Project Lighthouse ad

Project Lighthouse ads

These two Tobacco Institute advertisements appeared in the 1970s to cast doubt on the link between smoking and disease by turning the focus of tobacco-related illness onto people's personality traits. The first ad says that lots of things have been blamed for causing disease ("bread, butter, milk, sugar, cigarettes..." ) and suggests that people who use these substances "unthinkingly and excessively" are "special types of people." The ad suggests that "hard drivers" and "perfectionists" may have "used up their inherited capital of resistance to disease." While the piece claims this is "still a theory," its underlying purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the scientific certainty of the link between smoking and disease.

The ads appear to be part of a project initiated in 1967 by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company called Project Lighthouse, in which B&W hired the Tiderock Foundation to gather studies and personal commentary from scientists that cast doubt on the link between smoking and disease.

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