Big Tobacco announces a healthier world while fighting against its arrival

The industry continues to support smoking protections, such as the November ballot initiative in California that would overturn a law banning tobacco flavors.

For decades, public health advocates have reduced the influence of Big Tobacco with measures aimed at discouraging cigarette smoking. But the bitter legal and political battles were just a prelude to the climate shock that could determine the fate of smoking and whether these companies adapt or fail.

U.S. Health officials have launched by far the most aggressive attack on cigarettes: twin government proposals would ban menthol-flavored cigarettes and limit nicotine levels to make traditional smoking less addictive. At the same time, the government is slowly embracing vaping as an alternative by allowing the sale of certain e-cigarettes, which can provide smokers with a hit of nicotine without most carcinogens.

The measures are the source of a clash that is expected to unfold over the coming months and years in courtrooms, legislative halls and regulatory hearings. For public health advocates, these measures aim to save millions of lives and reduce the billions of dollars spent on smoking-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

Big Tobacco said it's embracing the transition - sort of.

"We have an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond smoking" , Billy Gifford, chief executive of Altria, one of the world's largest cigarette manufacturers conglomerates and the parent company of Philip Morris USA, told Wall Street analysts and investors in late October. The opening slide of his presentation offered a vision for the company: "To responsibly lead adult smokers' transition to a smoke-free future."

De Big cigarette companies, like Altria and R.J. Reynolds, recognize that cigarettes are dangerous and addictive, and they advertise their investments in e-cigarettes and other less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. But, with much less fanfare, they're taking steps to slow the very smoke-free future they claim to want: Companies have submitted letters protesting the proposed ban on menthol in traditional cigarettes, and they've reported that 'they would similarly resist any effort to reduce nicotine levels. .

And Big Tobacco doesn't just fight at the federal level, but fights local initiatives. For example, in California, the industry spent $22 million to support a Nov. 8 ballot proposal that would overturn a 2020 law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol. The law has not gone into effect pending the outcome of the referendum.

The California Coalition for Fairness, the tobacco industry-funded group originally of the campaign that won the referendum on the ballot, argues that banning flavors 'benefits the wealthy and special interests while costing jobs and cutting funding for education and health care' .

Mr. Gifford, on his late October call with investors, said of the flavor ban: We don't think the science supports it.

In various statements, R.J. Reynolds, owned by British American Tobacco and the second-largest cigarette company in the United States after Altria, said it also less harm, but that it continued to follow a business model that critics say puts public health before profit.

In Reynolds' filing against banning menthol, he wrote that, generally speaking, he "fully supports the FDA's goal of reducing tobacco-related disease." But, he argued, "menthol smokers would simply switch to menthol-free cigarettes or turn to riskier options such as illicit market cigarettes." The company declined further comment beyond its filing.

As the smoking population in the United States fell to 13% from 21% in 2005, Far from a peak of about 45 percent of adults in 1954, and public opinion turned against cigarettes, Big Tobacco's legal and political power also declined. A