Customer Reviews

Smoke Screen: The Truth Behind the Tobacco-Industry Cover-Up

5 star:		(2)
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3 star:		(1)
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I found this book at the library while I was quitting smoking and read it over a few days. The writer clearly has deep contempt and hatred for the tobacco industry, so if you are looking for a detached objective look you won't find it here. It made me very motivated to quit smoking so I have to give it five stars :-)

Hilts holds up to the light what the tobacco industry kept hidden in the darkest of places. Hilts explains how they, the tobacco industry, target our youth. They (tobacco industry) know that to get people hooked on tobacco, they must introduce them to tobacco before they hit the 18 - 21 age. If people aren't smoking by the time they reach 21 they aren't likely to start.

It takes 3 years of smoking before the user becomes addicted to nicotine. Big tobacco panders to the 13 - 15 age, knowing that those kids will be hooked and faithful to their product by the time they're 18.

I don't even have the time to list all the ways the tobacco industry plays mindgames with our youth. If the children don't take up smoking the industry will die shortly after their current customers die.

Hilts explains how they lowered the "tar" and increased the nicotine, while hawking the low-tar product as "safer".

This is a frightening book.

It begs one major question.

How can any industry knowingly kill millions of people in the past, conspire to kill millions more in the future, yet not be charged with Murder in the First Degree?

Philip Hilts has an ax to grind and he does so with determination. However, the writing tends to be repitious, pedantic and just plaing boring. There are some lively parts, particularly the testimony he includes from Jeffrey Wigand, which the movie "The Insider" was based on. The skillful deceit of the tobacco companies is also fully exposed and some parts are fascinating. If only he wouldn't keep making the same points over and over. Basically, if anyone if doing a paper on smoking as an addiction this book would be a good reference.