Does this anger anyone else. A study done on how to sell this to us....lose weight be calmer????? Until we need the next smoke? This is disgusting. MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Wed Jun 1, 9:15 AM ET BOSTON (AP) - Tobacco companies did elaborate research on women to figure out how to hook them on smoking - even toying with the idea of chocolate-flavoured cigarettes that would curb appetite, according to a new analysis. Researchers at Harvard University's School of Public Health said they examined more than seven million documents - some dating back to 1969, others as recent as 2000 - for new details about the industry's efforts to lure more women smokers. Carrie Carpenter, the study's lead author, said companies' research went far beyond a marketing or advertising campaign. "They did so much research in such a sophisticated way," she said. "Women should know how far the tobacco industry went to exploit them." The report, published in the June issue of the journal Addiction, says tobacco companies looked for ways to modify their cigarettes to give women the illusion they could puff their way into a better life. One of the documents, a 1993 internal report from Phillip Morris, extolled the virtues of making a longer, slimmer cigarette that offered the false promise of a "healthier" product. "Most smokers have little notion of their brand's tar and nicotine levels," the report states. "Perception is more important than reality, and in this case the perception is of reduced tobacco consumption." A Phillip Morris spokesman declined to comment on the report, saying the company hasn't had a chance to fully review it. The Harvard researchers spent more than a year sifting through an online database of internal documents made public following the 1998 settlement between tobacco companies and 46 states. Carpenter said they found at least 320 documents that focused on women's smoking patterns, including a 1982 report from British-American Tobacco Co. that said women buy cigarettes to help them "cope with neuroticism." "We can safely conclude that the strength of cigarettes that are purchased by women is related to their degree of neuroticism," the report stated. Other internal studies showed that companies explored adding appetite suppressants to cigarettes. In 1980, for instance, R.J. Reynolds Co. proposed creating a cigarette with a "unique flavour that decreases a smoker's appetite, including brandy, chocolate, chocolate mint, cinnamon, spearmint and honey." However, researchers didn't find any evidence they followed through with that idea. The report says worldwide smoking rates among women are expected to increase 20 per cent by 2025, "driven by the growth of female markets in developing countries," while men's smoking rates are steadily declining. Jack Henningfield, a professor of behavioural biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said he hopes the report serves as a "call to action" for government officials to focus their anti-smoking efforts on women, particularly in developing countries. "It's a time bomb," said Henningfield, director of the Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Program at Johns Hopkins. "They've got to act now to prevent the time bomb from exploding." Carpenter said there is no evidence in the trove of documents that suggests tobacco companies have stopped targeting women. "Without regulation from government agencies, we don't know what they're doing today," she added. The Harvard research project was funded in part by the National Cancer Institute. - On the Net: Harvard School of Public Health: www.hsph.harvard.edu Addiction journal: www.addictionjournal.org Innovators Combating Substance Abuse at Johns Hopkins University: www.innovatorsawards.org
Makes me think of the Virginia Slims commercials...yep, that is pretty bad. Don't care about women's health at all just the bucks that the cigarette habit brings in. Thanks for sharing this...
When did you ever get the idea that cigarette companies ever cared about peoples health? They're cigarette companies.
a given but that they targeted research towards women as a group is even more disgusting than to say how do we hook people in general to our product. They did research on the things that women at the time would consider to be huge.....weight and nerves. Let us not kid ourselves.....still the same. Sick. Obviously they could not find a way to market it.....says something. It is not about health only, rather a specfic target......and it was us.
Yeah cigarette companies are pretty shady, so I can definitely believe this. I had a professer at school who told an anecdote in class one time about a close friend of his, who was also in the Illustration biz, who got comissioned by a large cigarette company years and years ago. He was going to make a HELL of a lot of money out of this deal. As he was meeting with them and going over what they were looking for in the pieces they wanted him to do, he realized rather early on that they were expecting these ads to appeal to children. He cut ties then and gave up all that good money because he didn't want to have anything to do with their marketing cigs to children. I say good for him, and fuck the cigarette companies.
I feel like I know a lot more female smokers than I do male smokers. The irony of smoking to suppress appetite/lose weight and therefore maintain an image of 'health' is beyond me. And this doesn't completely relate but I have to add that ALL the women I know that get acrylic nails done regularly, smoke. But these women also seem to use their hands and nails more in the first place, so maybe it is a more deeply-rooted issue or perhaps the nails make them want to use their hands more because it is aesthetically gratifying.
Companies love to market to some specific group based on their insecurities. I guess I've kind of given up on the idea of morality in business. Maybe if I believed in it, I'd be more upset about this. But I'll take the more cynical route and just say it's no suprise to me. Now I'm getting depressed. Time for a cigarette. J/k.
I am not the least bit surprised. Considering that until a year or two ago, the tobacco companies refused to admit cigarettes and tobacco caused cancers and other illnesses, and they HAD this information since, I belive the 1920s, and refused to release it. Going as far as outright lying to sell a product. Yes, it is disgusting. An other reason why things like the DARE program is so ridiculous. Kids realize they are not going to go on a murderous rampage and become a heroin addict if they smoke a joint, so they then think that the info about tobacco, which DARE gave them, was bullshit too.
The world is about money unfortunatly. To most people. This shit goes on, and then every second add is about 'How to quit smoking' and trying to scare people away from doing it. The media is constantly contradicting itself. Its obviously a conflict between 2 different parties perhaps,.. the government, doctors, the big companies selling the shit.. Its like every add on TV is either Mcdonalds, KFC, Cakes and chocolate, Coke, etc and then every other add is 'Weight watchers' or 'lite n easy' how to lose weight.. ahh the contradictions..
Moderation . Veggie and the od A-z multivitamin . And as fer smoking and clubland, it ruined my career.
itsillegal to advertise ciggarettes in england... the packs, or if there are any billborards..have 30% of them plastered with a government warning in black and white..things like.. smoking kills, may harm your unborn baby, reduces your sperm count, causes cancer, passive smoking kills etc... they might even put imgaes of smokers lungs and hearts and stuff on the packs soon.. to be even more gross...
It doesn't surprise me, nor does it make me angry either. That is what advertisement is all about. There are lot's of psychologists and other people researching on how to target different customer groups to sell a certain product. It's not some kind of conspiracy against us women in particular. Targeting children is imo much worse, because they don't have the chance to see through it like we have. Like lillemistymop was suggesting, I also believe that there is a battle between the tobacco industry and the pharmaceutical industry going on and that neither of those parties is interested in the people, but only in their profits. And the huge government warnings on cigarette and tobacco packets should imo be banned, because they aren't stopping anybody from smoking anyways, but just making things worse. After all placebo effect is scientifically proven.
