Dennis Henigan, Vice President of Legal & Regulatory Affairs for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Tobacco companies in the US have been required to post eye-catching signs in retail stores to highlight the deadly consequences of smoking. These signs are meant to counter the deceptive and illegal practices of the tobacco industry. The requirement stems from a 2006 federal court ruling that found the companies guilty of violating racketeering laws. The signs aim to educate people about the health hazards of smoking and the dangers of secondhand smoke. The goal is to reduce smoking rates, especially among young people. The tobacco industry continues to spread lies about reduced risk products, but efforts are being made to expose the truth. The signs will be placed next to promotional displays in stores to have a greater impact on consumers. The campaign for tobacco-free kids provides more information on their website and social media platforms. The fight against smoking also extends to protecting children from e-cigarettes. At the start of this month, I don't know if you were aware of this, tobacco companies were required to post some very eye-catching signs meant to highlight the deadly consequences of smoking at more than two hundred thousand retail stores across the U.S. and including right here in Northwest Jersey. Have you seen any of these at any of the stores there yet? Well, the signs will play a very important role in reminding that the tobacco's horrific toll is no accident, and it also stems directly from the tobacco industry's deceptive and illegal practices. And my guest who's joining me this morning here at the RNJ Morning Program to talk more about these signs and what led to this, we have Dennis Hennigan, who is the Vice President of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for a group called the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and he joins us this morning with some more information. Dennis, hi there, it's Burt Barron, WRNJ Radio in New Jersey. How are you today? I'm just fine. Thanks for having me on, Burt, I appreciate it. My pleasure. I really appreciate the information, Dennis. This all stems back to a federal court verdict that goes all the way back to 2006 with some pretty interesting findings regarding the U.S. cigarette companies. Can you remind me and my audience about this landmark ruling? 2006 was such a long time ago, and there's probably a lot of things about this that we may not remember, but what was that all about? Well, Burt, this actually originated with a lawsuit brought by the Clinton Justice Department against the major cigarette companies alleging that they had violated federal racketeering laws through a campaign over 50 years to essentially deceive the American people about the health hazards and the addictiveness of cigarettes and about how they had marketed cigarettes to kids. And it resulted in a landmark decision by a federal judge in 2006 finding that they had violated RICO, so these actually were companies found to be racketeers, and because of the nature of the fraud, the judge ordered that the companies post various corrective statements, which were designed to counter all the years of deception and misleading statements, and those statements have appeared in major newspapers, they've appeared on TV, on radio, but the last frontier is at the point of sale. When you go into a convenience store, you see the huge promotional displays in back of the cash register, and these signs are going to be positioned right next to those displays so that when a smoker is making the decision to buy that next pack of cigarettes or that next carton of cigarettes, when a kid is making a decision to start buying cigarettes, they will be confronted finally by the truth about these dangerous products. Is the goal of this, Dennis, kind of like a scared straight kind of thing where it's like, hey, if you get involved in this, these are the potential consequences? Is that kind of meant to have a little shock value and scare people away? Well, I mean, if you look at the sign, they are eye-catching, but essentially they just state the facts. They state the facts about the health hazards of cigarettes, the addictiveness of cigarettes, the dangers of secondhand smoke, and so they are designed essentially to educate the American people about the full range of health hazards of cigarettes. People know that cigarettes are dangerous, but they don't know the full range of those dangers. And so it's very, very important to continue to educate on this. We have 30 million smokers in this country, even though we've made great progress on this front. You know, we have millions of Americans who are today suffering from debilitating tobacco-related disease. We still have kids who are starting smoking. We have 1,100 kids every day who start smoking. So there is a great need to continue to counter the decades of fraud which led us into this situation where cigarette smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in our country. It's unbelievable that you dropped that 30 million figure there. That's probably maybe 8 or 9 percent of the population of our country that still just don't get it, Dennis. It's hard to believe that after everything that's been done, we still have just a large percentage of people. And it just troubles me when I see someone even smoking, and especially a young person. It's like, has any of this ever reached you, just to realize what you're doing to yourself and the jeopardy you're putting your own future in? And I'm hoping that these signs, right at that last moment, like you said, that critical moment before the decision is made to buy or not to buy, will sway people in the right direction. Absolutely. I guess my... I get very sad, frankly, when I see a young person smoking. And the prevalence of smoking is much higher in lower-income areas, it's much higher in rural areas. So there is still a great need to bring the facts to the American people. And I might add that the vast majority of promotional expenditures by the cigarette companies themselves are directed at that point of sale. That's where they want to get you. And that's why it's so important that these signs appear at that crucial place. And we think it's going to save lives. Yeah, I agree. Dennis Hennigan is my guest this morning, Vice President of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. And maybe you've seen some of these signs at various convenience stores and other places that maybe you frequent, just designed to get the word out and continue to reinforce the message of the negative and just laundry list of negative health effects that come along with smoking. Dennis, we know that Big Tobacco, they've got deep pockets, they've got vast resources. What's there? Are they trying to find loopholes in this and trying to find a way to circumvent this ruling that's been been handed down against them? They're a crafty bunch. What are they doing in response to this? Well, they will continue to spread their latest lie, which is that they have fundamentally changed and then they're now all about using so-called reduced risk products in order to lead people away from smoking. That's just the latest lie. At the same time, they spend billions to continue to promote cigarettes. And so we've got to expose the lies of the past and continue to expose the lies of the present and bring the American people the truth. One thing that I saw, Dennis, that I thought was a step in the right direction, and maybe they should just eradicate this altogether as well, that when you see a description of a movie rating or perhaps before a movie or television show starts, it mentions that there's tobacco use in this show. I mean, could you imagine these classic Hollywood films where they said, oh, be careful when you watch this, people are using tobacco. It's kind of interesting that now we caution people that you're going to see a movie or television show with people consuming tobacco. If that doesn't scream how dangerous it is, I don't know what does. No, you're right, and that's a sign that we have actually made progress as a culture against this health plague of smoking. But we need every tool at our disposal to continue the work because, you know, the tobacco industry is busy day in and day out to try to promote these hazardous and addictive products. I did tag your group on our Facebook page this morning, Dennis, but where can people go for more info about the campaign for tobacco-free kids? Well, our website, we're also on social media, but I very much appreciate your flagging it because there's all kinds of great information about how to get involved in the struggle, not only against cigarettes, but also how to protect our kids from e-cigarettes, which is the latest ploy in the tobacco industry. Here we go, that's the next thing we got to battle, right? Dennis Hennigan, Vice President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, for the campaign for tobacco-free kids. Thank you for the time, great information this morning, and I'll be keeping a sharp eye out for these signs as I visit various places across New Jersey here, but thank you for the time and for the information this morning. Thank you for having me on, Bert.