Big tobacco using Trojan horse tactics to exploit Indigenous peoples

Abstract

The tobacco industry has a long history of exploiting Indigenous peoples and their culture. During the 1980s, tobacco company WD & HO Wills ran racist advertising in Australia carrying the slogan ‘Get your own black’. In the late 1990s, Winfield advertisements depicted an Aboriginal man playing a didgeridoo with the slogan ‘Australians’ answer to the peace pipe’.1 2 More recently, Philip Morris International (PMI) has sold cigarettes in Israel labelled ‘Māori Mix’3 and in the USA, R.J. Reynolds continues to market Natural American Spirit using Native American imagery.4 Thus, tobacco industry exploitation of Indigenous peoples continues. Show more