'Insider' to give MPs lowdown on Big Tobacco

Photo / Brett Phibbs

The American tobacco company whistle blower who inspired the Russell Crowe movie The Insider is coming to New Zealand next week to give MPs the inside picture on tobacco company tactics.

Dr Jeffrey Wigand was head of research at Brown & Williamson - part of the British American Tobacco group - until he was sacked in 1993.

The 1999 movie starring Crowe and Al Pacino was based on Dr Wigand's fight with the company over his allegations, publicised in explosive CBS television interviews, that the industry had lied over its knowledge that nicotine was addictive and tobacco could cause cancer and other diseases.

He had worked on developing a "safer" cigarette but said the work was halted because it would be seen as implying the company knew its other cigarettes were unsafe.

Dr Wigand, a key witness in US anti-tobacco litigation, said he was subjected to an industry smear campaign, a bullet was found in his letterbox and his family was threatened with harm "if I told the truth about the inner workings of the tobacco company I worked for".

Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) is bringing Dr Wigand to New Zealand to give lectures and to give expert evidence to Parliament's Maori Affairs committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the tobacco industry.

British American Tobacco NZ has given evidence to the committee but Maori Party MP Hone Harawira was frustrated by general manager Graeme Amey's answers on tobacco marketing and his assertion the company had no strategy on marketing tobacco to young Maori. Mr Amey agreed to return with documents to verify this at a hearing now expected to be held on June 30.

Ash spokesman Michael Colhoun said yesterday it was important for the MPs to hear from a global expert on tobacco like Dr Wigand.

"They will be better informed about what tactics the tobacco industry uses that they [tobacco companies] haven't admitted to already."

Smokefree Coalition director Prudence Stone said: "It's important the select committee learns about the deception of the tobacco industry ... just so the Government is made as aware as possible of all those tactics."