Tobacco Industry facts

While investigating facts about Tobacco Industry, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Tobacco plants easily absorb radioactive particles, causing radioactive polonium settling down in the lungs directly. This can be avoided, but tobacco industry consider washing "too expensive"

The Type A/B Personality Theory was actually invented by the cigarette industry in the 1950's to prove coronary heart disease and cancer were risks related to high-stress personality types instead of tobacco use.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 24 of the best facts about Tobacco Industry I managed to collect.

1. The Nat Sherman tobacco company introduced plastic tipped cigars to the industry. While the government never granted them a desired patent on the idea, they bluffed away any competitors for 32 years by putting "Patent Pending" on the packaging.

2. The fertilizer used by the Tobacco Industry is radioactive. The plant absorbs it and the smoker inhales it. It gets lodged in the lungs and over time contributes a huge radiation dose to the smoker and could be factor in lung cancer.

3. Type A and Type B personality theory research was heavily funded and promoted by the tobacco industry. Their goal was to suggest a link between personality and heart disease in an attempt discredit evidence showing a link between smoking and heart disease.

4. The Liggett XA Project developed a non cancer causing cigarette but the project was quashed by the tobacco industry because it implied cigarettes were harmful. Joseph Greer, Ligget's general counsel later died of lung cancer.

5. North Carolina's agriculture focused on plantations of tobacco, rice, and indigo (purple dye). Industry in South Carolina focused on plantations of cattle, cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo.

6. Common hop is used in the perfume industry and as flavoring agent in tobacco industry.

7. The tobacco industry has spent decades attempting to create a cancer-free cigarette, to no avail.

8. Major industry in Bolivia includes mining, petro-products, tobacco, clothing, handicrafts and food products.

9. The term "Type A personality" originated from a bogus, tobacco industry-funded study seeking to pin the blame for heart disease and cancer on an inherently stressful lifestyle, rather than cigarette smoking

10. "Dicky" Scruggs, a billionaire attorney who made his fortune defending victims of big corporations including the tobacco industry. He was on his way to get people their insurance settlements from Hurricane Katrina until he was found guilty of bribing a judge and went to jail himself.

What is true about tobacco industry?

You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.

Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, a small group of otolaryngologists have repeatedly testified, on behalf of the tobacco industry, that heavy smoking did not cause the cancer in cases of dying patients suing for damages, according to a study by a Stanford University

Although its resort and archeological tourist industry has boomed in recent years, Nayarit's economy has been historically based on the agricultural sector. The main cash crops include coffee, sugar, corn, tobacco, and tomatoes, which is augmented by livestock and commercial fishing.

After combing through nearly 50 million pages of previously secret internal tobacco-industry documents, UC Davis and UC San Francisco researchers say they have documented how the industry funded and used scientific studies to undermine evidence linking secondhand smoke to cardiovascular disease - source

In the 1950s-80s the tobacco industry funded biased research to show (inaccurately) that the health risks of smoking are not actually due to the tobacco itself, but are rather the result of the affected individuals having Type A personalities and/or so-called “addictive personalities”.

The tobacco industry's conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use, producing research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty in the name of science, is a prime example of Agnotology, the study of culturally induced ignorance. - source

Major industry in Virginia was plantation crops including wheat, corn, and tobacco.

Truth anti-tobacco ads are funded by a 1998 lawsuit against the tabacco industry that required tabacco companies pay $206 Billion over the first 25 years of the agreement.

In 1891, The Iranian Qajar leader, Nasir al-Din Shah, sold the Tobacco industry in Iran to the British for £15,000. Yes, you read that right.

Smoking in 1959 is like eating in 2019. How the tobacco industry lobbyists have been selling lies in the past to sell their products like animal agriculture and ignorant doctors are now, as they themselves eat the food that helps them make money.

The Japanese government had a monopoly in the tobacco industry from 1898-1985 and is required by law to own 1/3 of Japan Tobacco, a company that controls over 60% of the Japanese cigarette market.

The tobacco and oil industries use the same PR company and scientists to sway the public into believing that both are benign.