Tobacco War: "d0e7477"

The Tobacco Industry's Strategy

Within RJ Reynolds, the governor's budget was welcomed as “the first positive news we have received relative to diverting funds from the Proposition 99 Tobacco Education Account.”^[25] According to a company memo, “In view of Governor Wilson's action, we anticipate a funding frenzy developing on the part of counties, health groups, and others to divert even more of the funds.”^[25]

An RJ Reynolds strategy memo of January 29 viewed the governor's

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budget as a window of opportunity and discussed what the company could do to “provide legislators with an additional reason to support the Governor's proposed budget shift.”^[26] The company's legislative strategy was twofold: provide the Legislature with evidence that a budget shift would be “consistent with the desires of voters” and would not “materially undermine the state's overall smoking and health efforts given industry and RJR initiated programs.”^[26] The memo reported on a company survey showing that only 33 percent of voters believed the media campaign was effective and that 37 percent felt they learned nothing from the advertisements.

The industry also explored the feasibility of shifting anti-tobacco education money away from the anti-smoking advertising campaign and into the schools, which the industry considered less threatening. The RJ Reynolds memo observed, “School education and increased parental involvement are seen as the most effective ways to discourage underage smoking—35% and 19% respectively. While this does not speak directly to Prop 99 advertising, it does speak to the importance of `traditional' forms of education.”^[26] The plan was to mount a credible campaign to demonstrate that the industry could handle the youth issue itself, because “underage smoking is widely perceived as the most critical problem and single largest impediment to industry credibility.” However, the memo concluded with the comment that “any credible attempt to address the youth smoking issue must include a school/youth group program given public opinion on the importance of school education.”^[26]