The Drug Report
The Drug Report
Fallout Growing After Philip Morris' Announced Factory in Colorado
Join us as we take you through the gripping details of Philip Morris' latest move to build a "Zyn" nicotine pouch factory in Aurora, Colorado—their first U.S. factory in half a century. This episode kicks off with a bold discussion on my recent op-ed critiquing the economic incentives granted by the Aurora City Council and the uncritical media coverage of this development. We expose the alarming health risks tied to these products, especially as they skyrocket in popularity among young people.
We'll also explore the dark history of Philip Morris, delving into their targeted marketing that has ravaged vulnerable communities—youth and people of color, in particular. From the aggressive advertising strategies to the public health crisis wrought by tobacco, this episode sheds light on the devastating consequences of these addictive products. Tune in to understand the ongoing battle against big tobacco and why staying informed about the repercussions of nicotine products is more crucial than ever.
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Yes or no? Do you believe nicotine is not addictive? I believe nicotine is not addictive. Yes, congressman, cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction. I don't believe that nicotine for our products are addictive. I believe nicotine is not addictive. I believe that nicotine is not addictive. I believe that nicotine is not addictive.
Speaker 1:Good morning everyone. This is Luke Neferatos. I am your host of the Drug Report podcast. You can check out the drugreportorg to see our website and sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter as well, as you can thank our sponsoring organizations. I should thank them, but we can all thank them SAM, smart Approaches to Marijuana, learnaboutsamorg and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, ftps, which you can find at gooddrugpolicyorg.
Speaker 1:I've got two things I want to talk about today on today's podcast. The first is for those of you who got our email that came out, I believe, on Friday or Thursday. Maybe that highlighted an op-ed I wrote actually in Aurora, colorado, which is the city where I was raised and it's one of the most diverse cities, certainly in the state of Colorado and one of the most diverse cities in the country, and it's a working class city. It's a lot of people who are working very, very hard, working more than 40 hours a week, working multiple jobs, many of them. And I wrote the op-ed because I saw news earlier in the week, last week, that Philip Morris is going to build its first factory since 1973 in the United States. So it's been basically 50 years since they have been able to, I guess, turn enough profit to justify building another factory. And they're going to build that factory in Aurora, colorado, and that factory is going to be tasked with meeting the currently exceeded national demand unmet national demand for their new nicotine pouch product called Zin.
Speaker 1:And for those of you who have been seeing the popular news about this, there's a giant shortage of these Zin pouches. They're basically a new way to consume nicotine without tobacco. It's like a little tiny pillow that you put between your lip and your teeth, a lot like Chew in that regard, and that's how you're consuming nicotine, and these products are extremely addictive and obviously they're very regard. And that's how you're consuming nicotine, and these products are extremely addictive and obviously they're very popular, and so they're coming in flavors that are obviously appealing to youth, all kinds of different flavors, designed very well, advertised heavily, as big tobacco always does, and so there's so many people that want these products that the demand has exceeded the supply of these products. There's a shortage, and somebody described the experience of looking for more Zin by saying they felt like a crackhead in one of these news reports, going from store to store to store looking for Zin to meet their addiction. And so clearly they have done a very good job of marketing these products, making them very addictive, and there's a lot of people already who are addicted to them. So they're trying to bring that to Aurora, colorado, the Aurora City Council, led by former Republican Congressman Mike Coffman. They gave over $7 million in tax incentives for Philip Morris to build this factory that they just announced they're going to build and they held a huge event celebrating this with a big PR strategy, lots of news articles that were pretty much exclusively one-sided celebrating the return of big tobacco to Colorado, and Governor Jared Polis was there, kaufman was there, multiple other people were there toasting this as if it's just great news. And you know, knowing the history of Philip Morris and it's, you know it's really interesting. So I wrote this op-ed Hopefully. I think many of you have probably seen it, but certainly it'll be in our newsletter tomorrow and you can check it out at the Aurora Sentinel. You can look up my name, luke Neferatus, and you'll see the op-ed.
Speaker 1:And I talked about the history of Philip Morris, the way that they have relentlessly targeted communities of color, vulnerable, younger demographics, women. They have obviously profited from addiction and death. Their products are responsible for millions of Americans dying, millions of people dying across the globe. The tobacco industry's products, particularly cigarettes, are responsible for the vast majority of the world's death, avoidable deaths and poverty and basically any kind of awful statistic in the world of public health, and you can almost always trace it back to tobacco and the cigarette. And so the idea that, after we spent almost 100 years getting this industry under wraps, having a master settlement, all the things we've tried to do to get this industry out of our society from wreaking this carnage and havoc, the idea that we'd have a state governor and a city's mayor celebrating them and rolling out the red carpet for them to build their first factory in 50 years, it just felt like we were going the wrong direction. So I talk about all that in the op-ed.
Speaker 1:I also talk about the health harms of what we know so far, early on, because it's very early. This is a new way to consume nicotine, but the early evidence is telling us that, yes, they're extremely addictive, first of all because it's nicotine, an addictive chemical. Second of all, they have other health harms that impact your body, your longevity, all kinds of issues, whether it's related, potentially, to the way you're consuming the products in your mouth, whether it's to do with your blood pressure other issues that we're starting to learn about. But what researchers have told us is that they don't even have a full safety profile on these products because they've got other additives in them that we don't really know a lot about. We don't know the full extent of the harm, which reminds me a lot of where we were with cigarettes. You know, 100 years ago, when they invented these products, we didn't know, we unleashed them on the public and then whoops found out that they were giant killers. What are we going to find out with these nicotine pouches in 10, 20 years, who knows? Unfortunately, we're unleashing them on the public and again going to find out.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, op-ed comes out. It gets some play. I had no idea the level of sophistication of Big Tobacco, even today. They have hired the best firms PR firms, lawyers, corporate counsel, etc. That are out there and they still have them. So my op-ed comes out. A few days later I find out that the corporate legal team of philip morris has demanded that the aurora sentinel editorial board that's, the, the paper for the city of aurora take down my op-ed. And they went through, line by line, my op-ed. I mean, we're talking about this giant international corporation. Their corporate legal team and PR team have the time to go through my op-ed in Aurora, colorado, line by line, rebutting it, obfuscating the facts, just like they've been doing for the last 75 years. They're still doing the same things and thankfully the editorial board is well aware of the history of their tactics to undermine the truth and they refused to take down my editorial.
Speaker 1:But what was interesting, what came out of this, was a tactic that I guess is known to newsrooms that was not known to me, which is that Philip Morris legally split into two legal entities. There's Philip Morris International, which is the entity that's setting up this factory, and then there's Philip Morris Altria, which they basically say Philip Morris Altria is the original owner of these tobacco brands. And so now what they do to newsrooms all over the country is they say well, people who are writing negative things about Philip Morris, they're talking about Philip Morris Altria. This is Philip Morris International, a totally different entity. What they don't say is that both entities are still very much in bed together. Both entities have some form of ownership or influence over the same tobacco products and brands, and so there's really a very you know, it's a very big gray area in terms of what actually separates these two entities. So they basically have used this as a tactic to stop negative publicity about their horrible brands that are hurting so many people and killing so many people around the world.
Speaker 1:And so I, you know, I wrote this op-ed trying to just defend a city where I grew up, and I kind of kicked over this hornet's nest of an industry vehicle that's been in motion for a really long time, that tries to obfuscate the truth and shut down dissent, and I just refused to be shut down. We at SAM refused to be shut down. We're going to speak the truth to big tobacco, big marijuana and all of these addiction industries, and we are not going to be silent and all of these addiction industries, and we are not going to be silent. And in fact, even just before I recorded this podcast, I received a phone call from one of the top PR firms in Colorado that disclosed they had been retained by Philip Morris International and they were calling on me to adjust or take down my op-ed. So there you go. You have an industry that literally works night and day and hires people to shut down dissenting voices and when the truth comes out. So that's why we do what we do at SAM.
Speaker 1:That actually really crystallized it for me, and that's why we are fighting against this commercialization of marijuana, because if the marijuana industry becomes anything like what big tobacco has become like and they're well on their way to that then we can expect this kind of sophistication that is attempting to stop the truth from coming out, to fund bogus studies, to hire amazing legal firm law firms that will totally spin yarns around what is actually true and accurate and to try to hide their guilt for the lives that they are harming. So that, I think, is just a great case study for why we're doing what we're doing at SAM and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions. And so we're going to continue to speak up about this growing ZIN issue, because we're starting to see more and more problems related to this, and it really seems to be like the resurgence of big tobacco, with marijuana products on one hand, and these new kind of smokeless nicotine products on the other hand, and it's interesting because they're now trying to call themselves harm reduction. These products are harm reduction because they're not smoked, so you don't have the carcinogenic effects associated with that. Well, I think the jury's still out on what carcinogens might be in the additives that they're putting in these nicotine pouches. Nicotine alone is not good for you, obviously, and so you know how much harm reduction is there, I think, is an open question.
Speaker 1:Second question is just because this industry may be quote unquote, reducing the harms associated with their products doesn't make it a good industry. Doesn't make these products any better for you. Maybe they don't have smoke and cause carcinogens, but they're still addicting you and making you beholden to this industry that then wants to push you into their other product categories. And what is that going to look like? And I think that's a question we have to ask, and we should also now look at this model and how it relates to big marijuana, and how are they going to follow in their big brother tobacco's footsteps? Are they going to also push for this quote-unquote, smoke-free future, their harm reduction companies, like what Altria says about themselves? Because right now there's so many people that consume marijuana by smoking it, but are they going to push for these vaping products, which obviously they are, but are they going to try to prioritize that? Are they going to push the edibles, these concentrates and other such things? And what is that going to look like for the future of drug use? And I think we're going to see a combination of these strategies, a combination of these products, and then you start to look at well, this is an addiction for profit, drug dealing model, and the drug dealing is being done by giant corporations this time around, and they'll say well, look, we're doing such a great job and why don't we legalize all these other drug substances that are out there Cocaine next and what else after that? Because they are building a global supply chain model, a PR infrastructure, a legal infrastructure that allows them to do this and get away with it, harming millions of lives in the process, addicting people and making them beholden to their companies in the process. At some point, we have to stop that, and so that's where we, as the SAM and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, are going to continue to step in and speak up and stop them from pulling this off.
Speaker 1:And it's just so interesting how you look at how they're using harm reduction now the tobacco industry in addition to the marijuana industry. And it all starts from this model of medicine. You know, that's how they got marijuana legalized. That's how cigarettes started getting normalized. Was they paid doctors to normalize their products by saying that they're medically useful? And so there's been really a jury rigging of the medical institutions we have in this country, which obviously, I think contributes to the lack of faith that Americans have in the medical institutions in this country right now, and I think we need to have that conversation as well. But we should not let big tobacco and big marijuana start dictating to us what medicine is, what harm reduction is and what's actually good for you. I think that's going to be really critical. So that's kind of the lessons learned over the last week from big tobacco and how this is now going to be bleeding over into big marijuana.
Speaker 1:If you haven't read my op-ed, please do. It'll be in our drug report newsletter tomorrow. You can also look at it at the Aurora Sentinel. Thank you. Drug Report newsletter tomorrow. You can also look at it at the Aurora Sentinel. Thank you, I hope you have an absolutely wonderful rest of your week and please check out our obviously all of our websites that I've mentioned. Give us a review on whatever podcast site you're listening to this on, please. Five stars is very helpful. Share this with your friends. Share this out there and, by the way, hope you like the new graphic that we have for the podcast. I thought that was pretty cool. Have a great week everyone.