Smokers' rights

"Smokers rights" is a term used to spur what appears to be a "grassroots" American political movement, created and abetted behind the scenes primarily by tobacco companies, to preserve the social acceptability of smoking and preserve smoking in public places.

Since 1979, the tobacco industry has created or planned "smokers’ rights groups" (SRGs) in at least 26 countries worldwide. Realizing that public acceptance of its messages about secondhand smoke depended on the source of those messages, Philip Morris proposed adopting a variety of personas: "sometimes we will need to speak as independent scientists, scientific groups and businessmen; at other times we will talk as the industry; and, finally, we will speak as the smoker." Organized and predominantly funded by tobacco companies, the SRGs' purposes were to maintain "controversy" about secondhand smoke in the social arena and to focus debate on the smoker rather than the tobacco industry or the smoke. SRGs opposed clean indoor air laws and policies on transportation, in workplaces, and in other public spaces, and sometimes took on other issues, such as tobacco taxes and "discrimination" against smokers.

SourceWatch Resources

 * Ninja Program (Philip Morris)
 * National Smokers Alliance (Philip Morris)
 * Partisan Project (R.J. Reynolds)
 * Burson-Marsteller
 * civil liberties
 * Devil's Weed
 * Minneapolis smoking ban
 * National Smokers Alliance
 * secondhand smoke
 * Smoking as a civic duty
 * tobacco industry

Tobacco industry documents

 * Building a Public Constituency (1987 RJR report)
 * R.J. Reynolds Partisan Movement Weekly Activity Report (1990)
 * FORCES and the tobacco industry
 * Smoker discrimination

Websites

 * My Smokers Rights website by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
 * Smokers United website.
 * The Smoker's Club, Inc. website: The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter.
 * smokinglobby.com website.