80s Promo Video for the Tobacco Institute, A Pro-Smoking Trade Group

This remarkable promotional video from 1984 provides a behind the scenes look at the Tobacco Institute, a tobacco industry trade group that worked for and was funded by cigarette manufacturers. The video trumpets the many pro-tobacco activities undertaken by the group, including: lobbying politicians to prevent the passage of smoking laws, fact-checking and disputing anti-smoking statements by the Surgeon General, and researching public attitudes about smoking. The Institute even operated a laboratory with an automated smoking machine. It’s purpose: to monitor the results of a similar machine operated by the Federal Trade Commission. The Tobacco Institute was dissolved in 1998 as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Thanks Gideon!

E.D.W. Lynch
E.D.W. Lynch

Writer and humor generalist on the Internet and on Facebook.