition on advertising tobacco products: A constitutional analysis". It concluded that (a) commercial speech does not have the same protection under law as non-commercial speech, (b) Congress had the authority to regulate tobacco advertising and (c) Congress had the authority to completely prohibit tobacco advertising under the conditions set in the Central Hudson case and/or the Posadas case. (LB)
• 1986: UK: BUSINESS: Imperial Group is purchased by Hanson Trust PLC
• 1986: LITIGATION: U.S. Tobacco wins Sean Marsee trial in Oklahoma, the only smokeless-tobacco liability case ever tried.
• 1987: BANS: Congress bans smoking on domestic flights of less than two hours. Takes effect in 1988.
• 1987: BANS: Beverly Hills, CA and Aspen, CO ban smoking in restuarants
• 1987: Department of Health and Human Services goes smoke-free.
• 1987: ADVERTISING: Joe Camel's USA Debut. A North Carolina advertising agency uses Joe Camel to celebrate "Old Joe's" 75th anniversary.
• 1987: JAPAN: A tobacco trade journal reports on a group of Japanese "smoke lovers" who participated in a panel discussion on smoking. One panelist said, "The life expectancy of Japanese is said to be the world's longest now, and why must we be so timidly concerned about health? Let's enjoy life and smoking" (World Tobacco, Sept 87, p.18). (LB)
• 1987: JAPAN: The Tokyo Customs Office attributes the increase in cigarette imports to the permeation of promotional activities of the suppliers of foreign tobacco products. (World Tobacco, Sept 87, p.7).(LB)
• 1987: BUSINESS: Ross Johnson attempts a leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco.
• 1987: BUSINESS: Introduction of "Go to Hell" cigarettes. Each pack comes with two messages, first, "I like'em and I'm going to smoke'em", second, "Cheaper than psychiatry, better than a nervous breakdown". (Tobacco International, p.31). (LB)
• 1988: 20TH Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, A Report of the Surgeon General (C. Everett Koop) calls nicotine "a powerfully addicting drug." In 618-page summary of over 2,000 studies of nicotine and its effects on the body, Koop declares, "It is now clear that . . . cigarettes and other form of tobacco are addicting and that actions of nicotine provide the pharmacologic basic of tobacco addiction."
• 1988: BUSINESS: Philip Morris report, "Smoking Among High School Seniors" suggests fewer youngsters were smoking in the early 1980s because participation in athletic programs was increasing.
• 1989: BUSINESS: RJR releases Premier, its smokeless cigarette, for test-marketing.
• 1988: BUSINESS: Philip Morris acquires Kraft, Inc. for $12.9 billion
• 1988: ADVERTISING: McCann-Erickson ad agency creates "Smooth Character" line for Joe Camel campaign.
• 1988-01-06: LITIGATION: Merrell Williams begins work for lawfirm Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs analyzing secret Brown & Williamson tobacco documents.
• 1988: LITIGATION: .Cipollone trial reveals "Motives and Incentives in Ciragette Smoking," a 1972 confidential report prepared by the Philip Morris Research Center of Richmond, Virginia. It reads in part, The cigarette should be conceived not as a product but as a package. The product is nicotine. . . . Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine. . . . Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine. . . . Smoke is beyond question the most optimized vehicle of nicotine and the cigarette the most optimized dispenser of smoke.
• 1988: LITIGATION: New Jersey Judge Lee H. Sarokin, presiding over the Cipollone trial, says he has found evidence of a conspiracy by 3 tobacco companies that is vast in its scope, devious in its purpose, and devastating in its results.
• 1988-04-07: CESSATION: First World No-Tobacco Day, sponsored by World Health Organization as part of WHO's 40th anniversary.
• 1988-06: LITIGATION: Liggett Group (L&M, Chesterfield) ordered to pay Antonio Cipollone $400,000 in compensatory damages for its contribution to his wife's death. In the years before the 1966 warning labels, Liggett found to have given Cipollone an express warranty its products were safe. First ever financial award in a liability suit against a tobacco company; award later overturned on technicality; plaintiffs, out of money, drop case.
• 1988-Fall: BUSINESS: Ross Johnson informs RJR Nabisco board he intends to lead a management buy-out, and purchase the company for $17 billion. The ensuing debacle will become the largest LBO ever, with Henry Kravitz' KKR emerging the winner in 1989, paying a record $24.9 billion.
• 1988-11-17: Great American Smokeout; ex-Winston model David Goerlitz quits smoking after 24 years.
• 1988-12 to 1993-03:Jeffrey Wigand works at Brown & Williamson.
• 1988-89: CANADA: LEGISLATION: Federal laws are enacted to prohibit tobacco advertising and ensure smoke-free workplaces. Cigarette packs must carry one of four specified health warnings: "Smoking reduces life expectancy;" "Smoking is the major cause of lung cancer;" "Smoking is a major cause of heart disease;" or "Smoking during pregnancy can harm the baby." (NCTH)
• 1989: 21st Surgeon General's Report: Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking, 25 Years of Progress, a Report of the Surgeon General
• 1989: ADVERTISING: Saatchi and Saatchi design Northwest Airlines' Smoke-free Skies campaign; RJ Reynolds withdraws its Oreo account, which Saatchi had had for 18 years.
• 1989: BUSINESS: Marlboro has 25% of the American market
• 1989: BUSINESS: RJR abandons Premier, its smokeless cigarette, after unsuccessful test-marketing in Arizona and Missouri.
• 1989: BUSINESS: KKR buys RJR Nabisco for $29.6B.
• 1989: CANADA: The government requires cigarette manufacturers to list the additives and amounts for each brand. RJ Reynolds temporarily withdraws its brands, and reformulates them so they are different from their US versions. Philip Morris withdraws its cigarettes from the Canadian market entirely.
• 1989: UAR: Dubai Islamic Bank in the United Arab Emirates has banned smoking by staff and customers because Islam forbids harming the body. (Reuters, 27 July 19189). (LB)

The Nineties - The Millenia Approaches

• 1990: 22nd Surgeon General's Report: Health Benefits of Smoking Cessation, A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1990: BRAND CONSUMPTION:
RANK BRAND BILLIONS SOLD
1. Marlboro134.43 billion(?) 2. Winston45.81 billion
3. Salem32.01 billion
4. Kool25.67 billion
5. Newport24.09 billion
• 1990: LITIGATION: Mississippi jury rules that cigarettes killed Nathan Horton, but does not award damages, finding both Horton and American Tobacco shared culpability equally.
• 1990: Ben & Jerry's joins RJR/Nabisco boycott by dropping Oreo cookies from its ice cream.
• 1990: USA: Ellis Milan, president of the Retail Tobacco Distributors of America said, "President George Bush often talks of 1,000 points of light. I'd like to think those points of light are coming from the glowing ends of cigars, cigarettes and pipes across the country, and symbolize the cornerstone of this nation -- tobacco"(LB)
• 1990-01-01: Smoking is banned on all domestic flights of less than 6 hours, except to Alaska or Hawaii. Smoking is also banned on interstate buses.
• 1990: BUSINESS: The Uptown Fiasco. RJR begins test-marketing "Uptown" cigarettes targetting blacks. Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan, along with many black civic and religious leaders denounce the cigarette. RJR cancels the cigarette.
• 1990-02: BUSINESS: Marketing firm Spector M. Marketors, under contract for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company developed plans to promote "Dakota" brand cigarettes to the "virile female," including 18- through 20-year-old women.
• 1990-08-22: RUSSIA: Scores of angry smokers block street near Moscow's Red Square for hours in protest of summer-long cigarette shortage.
• 1990: INDIA: A tobacco trade journal reports that India is selling its first cigarette specifically aimed at women, MS Special Filters, "the sort of market targeting that can get you pilloried in the US." (World Tobacco, March 1990, p. 11). (LB)
• 1990: PEOPLE: Philip Morris CEO Hamish Maxwell, a heavy smoker, undergoes quadruple bypass surgery.
• 1990: NYC Passes Tobacco Sampling Law. Prohibits giveaway or discounted distribution of tobacco products in public places and at public events. Exempts tobacco retailers in their stores and wholesalers or manufacturers.
• 1991: LITIGATION: Mildred Wiley, a nonsmoker, dies of lung cancer at 56. Her husband, Philip of Marion, Indiana, will bring a suit that in December, 1995 will be the first to establish second hand smoke as a workplace injury eligible for workers' compensation.
• 1991: LITIGATION: Grady Carter is diagnosed with lung cancer.
• 1991-02-07: AUSTRALIA: The AFCO Case: Federal court examines ETS studies, finds data valid
• 1991: ADVERTISING: Joe Camel's own line of merchandise is touted by RJR as bringing in $40 Million/year in advertising billings.
• 1991: ADVERTISING: JAMA publishes 2 noted studies of Joe Camel and kids.
•One finds that 91% of 6 year olds can match Joe Camel to his product (cigarettes), and is as recognized by preschoolers as Mickey Mouse •The other study, by Joe DiFranza, finds that since the inception of the Joe Camel campaign in 1987, Camel's share of the under-18 market had risen from 0.5% to 32.8%.
• 1991: ADVERTISING: Saatchi and Saatchi unit Campbell Mithun tests a campaign for Kool that featured a cartoon smoking penguin wearing shades, a buzzcut and Day-Glo sneakers.
• 1991: BRITAIN: The British government will no longer provide financial aid to tobacco companies in developing countries. (AP, 9 Feb 1991). (LB)
• 1991: BUSINESS: Johns Hopkins University announces that it will sell all its $5.3 million worth of tobacco stock. (LB)
• 1991: BUSINESS: Marlboro Medium is introduced
• 1991: BUSINESS: PM Chairman Hamish Maxwell (1981-1991) retires. Michael A. Miles (1991-1994) becomes chairman & CEO, the first non-tobacco man to do so.
• 1991: SPORTS: Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan asks sports fans to boycott events sponsored by tobacco companies, and urges promotors to shun tobacco money. His plea is ignored.
• 1992: 23rd Surgeon General's Report: Smoking in the Americas: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1992: STATISTICS: Per-capita consumption of cigarettes stands at 7 per day among adult Americans
• 1992: CESSATION: Nicotine patch is introduced.
• 1992: Smokmg and Health in the Amencas A 1992 Report of the Surgeon General, in Collaborahon with the Pan Amencan Health Organization
• 1992: LITIGATION: Supreme Court rules that the 1965 warning label law does not shield tobacco companies from suits accusing them of deceiving the public about the health effects of smoking.
• 1992: LEGISLATION: NYC passes Vending Machine Law. Bans distribution of tobacco products through vending machines except those placed at least 25 feet from the door of a tavern.
• 1992: LEGISLATION: NY State passes Adolescent Tobacco Use Prevention Act. Prohibits free distribution of tobacco products to the public, tobacco sales through vending machines or to minors. Requires merchants to post signs saying no sales to minors and to ask for age identification of anyone under 25. Allows parent of a minor who purchased tobacco to bring a complaint against the vendor.
• 1992: LITIGATION: U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., begins criminal probe of industry.
• 1992: ENTERTAINMENT: Pinkerton Tobacco Co., under pressure from the FTC, agrees to cease advertising its products on TV during the "Red Man Pulling Series."
• 1992: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Magazine folds
• 1992-Fall: MEDIA: Marvin Shanken publishes first issue of Cigar Aficionado
• 1992: BUSINESS: Marlboro Adventure Team contest is introduced. Philip Morris has called the MAT one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.
• 1992: BUSINESS: Financial World ranks Marlboro the world's No. 1 most valuable brand (value: $31.2 billion)
• 1992-04: "Marlbor Man" Wayne McLaren asks Philip Morris to limit its advertising. Dying of lung cancer, McLaren appears at PM's annual shareholders meeting in Richmond, VA, and asks the company to voluntarily limit its advertsing. Chairman Michael Miles responds: We're certainly sorry to hear about your medical problem. Without knowing your medical history, I don't think I can comment any further.
• 1992-07-22: "Marlbor Man" Wayne McLaren, 51, dies of lung cancer.
• 1993: Incoming President Bill CLINTON bans smoking in the White House.
• 1993: VERMONT is the first state in the nation to ban indoor smoking.
• 1993: US POST OFFICE bans smoking in its facilities.
• 1993: BUSINESS: Philip Morris is the nation's #2 advertiser, behind Proctor and Gamble.
• 1993: BUSINESS: Cigarette promotional expenditures reach $6.03 billion, an increase of 15.4 percent over 1992.
• 1993: BUSINESS: Financial World ranks Marlboro the world's No. 1 most valuable brand (value: $39.5 billion)
• 1993: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys RJR Nabisco's North American cold cereal operation.
• 1993: BUSINESS: Con-Agra's Charles Harper becomes CEO of RJR
• 1993: BUSINESS: UST introduces low-nicotine, cherry-flavored Skoal Long Cut
• 1993: CANADA: LEGISLATION: Federal law is enacted to raise the legal age for buying tobacco to 18. (NCTH)
• 1993-01 FRANCE: LEGISLATION: Tobacco advertising is banned; Grand Prix auto race canceled because of tobacco advertising. In February, Grand Prix is re-instated, without direct tobacco advertising; drivers still allowed to wear sponsors' colors.
• 1993: SOUTH AFRICA: First tobacco control law passed--bans sale of cigarettes to those under 16; largely ignored.
• 1993-01: HEALTH: Environmental Protection Agency declares cigarette smoke a Class-A carcinogen.
• 1993-04-02: BUSINESS: "Marlboro Friday"--PM Slashes Marlboro Prices
• 1993-07-15: USA: Tobacco BBS goes online(LB)
• 1993-09-29: LITIGATION: Wyatt, Tarant files suit against Merrell Williams over "secret" tobacco papers.
• 1993: LEGISLATION: NYC passes Tobacco Product Regulation Act. Bans out-of-package tobacco sales. Places age restrictions on handling. Prohibits sale of tobacco products to minors. Requires one public health message for every four tobacco ads appearing on city property. Bans use of tobacco products on school property.
• 1994: 24th Surgeon General's Report: Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People: A Report of the Surgeon General
• 1994: OSHA proposes severe workplace smoking restrictions.
• 1994: MEDIA: Frank Blethen's Seattle (Wash.) Times becomes the largest US newspaper to refuse tobacco advertising. "These ads were designed to kill our readers," said Times president H. Mason Sizemore, "so we decided to refuse them."
• 1994: BANS: McDonald's bans smoking in all 11,000 of its restaurants
• 1994: BANS: Dept. of Defense imposes restrictions on smoking at all US military bases worldwide
• 1994: BUSINESS: Financial World ranks Marlboro the world's No. 2 most valuable brand behind Coca-Cola (value: $33 billion)
• 1994: BUSINESS: Philip Morris sends out an estimated 19 million Marlboro promotional items; briefly becomes #3 mail order house in the US
• 1994: CANADA: LEGISLATION: Bigger and stronger warning messagess are required on cigarette packs: (NCTH)
• "Cigarettes are addictive;"
• "Tobacco smoke can harm your children;"
• "Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease;"
• "Cigarettes cause cancer;"
• "Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease;"
• "Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby;"
• "Smoking can kill you;"
• "Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in non-smokers."
• 1994-02: CANADA: Tobacco taxes are slashed to curb runaway bootlegging from the US.
• 1994-02: LEGISLATION: FDA commissioner David Kessler announces plans to consider regulation of tobacco as a drug.
• 1994: LEGISLATION: NY State passes PRO-KIDS Law. Prohibits smoking on school grounds in all schools, kindergarten through 12th grade. Bans out-of-package cigarette sales. Prohibits smoking in child-care centers, youth centers, group homes, public institutions or residential treatment facilities that serve young people.
• 1994-03: ADVERTISING: Brown & Williamson Tobacco yanks cigarette accounts from Saatchi unit Campbell Mithun. Gives Kool account to Grey Advertising.
• 1994-03-28 & 04-07: TV: ABC airs "Day One" segments concerning tobacco industry manipulation of nicotine
• 1994-03-29: LITIGATION: New Orleans, LA. Castano case begins; a 60-attorney coalition files what will become the nation's largest class-action lawsuit plaintiffs charge tobacco companies hid their knowledge of the addicting qualities of tobacco.
• 1994-04: BUSINESS: BAT Industries agrees to buy American Tobacco from American Brands for $1 billion.
• 1994-04-13: Tobacco Industry releases "The List" of 599 cigarette additives
• 1994-04-14: Seven Tobacco Company executives begin testimony in Congressional hearings
• 1994-04-28: ex-Philip Morris scientist Victor J. DeNoble testifies on his research into nicotine and addiction in rats; claims PM suppresed his findings.
• 1994-04: MEDIA: Time and US News and World Report each run cover stories on tobacco; as with the June 6, 1983 Newsweek, neither has a single tobacco advertisement.
• 1994-05-07: New York TImes front-page article reviews "secret" Brown & Williamson tobacco papers.
• 1994-05-12: Stanton Glantz at UCSF receives a box of "secret" Brown & Williamson tobacco papers from "Mr. Butts."
• 1994-05-23: LITIGATION: MISSISSIPPI becomes the first state to sue tobacco companies to recoup health care costs associated with smoking. (The State of Mississippi v. American Tobacco et. al., filed in the Chancery Court of Jackson County, Mississippi (Case No. 94-1429). Case brought by Miss. A-G Michael Moore.
• 1994-05-31: FTC Clears Joe Camel
• 1994-06-02: LITIGATION: West Virginia sues tobacco companies to recoup smokers' Medicaid costs.
• 1994-07: Ex-tobacco lobbyist Victor Crawford makes first national appearance for tobacco control. Dying of cancer, Crawford is featured with ex-surgeon general C. Everett Koop in a Coalition on Smoking and Health radio spot which urges a $2 federal cigarette tax to help fund health care reform.
• 1994-08-17: LITIGATION: Minnesota and Blue Cross/Blue Shield sue tobacco companie for violating anti-trust laws by failing to disclose addictive qualities of tobacco.
• 1994-12: SOUTH AFRICA: Health Minister Nkosazana Zumaout mandates health warnings on cigarette packs and advertising.
• 1994-12: POLITICS: FDA gets letters from Congress. 124 members of the House sent a sharply worded letter to the FDA, claiming the agency's tobacco proposal would put 10,000 jobs at risk and "trample First Amendment rights to advertise legal products to adults." Two weeks later, 32 senators signed a virtually identical letter. (According to Common Cause, those senators who signed the letter had received an average of $31,368 from tobacco, compared to $11,819 for those senators who did n