By Stanton A. Glantz (Editor), John Slade (Editor), Lisa A. Bero (Editor), Peter Hanauer (Editor), Deborah E. Barnes (Editor); University of California Press; 1998

Around-the-clock tobacco talks, multibillion-dollar lawsuits against the major cigarette companies, and legislative wrangling over how much to tax a pack of cigarettes--these are some of the most recent episodes in the war against the tobacco companies. The Cigarette Papers shows what started it all: revelations that tobacco companies had long known the grave dangers of smoking, and did nothing about it.

In May 1994 a box containing 4,000 pages of internal tobacco industry documents arrived at the office of Professor Stanton Glantz at the University of California, San Francisco. The anonymous source of these "cigarette papers" was identified only as "Mr. Butts." These documents provide a shocking inside account of the activities of one tobacco company, Brown & Williamson, over more than thirty years. Quoting extensively from the documents themselves and analyzing what they reveal, The Cigarette Papers shows what the tobacco companies have known and galvanizes us to take action.

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From Library Journal:

Two recent releases chronicle the history of the current political status of the controversial tobacco industry from different vantage points. Kluger's (The Paper, LJ 10/15/87) Ashes to Ashes is riveting and highly readable despite its length. From the Native American usage of tobacco through the lawsuits of the 1990s, Kluger follows the industry's agricultural and labor practices, technical advances, and marketing campaigns; he also considers research on tobacco's deleterious health effects and the tobacco control movement. Significant personalities and events such as the invention of the cigarette-rolling machine are featured. An extensive bibliography is provided, and a lengthy list of the Phillip Morris executives (and ex-executives!) are interviewed. Suitable for readers of high school age on up, this book belongs in every library. Much more scholarly, The Cigarette Papers focuses more on one company "Brown & Williamson" and one issue health effects. In 1994, Glantz received an anonymous package containing thousands of pages of internal documents from Brown & Williamson. The author's analysis of these indicate that, public statements to the contrary, the company did indeed know about the health and safety effects of their products and actively sought to suppress the information. The documents, made available by the University of California via the Internet (http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco), are quoted extensively. Also included is a statement by Brown & Williamson in response to the 1995 publication of some of these data in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This work is extemely thorough and at times makes for tedious reading. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Eris Weaver, Marin Inst. for the Prevention of Alcohol & Other Drug Problems, Rohnert, Cal.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author:

Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., Lisa A. Bero, Ph.D., Peter Hanauer, LL.B., and Deborah E. Barnes, B.A., are affiliated with the Institute for Health Policy Studies, the Department of Medicine, and the Division of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco. John Slade, M.D., is with the Department of Medicine at St. Peter's Medical Center and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

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