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COLD FACTS
Smoking kills, yet tobacco companies continue to attract new smokers.
The question is: How? Tonight Cold Facts can reveal that
the tobacco industry secretly tries to influence us and our elected officials.
We can reveal that the government
has actually taken sides with the tobacco companies.
Sweden tops the EU's list of countries
with the fewest number of smokers.
We disgraced ourselves in front of the whole world.
THE GOVERNMENT'S SMOKESCREENS
One of every two smokers dies early.
The tobacco companies therefore need to find new customers.
The World Health Organisation tries to protect youths from starting to smoke
by banning menthol cigarettes and putting warnings on cigarette packs.
Linda McAvan, Member European Parliament
If we look back in time
we can see that tobacco lobbyists have already stopped tougher regulation.
In trials in the USA back in the 90's
the tobacco industry was forced to pay billions of dollars in fines
for having concealed the risks of smoking.
Stanton Glantz is a foremost researcher on lobbying by the tobacco companies.
He has examined the tobacco companies' internal documents
which show how Philip Morris in the 80's launched a big lobbying campaign
in Sweden to avoid having to put warning labels on cigarette packs.
The campaign proved to be a huge success for the tobacco industry.
We are meeting Monica Karlsson on a farm
where she helps out with the animals.
She started smoking at an early age.
When I was around 14 or 15 I started going to discotheques.
And that meant both smoking and drinking.
But everything changed when her mother, who also smoked, got sick.
It went really fast.
She just got worse and worse.
It was in April that they found the tumour
and then in June she died of lung cancer.
That's when I got really frightened.
A few weeks before she died, she made me promise to stop smoking.
And I said I would.
Despite the fact that smoking kills
tobacco companies manage to recruit new customers
young girls in particular. How is that possible?
We decide to find out how the tobacco companies reach the young.
We discover an ad at a job centre in Stockholm.
"Host/Hostess needed by a well-known tobacco company."
We want to find out what sort of enterprise lies concealed behind the ad.
We go to the interview equipped with a hidden camera.
It turns out that one of the world's biggest tobacco companies
is responsible for the ad, via an events planner.
It's a tobacco company that sells Marlboro, L&M and Chesterfield...
They want to reach their target group.
So you're an ambassador for Philip Morris and represent the company.
It's when darkness has fallen that the campaign rolls out.
When the young take over the night
the cigarette girls rotate among the bars.
You work from 11.00 at night till 4.00 in the morning.
Dr. Pamela Ling is part of an American research team
which has scrutinised the tobacco companies' internal documents.
Research shows that mixing alcohol and cigarettes has a chemical effect.
That is why tobacco companies search for new smokers in bars.
Despite the fact that smoking is banned in bars
this is where new cigarette brands are introduced.
Have you heard of Marlboro Ice Blast?
- It's being introduced right now. - You mentioned it on the phone.
It's a menthol cigarette that has a capsule.
When you press on it, you get an even more intense menthol taste.
So there's a huge focus on that during this campaign period.
After our reporter's interview she gets a call.
I'd really like for you to come in for another interview.
A representative from Philip Morris will be there this time.
COLD FACTS WILL BE RIGHT BACK
Our Cold Facts reporter applies for a job as a cigarette girl.
She gets called in for second interview.
A Philip Morris representative is also present in the event planner's office.
I'm project coordinator for Philip Morris events and festivals.
Our reporter has learned that it's against the law to market tobacco.
The tobacco laws must be followed, we can't market tobacco.
Outwardly they call it "information". But what both the event planner
and the Philip Morris representative are talking about is marketing.
This is what's needed for marketing.
We have material with us for marketing this product.
Whatever message we want to spread.
Our reporter doesn't get the job as a cigarette girl.
But with a mobile camera we randomly film the hostesses.
Here at some of the most trendy bars in the city, the girls launch new products.
In inner city Stockholm, almost every other high school girl smokes.
Philip Morris says that it is obeying the law, that smoking is a free choice.
When Monica stopped smoking
she didn't think anyone else in her family would be affected.
But last spring she made the discovery.
We were out driving in the car, and I sneezed.
I felt a burning in my throat and I wondered what it was.
I'd sneezed pretty hard, so I figured maybe I'd pulled some throat muscle.
But then I felt a little lump.
X-RAY EQUIPMENT
She visits her doctor and undergoes tests at Karolinska hospital.
I had stopped smoking nearly five years ago.
When I go back there on Friday she tells me I have dysplasia.
They'd found abnormal cells in my lung. That's what lung cancer is.
What went through your mind?
I couldn't believe it was true.
I still had no symptoms
so it felt very strange that a little lump could be lung cancer.
Lung cancer is one of the most deadly forms of cancer.
In Sweden, there are 20 times as many deaths from smoking
than from traffic accidents.
WHO considers tobacco so deadly that the tobacco industry mustn't be allowed
to secretly undermine or delay any legislation.
In Sweden lobbying is not regulated.
But for tobacco it makes an exception.
Sweden has signed a UN convention.
Article 5 says that tobacco companies may not meet secretly with politicians
and that the tobacco companies may not give money in secret to politicians.
Florence Berteletti works for a coalition of doctors
and cancer organisations that do battle against tobacco.
There are fewer people who smoke in Sweden, and we top the EU's list
of the fewest number of people who smoke.
The government paints Sweden as a model in the battle against tobacco.
But Cold Facts can show that the government
has secretly tried to hinder tougher measures against the tobacco industry.
In 2008, the tobacco convention is to be ratified in Durban, South Africa.
In the secret negotiations Sweden refuses to vote in its favour.
I was Sweden's representative for that.
And it was no secret that Sweden wasn't very positive
in regard to certain aspects of the policies
regarding openness with contacts and openness about donations.
Sweden was a headstrong opponent.
Sweden's refusal to want to account for its contacts
with the tobacco lobby comes as a shock.
I felt Sweden would be assuming an enormous responsibility
by stopping policies that concerned such an important issue:
the influence of the tobacco industry on our public health policy.
Should Sweden be among those who would stop it?
The Swedish negotiator rebels against the government.
I said that I would resign from the delegation
if we didn't vote for the convention
because I felt that we were disgracing ourselves in front of the whole world.
Eventually the government is forced to relent.
Sweden promises to follow the UN tobacco convention.
But we can show that the government year after year
ignores what it has signed.
And politicians have close relations with the tobacco companies
without telling anyone about them.
Thank you. - Kajsa Lunderquist now has the floor.
This is MP Kajsa Lunderquist, a member of the Constitution Committee
who battles for the right of tobacco companies to display their trademarks.
She has introduced several motions regarding this issue.
For me it's mainly an ideological issue, of preserving an open and free market.
Two motions that, according to reports, have been paid for by Philip Morris
whose press officer at the time was Rola Brentlin.
Yes, we're friends.
How do you feel about her representing Philip Morris now?
I have many friends in many different positions in the industrial world.
According to Article 5.3 of the UN tobacco treaty
interaction with tobacco companies should be transparent and accountable.
We see that you socialise with the Philip Morris representative here
which is in conflict with these policies. What do you say to that?
I've heard of the article you're referring to.
I don't think that it's compatible with Swedish democratic traditions.
An MP should obviously be able to have contact with different companies.
But Sweden ratified this convention.
As I said, I think it's obvious that one can form a judgment about things
through contact with different companies and organisations.
- How often do you meet Rola Brentlin? - You've exceeded your time limit.
- We didn't agree on a time limit. - Yes, we did.
- No, we didn't. - Kajsa needs to go to a meeting now.
Kajsa Lunderquist doesn't want to resume the interview later.
Tobacco expert Stanton Glantz considers it totally indefensible
for politicians to be the tobacco companies' tools.
For over a month we've tried to get a TV interview
with the managing director of Philip Morris Sweden, Karl Stenberg.
But he doesn't give TV interviews.
The tobacco giant only answers email questions.
The government has one clear goal:
"to reduce the use of tobacco and prevent minors from starting to use it."
But as we've shown, Sweden secretly pursues a different policy in the UN.
Year after year, Sweden refuses to ratify UN proposals
that limit lobbying by tobacco companies.
Every country's negotiating instructions are secret.
But a source has given us access to Sweden's secret instructions
for the UN meeting in Uruguay in 2010.
We can reveal that Sweden refused to accept
a UN ban on political parties taking donations from the tobacco industry.
"Sweden is against proposals/recommendations/policies"
"which forbid political parties and candidates"
"from accepting donations from the tobacco industry."
Margaretha Haglund is present as an expert at this meeting as well.
I was very surprised when I saw that sentence about donations
because it wasn't even on the agenda.
The person ultimately responsible for Sweden's tobacco policy
is the Health Minister, Maria Larsson. She declines an interview at first
but at a press conference for the local media we ask our questions.
"Sweden is against proposals/policies"
"which forbid parties from accepting donations from the tobacco industry."
It's instructions that come from your ministry, the Ministry of Health.
It seems very odd.
I can't see any reason why we as parties or candidates
should be able to take donations from the tobacco industry.
Have you taken money from the tobacco industry?
Has any politician, through an intermediary or in some other way?
I personally have never taken money from the tobacco industry.
Witnesses tell us that you've continually opposed regulating the tobacco lobby.
At the meeting in South Africa
the government voted against the article that would regulate tobacco lobbying.
I find that very odd. As a government, as candidates, as party representatives
we should have nothing to do with the tobacco industry
as far as accepting money or anything else.
Is it reasonable for a negotiator for Sweden to say before the UN
that Sweden is opposed to forbidding parties or candidates
from taking donations from the tobacco industry?
- It seems very odd to me. - What are you going to do?
- I have to find out how it happened. - How could you not know about it?
All papers don't pass through my hands.
- But you're ultimately responsible! - That's why I'm going to ask about it.
Monica receives chemotherapy treatment regularly now.
This is my third series of treatments.
After my second series my hair started falling out.
If I just pulled my hair it came out in big tufts.
I put up with that for about a week, but then... As I stood in the shower
my hair fell out in masses, so one night I pulled out what I could.
Then I shaved off the rest.
When I speak with people who've got sick after having smoked
I choose to speak about the tobacco industry.
Their aggression and frustration shouldn't be aimed at themselves.
It should be aimed at the tobacco industry.
And perhaps at the decision makers
who have avoided doing what must be done so that others can avoid this.
In an email to Cold Facts, Maria Larsson says that the Swedish rules
for party support were incompatible with the UN proposal.
In Sweden party support must be kept secret.
Read her complete reply on our webpage
where you can also find Philip Morris' comments
which we received after this programme was completed.
On our Facebook page you can ask our reporter, Erik Palm, more questions
and tell us what you think we should investigate.
Cold Facts will be back next week
investigating a new trend among Swedish sex customers.
Those who buy sex nowadays may not be the ones we think they are.
I don't run after girls any more. Girls in bars no longer interest me.
Hi. I'm Martin.
Subtitling by Susanna Stevens Svensk Medietext