Website: Tobacco Tactics

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Here is a Website I stumbled upon that looks really interesting, called Tobacco Tactics. I hope the people behind it keep it active. I’ll definitely be checking it out over the next few days. The group also has a Facebook page with links to other anti-tobacco resources. It’s based out of the UK (seems to be part of the University of Bath), so it has a bit of an emphasis on the UK and expends a lot of energy on the battle over plain packaging of cigarette packs (that’s strictly a non-U.S. issue, plain packaging was thrown out in the U.S. over First Amendment issues).

This site focuses on the tobacco industry’s deceptive marketing tactics and misinformation campaign. Man, they have some really extensive stuff in there about astroturfing and Internet trolls. I’ve always wondered if “Confederate1978” (the most active pro-smoking troll I’ve ever seen) was some kind of paid tobacco operative (probably not, but you never know.).

As an aside, on virtually every e-cigarette article I find online that has comments, there always seem to be people wildly endorsing e-cigarettes and how they are harmless and how they helped them quit smoking. I have seriously wondered at times if these posters are genuine or if some of them are literally employees of e-cigarette companies.

Anyway, this site is an awesome source of information on the industry’s incredibly sordid history of lies, cover-ups and dishonest tactics that go on to this day. It will take me forever to plow through all this. There’s a chapter on “pro-smoking blogs” that I think I could add some names to!

Anyway, check it out! It’s an informative read.