Need a good laugh to brighten your day?
Have we got a Web site for you!
Log on and you’ll be greeted by the following message: "Integrity, trust, passion, creativity, quality and sharing. They’re the values that guide us as a business and as individuals. So does a belief in adult choice – that’s why this site is dedicated to providing a wide range of information for adults to make the choice that’s right for them."
Intrigued? Read on. The goal of this business "is to be the most responsible and respected developer, manufacturer and marketer of products made for adults."
Whoa. You’re asking yourself: What’s this? Is The Post sending us to some kind of soft porn home page? What kind of "products made for adults" are we talking about here?
Not to worry. You needn’t push your computer’s suitable-for-children-only button just yet. Then again, maybe you will want to shield this site from the kids. The product it is pushing – and the deceptive way it is pushing it – is a whole lot more harmful than pornography.
It’s cigarettes.
The Web site is www.philipmorrisusa.com – the handiwork of those wonderful, wacky makers of Marlboros, Merits and (believe it or not) 79 other brands of cigarettes marketed around the world: Philip Morris. The Web site is worth visiting, if for no other reason than to see how a company that has reached rock-bottom in the category of public esteem and credibility is trying to reinvent itself – and, in the process, resorting to the very same mendacity and manipulation we’ve come to expect from the world’s leading manufacturer of tobacco products.
The emphasis – indeed, the overemphasis – on the "adult" nature of the product Philip Morris is peddling should be your first clue. The entire tobacco industry is touting its commitment to prevent children from buying and smoking cigarettes; indeed, the national settlement reached in 1998 between the industry and the attorneys general of 46 states specifically forbids tobacco companies from targeting youths in their advertising, marketing and promotional activities, and from taking action "whose primary purpose is to initiate, maintain or increase the incidence of youth smoking."
Click on the link to "Youth Smoking Prevention" and the Philip Morris Web site will tell you all about the many initiatives the company has undertaken to help prevent children from buying and smoking cigarettes – without once mentioning the provisions of the national settlement that require it to do so. "We believe that with the right to manufacture and market cigarettes to adults who choose to smoke comes a responsibility to prevent kids from smoking," the company declares with evident solemnity.
It is as if the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel never existed.
Here’s another little gem. Click on the link to "Ingredients in Cigarettes," then click on "Ingredients for Selected Brands" and you’ll find that the following ingredients are contained in America’s most popular brand, the Marlboro king-size filter hard pack: "Tobacco, Water, Sugars (Sucrose, Invert Sugar, or Corn Syrup), Glycerol, Propylene Glycol, Cocoa & Cocoa Products, Licorice Extract, Diammonium Phosphate, Ammonium Hydroxide, Natural & Artificial Flavors."
What about tar and nicotine? you ask. Tar and nicotine, it seems, aren’t "ingredients." To find out about tar and nicotine content of the Marlboro king-size filter hard pack, or any other Philip Morris brand, you have to click on "Tar and Nicotine Numbers," then read through a lengthy disclaimer that begins: "No two smokers smoke cigarettes exactly the same way. The tar and nicotine yield numbers that are reported for brands are not meant (and were never intended) to communicate the precise amount of tar or nicotine inhaled by any individual smoker from any particular cigarette." Other distortions follow.
Get the picture? One short visit to its high-tech home is all it takes to reveal the real Philip Morris – new package, same old company.
