Tobacco Institute
The Tobacco Institute, Inc. was a United States tobacco industry trade group, founded in 1958 by the American tobacco industry. It was dissolved in 1998 as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Founding The Tobacco Institute was founded in 1958 as a trade association by cigarette manufacturers, who funded it proportionally to each company's sales. It was initially to supplement the work of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), which later became the Council for Tobacco Research. The TIRC work had been limited to attacking scientific studies that put tobacco in a bad light, and the Tobacco Institute had a broader mission to put out good news about tobacco, especially economic news. It also attacked scientific studies, although more by casting doubt on them rather than by rebutting them directly. It also lobbied Congress, although initially at a low level. Robert Hockett (first scientific director of Sugar Research Foundation, a sugar-equivalent of TIRC) became TIRCs associate scientific director. Activities Lobbying and policy work The Tobacco Institute collected intelligence on attitudes toward smoking, developed strategies, and lobbied legislators. Allan M. Brandt wrote, "The Tobacco Institute, on behalf of the companies, assembled an impressive record of derailing attempts to bring tobacco under any regulatory mandates whatsoever". By 1978 the Tobacco Institute had 70 lobbyists, and Senator Ted Kennedy said in 1979, "Dollar for dollar they're probably the most effective lobby on Capitol Hill". The Tobacco Institute hired the Roper Organization in 1978 to survey public attitudes on environmental tobacco smoke. Among its findings were "Nearly six out of ten believe that smoking is hazardous to the non-smoker's health, up sharply over the last four years. More than two-thirds of non-smokers believe it, nearly half of all smokers believe it. This we see as the most dangerous development to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred." A 1985 meeting of the executive committee of the Tobacco Institute outlined plans to broaden the indoor air quality issue. In December 1987 the Tobacco Institute's executive committee discussed creating an industry-based Center for Indoor Air Research, intended to broaden the question of indoor air pollution beyond tobacco smoke. The CIAR was created in March 1988 by Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, and Lorillard. In 1990 the Tobacco Institute opposed federal regulations banning smoking on domestic airline flights. Advertising The Tobacco Institute ran advertisements and issued pamphlets for general readers. One advertisement consisted of facing two-page advertisements titled "A word to smokers (about nonsmokers and anti-smokers)" and "A word to nonsmokers (about smokers)." The ad encourages tolerance of smokers by depicting smoking as a "personal choice" and a "small ritual". There was no mention of any health effects. An example pamphlet is Answers to the Most Asked Questions about Cigarettes. The institute also published newsletters aimed at physicians and dentists such as Tobacco and Health () and a newsletter Tobacco Observer () that seems to have been aimed at a general audience. Richard Kluger characterized Tobacco Observer as "attack literature." White papers The