Wide Awake!
Generation Against Tobacco

What the tobacco industry has to say...

• "We really need something for people to die of." - Imperial Tobacco, 1978

• "We don't smoke the s**t, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid." - R.J. Reynolds, Tobacco executive

• "We are in a nicotine rather than a tobacco industry." - Project Mad Hatter, 1971 Brown & Williamson Tobacco

• "Very few consumers are aware of the effects of nicotine i.e., its addictive nature and that nicotine is a poison." - Future Consumer Reaction to Nicotine, 1978, Brown & Williamson Tobacco

• "The base of our business is the high school student." - Product Information, 1978 Lorillard Tobacco

• "It should be said that we are presently, and I believe unfairly, constrained from directly promoting cigarettes to the youth market... Realistically, if our Company is to survive and prosper, over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market." - Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market, 1973 R. J. Reynolds Tobacco

• "Cigarettes are no more addictive than gummi bears." - James Morgan, CEO Philip Morris Tobacco, 1997

• "If we admit that smoking is harmful to 'heavy' smokers, do we not admit that BAT has killed a lot of people each year for a very long time? Moreover, if the evidence we have today is not significantly different from the evidence we had five years ago, might it not be argued that we have been 'willfully' killing our customers for this long period? Aside from the catastrophic civil damage and governmental regulation which would flow from such an admission, I foresee serious criminal liability problems." - British American Tobacco, 1980

• (1998) The film is better than any commercial that has been run on television or any magazine because the audience isn't aware of the sponsorship.