Sleuthing Big Tobacco's Global Trail:
Investigating Tobacco Industry Documents

Action of the Month
June 2001

There are literally millions of internal industry documents now online. These documents contain a wealth of information on the tobacco industry's international activities, yet they have not been systematically searched country by country.

Often the groups who could best interpret and use the information are unable to access it due to slow and/or expensive internet connections. That's where global partnerships come in! Below you'll find out how to make this activity a collaborative effort and to put the information you dig up to good use.

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR SEARCHING TOBACCO INDUSTRY DOCUMENTS

If you have never searched tobacco industry documents before, we recommend that you read through the 11th World Conference fact sheet "Searching Tobacco Industry Documents: Basic Information, Steps and Hints." Alternatively you can download a pdf version at http://tobaccofreekids.org/campaign/global/worldconference.shtml

WORKING WITH YOUR PARTNER TO SEARCH DOCUMENTS*

We recommend that the partner with the fastest internet connection initiate the document search in order to reduce the time, effort, and cost involved. To start off, use your or your partner's country as a keyword**. If nothing turns up, or if you would like to expand the search, choose a regional term, e.g. "West Africa". If there are too many documents, you will need to narrow your search. You and your partner can decide together what types of documents and topics would be of greatest interest. For example, if you are interested in counter advertising, you might want to look up marketing reports for the country or region. Your partner may also have suggestions for country-specific tobacco industry names and organizations to search under.

* Before you start your own search, you might want to check and see if any documents have already been located for your country (see #4).

** For fun, U.S. groups may want to look up documents related to their state and to compare local industry tactics with those in their partner's country or region.

INTERPRETING THE DOCUMENTS

Once you've found some interesting documents, share them with your partner -- by mail, fax, or email (list weblinks). Your partner may have special insight into the names, places, organizations, and events mentioned. For example, at a regional workshop in Thailand, a representative of ASH-UK shared a document detailing BAT's smuggling practices in Vietnam. Vietnamese attendees were quickly able to identify the people mentioned in the document as well as the locations of the smuggling routes. If the documents are in a language that you are not fluent in, your partner can translate them. The interpretation of the documents may lead to additional searches using names and terms that arise frequently.

PUTTING THE DOCUMENTS TO GOOD USE!

International information gleaned from the documents has already served a vital role in discrediting the tobacco industry around the world. For example, check out the following resources online:

Trust Us, We're the Tobacco Industry
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/trustus.html
http://tobaccofreekids.org/campaign/global/framework/docs/TrustUs.pdf
Mentions 75 different countries.

Illegal Pathways to Illegal Profits: The Big Cigarette Companies and International Smuggling
http://tobaccofreekids.org/campaign/global/framework/docs/Smuggling.pdf

Documents on smuggling
http://www.ash.org.uk/?smuggling
Click on "International tobacco smuggling," then "British American Tobacco and global cigarette smuggling," then "BAT at large in Africa" for documents mentioning Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Togo.

Here are some suggestions for follow up activities partnerships might undertake:

  • Issue a Mini-Report. You and your partner may want to issue a brief (2-5 page) report on the tobacco industry's operations in the focus country or region. The report could list tobacco industry activities in chronological order or examine a particular issue, e.g. industry political influence, marketing tactics, second-hand smoke, smuggling etc. The report could be issued to lawmakers and the media in the appropriate country.
  • Media Coverage. For the greatest impact, strategically time the issuing of the report, e.g. World No Tobacco Day or during parliamentary debate on a tobacco control bill. You may want to organize a demonstration and/or press conference in conjunction with its release. For example, you might invite students, doctors, and other tobacco control advocates to gather in front of a school, hospital, the Ministry of Health, or the local BAT or Philip Morris headquarters to present the report's main findings and to make specific tobacco control demands. If you find a particularly disturbing document, a local journalist may be interested in doing a story on it.
  • Counter Advertising. Some of the best tobacco control counter-advertising exposes industry manipulation and attacks the implicit messages purveyed in tobacco advertising. Go through the documents and pick out the most outrageous quotes. Brainstorm some effective, inexpensive ways of incorporating them into counteradvertisements. Often the quotes themselves are enough. You might paint them on large banners to be hung at key intersections in town or weave them into a radio public service announcement.
  • Youth Smoking Prevention. Youth smoking prevention programs that focus attention on the tobacco industry's lies and deceit are often the most effective. If you work with teenagers, involve them directly in the document search. They may enjoy playing the role of "detective" and sharing their findings with youth in their partner's country. Discovering how the industry has manipulated public opinion and targeted youth in their partner's country may give the teenagers you work with an added perspective on the tobacco industry's activities in their own country.

At very least, share the documents you and your partner find with Essential Action so that they can be posted on the Global Partnerships website and distributed to relevant listservs!

Further ideas? Questions? Contact:

Essential Action
Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control

P.O. Box 19405 ~ Washington, DC 20036
Tel: +1 202-387-8030 ~ Fax: +1 202-234-5176
Email: [email protected]
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco