Big tobacco hides behind smokeless products

“Big Tobacco” conjures images of smoke-filled backrooms and congressional hearings, not the modern nicotine pouches teens carry today. But when the producer of Marlborough Cigarettes, Philip Morris International, acquired Swedish Match, the producer of the Zyn line of products in 2022, it gained control of Zyns and a new generation of users who don’t recognize the name behind the product.

This is no accident. After suffering major reputation losses in the late 1900’s tobacco companies have quietly repositioned themselves in the nicotine market, distancing their tarnished corporate names from the products new users, like teens, might actually buy. 

This strategy is working as most students don’t recognize names like Philip Morris, and they don’t connect Zyn to the industry that spent decades marketing cigarettes to minors.

“Big Tobacco” refers to companies such as Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, British American Tobacco, and others that dominated the U.S. and global cigarette markets in the twentieth century. 

For decades, Big Tobacco’s reputation has been defined by litigation and death. With the Nature Reviews Cancer journal stating that tobacco killed approximately 100 million people worldwide during the 20th century.

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement cost the industry billions and imposed strict advertising limits, particularly around youth marketing. Philip Morris and its competitors became synonymous with deception, a brand identity no company wants when selling to a new generation.

Their solution to get around this is to distance their products from their names, and this has worked.

 “I ask these kids all the time, in my classes. Are tobacco and are cigarettes really something you guys worry about,” said Mr. Scott Heideman, a health teacher at Brophy, “because when you think about who uses cigarettes, they think about old people.” Mr. Heideman said even if students did know about these companies they likely wouldn’t care, as these companies are something the students’ generation never encountered. 

The companies hide their involvement through subsidiary brands. Most major vapes and nicotine pouches are made and owned by a Big Tobacco company who maintains a distance of separation by letting these products be produced by a subsidiary company with an untarnished name. 

Similarly they produce studies to assert that their products are healthier. “You can make numbers kind of say what you want them to say,” said Dr. Dani Kachorsky, an AP Research and English teacher at Brophy. She explains that numbers are important in research, but can be misleading. They often don’t outright lie in their research, but instead use real data to mislead consumers. 

“It’s accurate from a purely numbered standpoint, but then what they’re claiming based on that foundation is maybe not inaccurate, but exaggerated,” Dr. Kachorsky said, explaining how a think tank might use real data to reach a desired claim.

“The ‘low-tar’ cigarette scandal perfectly illustrates this. Companies used standardized machine tests to produce favorable safety numbers. However, while the data was mathematically accurate, the context was deceptive. The machines did not smoke like humans, meaning the ‘real’ numbers had no bearing on actual human health risks.

The consequences of this industry deception are severe. Mr. Heideman emphasized that the financial drain of a nicotine habit, combined with the physical health risks and the relentless struggle of addiction, is a burden he hopes his students never have to endure.