How has the tobacco industry changed?
Robert Blakey: The tobacco industry morphed in 1953 from a legitimate industry to an illegitimate industry and it became a front for the selling of a drug, not cocaine, not heroin, but nicotine. In 1953, studies came out that cigarettes cause cancer and it was now like scientifically established and the reaction of the industry was not let’s clean the product up and do it right, it was to treat it as a public relations problem, cover it up. And they knew now that if used as directed –it killed, and instead of stopping it or cleaning it up, they covered it up. They morphed from a legitimate industry into a front for the sale of a, of a illicit drug, in the sense that it is a lethal drug and when they lie about its character, they become a front for the sale of drugs. Interviewer: They would say, ‘what we did was try to examine what this scientific research was. People already knew they were coffin nails, they weren’t necessarily good for you, that there was risk involved.’ Robert Blake
