Big Tobacco Heralds a Healthier World While Fighting Its Arrival

For decades, public health advocates chipped away at the influence of Big Tobacco with measures aimed at discouraging cigarette use. But the bitter legal and political battles were just a prelude to the unfolding climactic clash that could determine the fate of smoking and whether these companies adapt or falter.

U.S. health officials have launched the most aggressive attack by far on cigarettes: Twin government proposals would ban menthol-flavored cigarettes and would limit nicotine levels to make traditional smoking less addictive. At the same time, the government is slowly embracing vaping as an alternative by authorizing the sale of some e-cigarettes, which can provide smokers a nicotine fix without many of the carcinogens.

The measures are the source of a clash expected to play out over the coming months and years in courtrooms, legislative hallways and regulatory hearings. For public health advocates, the steps are aimed at saving millions of lives and reducing the billions of dollars spent on smoking-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

Big Tobacco has said it embraces the transition — sort of.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond smoking,” Billy Gifford, chief executive of Altria, one of the world’s biggest cigarette conglomerates and the parent company of Philip Morris USA, told Wall Street analysts and investors in late October. The opening slide of his presentation offered a company vision: “To responsibly lead the transition of adult smokers to a smoke-free future.”

Major cigarette companies, like Altria and R.J. Reynolds, acknowledge that cigarettes are dangerous and addictive, and they are heralding their investments in electronic cigarettes and other less-harmful alternatives to cigarettes. But, with much less fanfare, they are taking steps to slow the very smokeless future they claim to want: The companies have submitted letters protesting the proposed menthol ban in traditional cigarettes, and they have signaled they will similarly resist any efforts to lower nicotine levels.

And Big Tobacco isn’t just duking it out at the federal level, but fighting local initiatives. For example, in California, the industry has spent heavily to stop a 2020 law from taking effect that would ban the sale of flavored-tobacco products including menthol. Putting the law in place depends on a majority of state voters supporting a Nov. 8 ballot proposition favoring the law, and the industry has spent $22 million to to try to persuade voters to reject the measure and the flavor ban.