We Searched the Tobacco Archives for Big Oil Documents and Were Shocked by What We Found
Years ago, state and federal prosecutors proved that tobacco companies lied about the dangerous and addictive nature of cigarettes.
Today, state attorneys general are investigating fossil-fuel companies and asking similar questions as their predecessors: what did oil companies know about the dangerous, climate-altering effects of their products, and what did they do to hide that information from investors, the public and policymakers?
The lawsuits against the tobacco companies produced an archive of more than 14 million industry documents, which are available for free to the public. They paint a damning picture of an industry that employed a small army of lawyers and lobbyists to try to hide the truth from the public — and the parallels to the oil industry are undeniable.
The tobacco archives tell us a lot about the oil industry
For years, tobacco companies and oil companies funded the same groups, hired the same law firms and the same public relations outfits to achieve the same policy goals — Polluting and harming public health without accountability.
Both industries have even claimed they have a civic right to mislead the public, saying the First Amendment gives them free license to say what they’d like. Just like many of the statements Big Oil and Tobacco make, that is not true. In fact, in 2006, a federal judge presiding over a major tobacco case ruled the First Amendment doesn’t protect statements that are known to be false — such as downplaying the harms of their product.
Big Oil stood up for Big Tobacco’s “right” to lie, too
Oil and tobacco companies weren’t just working together behind the scenes.
Case and point: this 1987 ad (above) from Mobil (yes, that Mobil) which defends the tobacco company R.J. Reynolds’s right to lie to people about cigarettes and heart disease. (We know the font’s little, so we reproduced the ad text in full below.)
So it’s interesting to hear ExxonMobil, the present-day incarnation of Mobil, invoke free speech protections when pushing back against subpoenas from attorneys general, claiming it has a First Amendment right to deceive the public about climate science. They’ll be lucky if that argument holds up in court. After all, they’ve hired the same lawyers who lost the Department of Justice’s fraud case against the tobacco companies.
After a protracted legal fight, R.J. Reynolds eventually settled with the FTC and agreed not to take out advertisements with misleading statements about health risks from smoking.
If reading this shocks you or makes you mad, please share this post on Facebook and Twitter. The oil companies and the tobacco companies can’t be allowed to hide from what they’ve done.
Copy of the ad on the tobacco archives from Mobil (emphasis added).
Free speech is under assault
A basic tenet of our system requires free, unfettered speech to sustain a robust and open marketplace of ideas — a marketplace in which even unpopular views may be espoused and considered. If any groups or opinions are excluded, the marketplace becomes distorted and the right to be heard is weakened for all of us.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with various opinions on smoking or gambling, for example, all points of view have the right to be heard — particularly when the acts involved are perfectly legal. Indeed, even if certain acts are illegal — as the sale of alcohol was during Prohibition — those who favor a change in the law should have the right to voice their opinions. If they lose that right, how would laws ever get changed?
Until recently, little doubt existed about First Amendment protections for free speech. Corporations were felt to have as much right as individuals to advertise their views on public issues — the U.S. Supreme Court said they did in 1978 in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti. Even “commercial speech” — advertising a product — has First Amendment protection, other decisions held, so long as the ads meet certain condition such as making no claims that are factually false or misleading.
But now, political and commercial speech by business is threatened, and First Amendment guarantees seem weakened:
· A Federal Trade Commission complaint last Spring sought to prevent R.J. Reynolds Company from running further advertisements like the one titled “Of cigarettes and science.” That ad, in national publications, was alleged by the FTC to be “misleading,” even though it did not push any of the company’s cigarette brands or encourage smoking. In the format of a newspaper editorial, it simply contended that a $115 million federal research study failed to prove conclusively any link between cigarettes and heart disease. “We do not claim this study proves that smoking doesn’t cause heart disease,” the ad said, only that “the controversy over smoking and health remains an open one.”
· A 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in July upheld Puerto Rico’s refusal to let its legal gambling casinos advertise to the local population, although they are allowed to lure tourists by advertising off the island. Since government has the right to forbid gambling, the court reasoned, it can take “the less intrusive step” of “reducing demand through restrictions on advertising.” But is there any more intrusive action in our democracy than “muzzling” free speech? As the FTC’s new chairman Daniel Oliver — long dissenter in the 4-to-1 Reynolds decision — said: “…it is valuable for the public to hear all sides…I am concerned about…any action that may inhibit free expression of views that might not be popular with government regulators.”
Freedom of speech in America is not simply a means to an end but an end in itself. As the Supreme Court held six years ago in Consolidated Edison Company of New York v. Public Service Commission of New York: “If the marketplace of ideas is to remain free and open, governments must not be allowed to choose which ideas are worth discussing and debating.” Even for governments to restrict dissemination of views on public issues in commercial speech “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.” Justice Blackmun said at that time in a companion case, labeling this “…a covert attempt…to manipulate the choices of its citizens…by depriving the public of the information needed to make a free choice.”
Fortunately, recent administrative review held that R. J. Reynolds ad to be legitimate “editorial commentary” not subject to FTC censorship. Let us hope the Supreme Court will also come to look upon its Puerto Rico casino decision as an aberration, not a precedent.
For if the First Amendment rights can be denied to casinos and cigarettes, will government be moved by concern over cholesterol to ban ads pushing milk, butter and cheese? Then to crack down on TV commercials showing speeding cars on test tracks lest they encourage violations of the 55 m.p.h. limit? Erosion of a fundamental right, once started, can be as hard to stop as a truck racing downhill without brakes.
