The November 6, 2007 election brought a stinging defeat to Oregon's cigarette tax increase. The proposal aimed to raise the state's cigarette tax by 84.5 cents a pack to pay for health insurance for about 100,000 additional poor Oregon children who currently have no coverage. Measure 50, as the tax was called, went down by a wide 60-40% margin.

Increasing cigarette taxes to fund health care is not a new idea, and tobacco industry efforts to defeat such measures aren't new either. What was new in this case was that tobacco interests poured a record $12 million into defeating Oregon's measure, making it the costliest election in Oregon's history. So stunning was the industry's effort that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski openly accused the tobacco industry of "buying the election" in his state.

Old Dog, No New Tricks

The tobacco companies trotted out their most formulaic and time-tested strategies to defeat Oregon's tax measure: They created front groups with grassrootsy-sounding names designed to push voters' emotional buttons. R.J. Reynolds formed Oregonians Against the Blank Check, and hired their longtime Oregon lobbying ally Mark W. Nelson to head the group. Philip Morris formed "Stop the Measure 50 Tax Hike," and funded it with money from their parent company, Altria Corporate Services. The companies then determined which populist-sounding messages pushed voters' buttons the hardest while omitting any mention of the subject of health. They then purchased vast quantities of advertising to push these messages relentlessly onto Oregon voters.

Reynolds American, the parent company of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, is spending approximately $40 million in an attempt to defeat anti-smoking ballot initiatives to be voted on in November. Part of the tobacco industry campaign involves having front groups promoting alternative measures to those proposed by tobacco control groups. In Arizona, Reynolds is backing the Non-Smoker Protection Committee, while in Ohio it is supporting Smoke Less Ohio. "It is a significant amount of money, but it's very expensive to do these because it's like a political campaign," Carole Crosslin, a Reynolds spokeswoman told Associated Press. Shelly Kiser, a spokeswoman for SmokeFreeOhio, said "the tobacco industry has fought us every step of the way. They have taken out more than 30 lawsuits against us ... It's been horrible." The domain name for the website of Smoke Less Ohio was registered by the PR and lobbying company, Strategic Public Partners.

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has contributed $10,000 to an Arizona group, the Non-Smoker Protection Committee. The group is proposing a ballot initiative in favour of The Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Act which it claims would create "a balanced, reasonable, consistent, statewide non-smoking law, protecting minors and preserving private property rights." In fact, the initiative would overturn existing smoking bans in cities such as Tempe and would prevent other cities from instituting them. Dr. Leland Fairbanks, a retired doctor, told Associated Press that the name of the tobacco-friendly proposal has fooled some people into signing the petition supporting the initiative being placed on the ballot."There's a lot of deception going on," Fairbanks said. "Many people think they're signing the health one, but they're signing the R.J. Reynolds one. They're mad, and they should be." Tobacco control groups are proposing an alternative initiative, the Smoke-Free Arizona Act.

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

PR Watch has obtained documents detailing the secret relationship between Philip Morris, the tobacco-and-food conglomerate, and "Contributions Watch," a PR front group which poses as a "public interest" campaign reform organization. CW's hidden agenda is to dig up dirt at the state level for the corporate clients of its creator, a Washington, DC public relations firm called the State Affairs Company (SAC). SAC and CW work to attack the political enemies of their clients, and to smear the "hidden, undisclosed consumerist agendas" of real public interest groups like Consumers Union, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Ralph Nader's Public Interest Research Group, and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

When PR Watch phoned CW Executive Director Warren Miller on September 26, he refused to take our call. We left a question on his voicemail anyway: "Who funds Contributions Watch, and what is the connection between it and the State Affairs Company?" Miller never responded, but we suspect the question must have put his hair on end.

For years the tobacco industry has been using restaurant trade associations as front groups in its battle to keep Americans puffing. Now this strategy is documented on a new web site hosted by the University of California-San Franciso. "If Big Tobacco can't buy hospitality groups to serve as fronts, it sets up its own," the site states. Examples include the "California Business and Restaurant Alliance" and the ""Beverly Hills Restaurant Association" (created by a Tobacco Institute PR firm). In other cases, the industry uses offers of funding to buy the loyalty of groups like the National Restaurant Association and the American Beverage Institute. Ironically, the victims of this flackery include restaurant owners themselves, who are hoodwinked by bogus research into believing that tobacco restrictions will cost them money -- even though restaurants end up footing the bill for insurance, maintenance and expensive ventilation systems to accommodate smokers.