The tobacco industry is notorious for its misleading strategies designed to conceal the dangers of smoking for as long as possible. In 1954, the major tobacco companies issued a statement titled “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,” in which they claimed that there was no smoking and lung cancer correlation, despite having internally refuted this information.

Such strategies protracted the truth of the industry’s demise. It is clear that over the years, industry leaders privately accepted the adverse effects of smoking while they publicly refuted the dangers of smoking. This malicious approach has complicated the needs of public health, and the governmental legislations aimed to protect the people have had to be postponed.

It goes without saying, with the tobacco industry’s marketing being focused on earning more revenue while neglecting moral bounds, the industry’s aged and positioned promises are not entirely plausible. Therefore, as heated tobacco products emerge, there must be a grave skepticism regarding the tobacco industry’s advertisement and marketing campaigns.

In 2006, a court of law found big tobacco companies such as Altria (Philip Morris) and RJ Reynolds in civil racketeering in 2006 due to their long history of deceptive practices. The court proceedings revealed some heartbeat actions from these companies.

• Withholding Information Regarding Evidence of Nicotine Addictiveness: The companies withheld information and evidence which proved nicotine was, in fact, addictive.
• Misinformation by Light Cigarette’s Advertisement: Promoting low-tar or “light” cigarettes to consumers as less harmful than regular cigarettes so firm profits would not dip, resulting in severe misinformation.
• Exploitation of the Younger Generation: Since the 1950s, these companies sought to target those under the age of 21, so they could fill the role of replacement smokers ensuring the longevity of the industry.
• Purely Formal Anti-Youth Smoking Programs: Their initiatives that aimed at preventing smoking in teens and children were made for the sole purpose of allowing teenagers to smoke.
• No Acknowledgement of Dangers Resulting from Second-Hand Smoke: Externally, they refused to openly admit the recognition of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as harmful to non-smokers while internally accepting the smoke’s dangers.

Taking note of these actions, the court instructed the tobacco companies to cover their advertisement with corrective statements regarding the adverse effects of smoking alongside the brands accompanying deceitful actions. Two prominent advertising channels that had to be issued were the newspapers and television.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids discusses the U.S. Department of Justice’s historic lawsuit against tobacco companies in 1999, in which the Department accused the companies of attempting to hide the health effects of smoking and second-hand smoking for decades. In 2006, these companies were found guilty of committing fraud for misleading the public and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. This ruling meant that the court required tobacco companies to publicly advertise “corrective statements” disclosing the hazards associated with smoking tobacco products and the deceptive marketing in which they engaged. Such deceptive marketing included the tobacco industry’s propaganda on the negative consequences of smoking, nicotine addiction, the absence of positive effects of “light” cigarettes, and the deliberate design of cigarettes to give maximum nicotine intake. These corrective statements were released through multiple platforms like television and newspaper adverts, the companies’ websites, and the cigarette packs themselves.

This precedent further reinforces how much effort the tobacco companies have put into misleading the public, as well as the significance of the government’s intervention to stop such dishonest advertising.