Likely to Affect Pending Cigarette Cases as Well as Politics and Public Opinion

A new Disney movie about tobacco-industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, as well as several revealing books about cigarette companies, are likely to have a major impact on the growing number of law suits against the tobacco industry, as well as on public opinion and political decisions about smoking.

"Jurors who see Wigand portrayed as a hero fighting the bad guys in a new Michael Mann movie made for Disney studios are sure to be influenced, and even judges who will decide key aspects of these cases cannot help but be affected," says law professor John Banzhaf, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the nation's legal-action antismoking organization.

The same is true about Members of Congress who will have to decide whether to overturn expected decisions by the FDA to protect children from becoming smokers, and OSHA to ban all workplace smoking, as well as state legislators who will be deciding on cigarette tax increases, bans on smoking in restaurants, and limits on cigarette advertising and promotion.

Adding to these negative images of what may already be America's most hated and least trusted industry are several major new books, including:

  • "Smokescreen: The Truth Behind the Tobacco Industry Cover- Up" by Philip J. Hilts of the New York Times;
  • "The Cigarette Papers," by activist professor Stanton A. Glantz; and
  • "Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris," by Richard Kluger, formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

    These three books, including the many discussions, debates, and book reviews they will generate, and a major movie, all coming within the same brief time span, are sure to add to the growing public backlash against an already beleaguered industry, says Banzhaf.

    "Even with all their political contributions and persuasive advertising, they will have a hard time overcoming this onslaught of negative images."

    "But there is a certain irony if images on the silver screen, which helped to make the industry rich, should now help to contribute to its downfall."

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