Behind the Smoke with John Safran Pt. II

John Safran on how big tobacco used word games and our respect for the hustle to drive its public makeover.

Transcript

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Going where the silence is. The QUO Podcast. A mainstream argument that seems to reduce big tobacco's complicity is that, you know, this idea that smoking's a choice, and people should be free to live their life as they choose. Which, yeah I mean, there's obviously a real aspect of legitimacy to that, but it seems to be an argument which was extended upon by Dr. Glover who you mentioned before, whose foundation is exclusively funded by Philip Morris, a Maori researcher. And from my understanding, sort of, part of her argument that you've touched upon is that any attempt to curl indigenous smoking is sort of like an extension of, you know, white supremacy or colonial, post-colonial control. But I'm interested in, I guess, what you also touched upon, how this negative stigma around addiction plays into this. So like, do you think that tobacco companies like Philip Morris benefit from the existing stigma around addiction, because smokers are perceived as, sort of like, not strong enough to quit and it's not on Philip Morris for having introduced them and addicted them in the first place? Do you think that destigmatising addiction could sort of affect the way tobacco companies are perceived? Yeah. Well, definitely my friend, my ex-girlfriend, who I like, I like introducing personal drama in my stories. I base that on, I used to love early Eminem albums, because you'd just be, like, listening to it and you like, somehow he's bringing up his ex-wife and like, "What?". But I always find that fascinating, so I really, like, because it just seems like, I don't know, inappropriate, but it just seems like, funny, that sort of like, "I'm in a book, and I'm researching cigarettes", or whatever like that. And then it's like, "Oh, this woman, oh, by the way, she's my ex-girlfriend", or whatever. Anyway, unfortunately, her father, like, whilst I was writing the book and I got this message from an ex-girlfriend, I hadn't heard from for ages and she's like, "My dad. He's, like, there's this tumour growing on his face, and we've had to put him into palliative care", and then, three days later I get a text from her saying, like, "He's dead, and there's going to be a memorial service", or whatever like that. And so I write about that, and go into the memorial service. Anyway, her take, the reason is I give that back [story], her take was exactly what you're saying, where she says that, and I think this can be like, including me, we don't understand this as, if we don't smoke ourselves, or whatever, that, we don't understand the stigma, and the fact that we feel totally judged. People who smoke feel really judged and they feel like people aren't on their side. They feel like that people are like saying, "Well, screw you", like, "If you didn't want to smoke, you shouldn't have smoked", you know. So she makes your point, that cigarette companies get to, sort of, take part, or leverage the feeling that people addicted have, that are addicted to cigarettes have that, you know, well, ultimately it's their fault. And so therefore you can't blame Philip Morris because a person can always choose not to smoke. And my book kind of touches on this whole thing of how addiction, which is a physiological truth, so it's not like, some woolly thing that's like, "Hey, man, people are addicted". It's like you can test out in animals, that animals actually get, you know, addicted. So there's this real tension between you have free will not to smoke, except there's a physiological thing where, well, in a way, you can't stop smoking because you're addicted, and there's, yeah, there's real tension there. And Philip Morris, happily of course, are happy to leverage that and sort of like, "Well, people have free choice". And that's in fact, Philip Morris, I don't cover this in the book, but I found out about it, and certainly like Philip Morris, actually really liked when warning labels came on packages, you know, in a manner, because it's like, "Well. Hey, you can't say we didn't tell you". And so, there's seemingly nothing Philip Morris can't leverage to their advantage which, I guess, I have a begrudging respect for. But another thing you brought up is, which I found interesting when I was researching this is, because I kind of remember that Philip Morris used to always leverage things around freedom and liberty. So it was like, "Well, you have a right to smoke because you have", yeah, "there should be freedom, and if they start telling you that you can't smoke cigarettes, next thing they'll say, 'Well, you can't eat burgers, and you can't have your guns'", like that, and it's a slippery slope or whatever. That used to be their argument back when I was younger, or whatever. But now, because the backdrop of the world has changed and it's all about being hectoring and moralising about everything, now they've totally changed their strategy. So Philip Morris, don't talk about personal liberty and free choice, and "You should be able to do what you want or whatever. Even if it's dangerous ... you have a right", and you know, "Do you really want the government interfering in your life?". They've totally changed it in the kind of the era of like hectoring, and woke, and wagging your finger, and being bothered by everything. So now it's like "Our IQOS and our HeatStick is a less risky alternative", "We're here for your own good", and, "Can you believe the government's, like, they hate you, and they don't want you to be having this choice for your own good", and so yeah, I was really struck by how they're not playing the personal liberty card in 2021, like there were back in the 90s, in the 80s and before that. Even in America really, where it's like, you'd think that that argument would really run. Yeah, you'd think that would be so successful in America because everyone seems obsessed by, you know, maintaining their personal liberty. So it's interesting that they have to, you're saying that, you know, they're just highlighting this idea that you know, they're promoting a healthier alternative, as that's what's going to be effective from a marketing perspective as opposed to the choice, which I think relates a little bit to vaping, which I kind of want to talk about a little bit in the ... Yeah, I think, it's even, like, confusing to me, because I just can't believe it, like, because it just seems like such a cynical play. But, like, everyone readjusting to the new world in 2021. So I mean, I haven't looked too much into this or whatever, but you'll even find, you know, like the National Rifle Association will kind of like come up with some story of some black dude who wants his guns and then the white people don't want him to have guns, the white liberals. So they're even they'll frame, the National Rifle Association will frame their argument for guns through all this like, modern Twitter woke politics. Like, can you believe these racist ... white left-wingers want to take the guns away from this black American, and so, and so, therefore, if you're against guns and you want more gun policy, you're racist against black people, you know. So Phillip Morris has just adjusted to that world, just like the National Rifle Association has. So yeah, I mean, it's crazy and it's hilarious, kind of in a way. And it's really good news for storytellers like me who like all the attention, and hypocricies, and strangeness in the world. But anyway, vaping. So, the next question, well it starts from, in the book you kind of highlight how some drugs are deemed, sort of, good, and others are deemed bad, like, in the eyes of public health officials in Australia, especially when it comes to, you know, this whole thing around vaping, which is very contextual at the moment. Like, pharmaceuticals, like, nicotine replacement therapies are deemed good, while nicotine vapes are deemed, you know, potentially very harmful. I interviewed harm minimisation and e-cigarette advocate, Dr Wodak, who you mentioned in your book as well. He sort of argues that drugs associated with pleasure are more likely to be deemed bad by public health officials, and they tend to support more of, like, a prohibition approach to drugs. Like, I just was interested, firstly like, do you agree? Like, what do you think it is that determines what's deemed, you know, a good drug and what's deemed a bad drug? Yeah, well, first of all, one of the real awesome things about my particular circumstance, because I've done documentaries on television, and I've written books, and I've been on the radio and stuff, and I'm always being a smart aleck and also I'm a bit of a gonzo journalist and, by gonzo, that means, like, you get involved in things. So rather than being like the National Geographic voiceover guy of, like, "and here in West Africa, we see the voodoo doctor, and we see how the voodoo doctor is taking part in a voodoo ceremony.", like, I'm not that. I'm in the freaking voodoo ceremony, and I want to be in it because it's so much more fun or whatever. But part of the consequence of that, but the happy consequence of that, is I've just like done too many, like, contentious things that's been captured on camera intentionally, then broadcast publicly. So, there's a limit to how much, even on, like, a practical level, or a logical level, I can be wagging my finger at anything, like, imagine if my book was, like, "Hey, guys, you've got to be really careful about what you put in your mouth", or whatever. And people are going to be like, "Hey!", like, some guy's going to be sitting at home on his couch and talking to his wife going, "Hey, Marge. Hey, the guy we saw on TV who was drinking peyote in the Arizona desert to try to get high, he's giving us a little lecture on, like, personal health, and what you should and shouldn't put in your mouth.", and "Oh, the guy who got nailed to a crucifix in the Philippines, he's talking to us how we've got to be careful, how we treat our own bodies.", or whatever like that. So I've kind of like, I reckon that's kind of good because it just means I have to come up with some other sort of like storytelling technique besides finger-wagging. But anyway, so I mean, this is just the complexity, and how there's like, there's no neatness, and it's hard to have neat endings, or whatever. So, like, I do, I guess, ultimately believe that, like, people should be able to do what they want to do, or whatever like that. But then, like, the other side of that is people should be like fully informed, and also like, it's kind of okay to discourage people to do things that are bad, even if, you're like, you know, like, if my partner smoked or whatever, and I've had partners who smoked in the past, and it's like, "Well, I am going to try to like, come up with some argument that they shouldn't smoke because I don't want them to die", or whatever. But on the other hand, it's like, "I'm going to let them do what they want", or whatever. So it's all, all this stuff is, kind of like, messy, and like, lots of sort of bows that aren't tied up neatly. But, so when it comes to harm minimisation, I guess, there are people who know more than me, and there are people who are saying that it's better for people, who like, if you have safe injecting rooms and, because these people are going to take heroin anyway. Or, it's good to have pill testing at festivals, at music festivals, because people are going to take ecstasy anyway. So therefore, an extension of that, is that, we should be trying to get people who are smoking cigarettes onto vaping, because there's a way to vape that's going to be less harmful than a cigarette. And the main way which, they do have an argument where it's like, the main thing that kills you in a cigarette, tar, is absent from a vape. But then, this is like where it gets, like, really super tricky, or whatever. So there's two trickiness. One is like, "Yes, but are you inhaling other stuff into your system, that even though it's not tar, is actually going to have respiratory problems that could be really dire?", where it's like, "Oh, great. So the cancer you die of wasn't the tar-related cancer. It was like these other respiratory issues that you died of", in a vape, or whatever. But I think, like, the real tricky thing with discussing vapes, and whether it's harm minimisation or not, is that, if someone was addicted to cigarettes, and then they spent like six months a year weaning themselves off cigarettes and lowering the nicotine rate in their vapes, and at the end of that six months of the year, they put to one side, both cigarettes and vaping. Then I think there is an argument, like, sorry, not I think there's an argument, people who have a good reputation, like the National Health Service in the British government, they say that is a tool for harm minimisation, because you're getting people to gradually get off cigarettes, and then they're parking to one side both the cigarettes and the vapes. But then the issue becomes that, if you just huff on a vape for the next 10 years, day in, day out, all night and day, like, is that going to be healthier in that context of consuming a vape? And, I would say that's a pretty big roll of the dice, like, why would it be, why would it not have really consequential health consequences to your respiratory system, of inhaling these agents into your lungs, and into your system, that, sort of like, don't occur naturally in the air. And in fact, that's what one of the doctors told me. I don't think it's in the book or whatever, but yeah, one of the doctors who was looking into vaping and the IQOS, that's exactly what he said. He said it's like, our lungs aren't meant to take things, so your lungs can put up with things for a certain amount of time, or your respiratory system can put up to it. But after a while, it's just not meant to, we're meant to breathe air. We're meant to breathe fresh air. We're not meant to be breathing propelyne glycerol. Yeah, so that's why it becomes, like, this really tricky argument about whether it's harm minimisation, or it isn't. If you are enjoying this podcast, head to thequo.com.au, and follow us on our socials, using the handle @thequoau. I've been grappling with this question because I'm doing a podcast series on, you know, the social and public health impact of vaping, and I'm trying to be neutral in listening to, sort of, some of the harm minimisation aspects and also, you know, public health officials and academics who have much more hardline approach. And it seems like people aren't that great with, sort of, sitting in the uncertainty. Like, there's a lot of evidence that it's got, you know, it does have bad health consequences now, but what we don't know is what 20, 30 years, like, we didn't know about smoking for what, 30, 40 years, the long-term health consequences. So, is that enough? Like, I guess, the harm minimisation people are saying, well, anything that's likely to be slightly better than smoking, we should get these people on it, you know, it should be enough. But we don't know that it's significantly better than smoking. And yeah, there are just so many different kind of things that I'm trying to grapple with because there's, you know, a social justice aspect that, like, you know, smokers tend to be from low SES communities and marginalised groups, and they don't necessarily have access to, kind of, support services, and if vapes help them, then they should have access and vice versa. Yeah, I'm just so confused. So, yeah, it's helpful just chatting to someone who's also, kind of like, sitting in the uncertainty of it, because I think we're comfortable. Well, I myself am generally, like, comfortable and, just like, sitting in [the] uncertainty of not knowing. We want a black and white thing. Like, I was speaking to someone who goes into schools and they were saying, like, the easy thing with smoking is you can tell schools, you know, school kids, smoking kills. But when it comes to vaping, or these supposedly better alternatives, we can't really tell them that strong message. So, yeah. Yeah well, I mean, like, you've really struck upon the case for gonzo storytellers there. Well, it's just a story, because, I'm the opposite. I'm, like, running towards the complications, it's like, and if there's no complications, I'm assuming there is a complication, I just haven't undug yet. But I think we yeah, we have to like, dig into the complications and because, because it's complicated, there's no other choice. There's not a reality ... the only way there's no complications in this, is if we either don't know, or we're going to lie about it. So, yeah, we have to rest in the complications. But, I mean, and Philip Morris just totally, fully exploit the complications, like, this HeatStick that isn't a vape. They imply, or they lead you to believe it is a vape when it's convenient to them. So, for instance, when the National Health Service of the British government said e-cigarettes are a valid way to try to ease you off smoking, and it's a healthier alternative to smoking, right? So Philip Morris were like, "We agree with the National Health Service and that we need to look to futures, things", and "Blah blah, smoke free future", whatever. And so if you're reading that, you're thinking Philip Morris, you're thinking the National Health Service have somehow endorsed, or approved of, Philip Morris's HeatStick and IQOS, right? And, but then, I look into what the National Health Service said, and they said, "Oh, by the way, when we say e-cigarette, we're referring to vaping, and we're absolutely not referring to devices like Philip Morris's IQOS and HeatStick.". So they, again, kind of like, manipulating language, because you plug a vape into a wall, so therefore, it's an e-cigarette. Because you plug this IQOS device into a wall, therefore it's an e-cigarette. They totally take advantage of the fact that when the National Health Service in Britain says "We're endorsing e-cigarettes", Philip Morris, are like, "Oh you see, you see, you see, they're endorsing e-cigarettes". When really, the National Health Service explicitly say they're not endorsing the Philip Morris devices, and then, but in the opposite way, when there was, in America, all these bad news stories about kids dying from having black market vape juice, and ending up in hospital because of that. Then Philip Morris came out and, were like, they were doing the opposite, they're like, "Listen, guys, I know you're hearing all these news stories about how people are dying because they're taking this black market vape juice. Can we point out that our HeatStick and IQOS device is not a vape? It's the opposite of a vape". And the dude who heads up Philip Morris, he even had the audacity to, kind of go,"Listen, if you're feeling a bit nervous about vaping now because you're hearing all these news stories, like, maybe? I mean, we have this HeatStick and this IQOS that isn't a vape". So, they're nothing, if not totally audacious. I really like, I like, definitely if I was in a fight with someone, like, I just think of all the fights I've had with, like, friends and family members, and it's like, man, I wish Philip Morris were on my side during those fights, because they would have just whispered in my ears, all those, like, the manipulative, little, screwing with other people's heads, way of winning arguments. Yeah, and talking about words, I really like the word audacious. Like, I think it sums up Philip Morris, pretty, pretty nicely. But yeah, thanks for chatting, I guess, to finish off, I just wanted to touch on, like, what do you want the impact of your book to be for readers? Like, what do you want readers to, sort of, I know it's not, you're not one for, sort of like, didactic messages, but maybe what are the questions that you want people to be grappling with, you know, in their own minds? And yeah? Well, the way the book works, I think, creatively is because, I see the power of words, and about how you really can reshape the world, and reshape reality by redefining things, and by having this, like, post-modern attitude of, like, "Well words don't matter, and words can mean anything ,and definitions don't mean anything" and it's like, "OK. Fine. Maybe that's containable on a small scale level". But Philip Morris are totally taking advantage of this new world where words and definitions get to ... everyone gets to define their own truth. I mean, the whole thing of "This isn't a cigarette", I haven't really put it this way before, or thought about this way. The whole thing of, like, Philip Morris holding up tobacco rolled in paper with a filter at one end, that you plant between your lips, inhaling nicotine and tobacco into your lungs, and saying"This isn't a cigarette", that is them doing the "Well, what is truth? I mean, what really, what is anything?", it's sort of like, it's like some annoying first-year uni student in a philosophy class asking, "Yes, but what is a chair? You say that's a chair, but what is a chair?". It's like, them taking that thing that's already annoying, when it's just the first year philosophy student at university, and applying it to the most deadly company in the world. And you know, "Hey guys, but what is a cigarette?". So, it's just being very wary of people who are trying to, like, reframe the world, and redefine reality by ... by redefining words, and by, also putting forth this argument that, like, words and meanings don't matter, and everyone's truth is somehow the truth. So, yeah, this is like that kind of thought gone haywire. So, yeah, be very careful about, people, or at the very least powerful people, who are trying to screw with the dictionary and redefine what words mean, and what they don't mean. And even though obviously there's a layer to, like, there's evolution in linguistics, there's evolution in language, and things, definitions do change, and that's a good thing or whatever, right? It's like, "Okay, sure." That can be true, but at the same time, if Philip Morris are playing that game, maybe it's not good in their case. And maybe we shouldn't let Philip Morris be able to ask, "Yes, but what is a cigarette?", in the way that we grant that luxury to a first-year philosophy student at university. I resonate with lots of what you said, yeah. That's kind of you drawing the line there. It's like, you know, you can question a lot. But when it comes to, are cigarettes doing, you damage? The answer's yes. Like, is Philip Morris killing a lot of people through smoking? Yes. Is the IQOS a cigarette? I guess you're saying yes, as well. Yes. Totally. Well, thank you so much for chatting to me, John. It's been really illuminating.