Episode 1 Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking

INHALING

Cigarettes are the most lethal consumer product on the planet.

Every year, more than five million customers

of the tobacco industry die.

These are people who know that their success

can be measured in millions of deaths.

The more successful they are, the more people will die.

In this series, we investigate how thousands of young people

around the world are still taking up smoking every day.

And recently, the numbers of 25- to 34-year-old smokers

in the UK has increased.

The reality is the vast majority of smokers start smoking as children.

We see how powerful cigarette companies manipulate smokers

and seduce the young - potential victims of the fatal addiction.

They need children to start smoking to replace

the smokers that they lose.

We look at the industry's fight against increasing regulation

and its last-ditch battle to prevent plain packaging,

with gruesome health warnings replacing glossy images.

We want to protect the next generation from

the terrible consequences of smoking cigarettes.

We travel to Australia, where the industry fought

a ferocious battle against plain packaging

to protect its last vital marketing tool.

-I make the rules around here.

-It was feral...

So I'm going to remove all branding

so every cigarette pack looks the same.

..it was ferocious...

Do as you're told!

..they threw everything at it.

For an industry under constant attack, it's in remarkable health.

With eye-watering profits of more than £30 billion a year,

the industry would appear to be winning.

It's an extraordinary amount of money for an industry

that was worth a tiny fraction of that 20 years ago,

and an industry that seemingly has been

under threat for the last 50 years.

I've spent 40 years investigating how, in the past,

the industry has dissembled and lied.

But now we've been allowed inside the second-largest tobacco company

in the world, British American Tobacco, to talk to its directors.

I think that the future is about tobacco harm reduction, it's about

providing a range of alternative nicotine products to consumers.

We are indeed the problem. That is no reason for us

not to be part of the solution.

Who finally wins the decisive battle over plain packaging

has still to be decided.

We're talking about young people and children,

and we have a duty of care to our young people.

Everyone knows that smoking kills,

so why are young people still taking it up?

I wondered what makes these teenagers

leave the warmth of their classroom.

THEY GIGGLE AND SHIVER

BOY: It's too cold.

Is the cigarette your friend on a bitterly cold, stormy day like this?

Not really!

It's horrible coming out in the wind and the weather

and everything to have a smoke, but you need to do it, don't you? So...

What's it like when you take your first drag?

-When you're stressed, it's pretty nice.

-Good, isn't it?

-Oh, yeah.

-But when you wake up in the morning, it's quite horrible.

It tastes disgusting when you wake up, but...

But you come out here because you want a cigarette,

why do you want a cigarette?

-Just...

-You need one! Yeah, I need one.

-College is stressful, so...

Very stressful.

Makes you need 'em more and more.

These three Manchester teenagers started smoking

when they were 12 and 15.

Girls are now just as likely to smoke as boys.

The reality is, the vast majority of smokers

start smoking as children, before the age of 18,

and the products that are appealing to young adult smokers,

that are glossy and attractive,

are also very appealing to young teenagers.

The tobacco industry insists it does not target children,

but in the UK, there's a staggering statistic.

Every year, 200,000 children aged between 11 and 15 start smoking.

They need children to start smoking to replace

the smokers that they lose.

Smokers can't fail to be aware of the health risks -

they scream out from every packet.

They're like pariahs,

with fewer and fewer places where they can light up.

MUSIC: "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes

# Back and forth through my mind behind a cigarette... #

Overall, the habit is slowly declining in the UK,

but still around one in five adults smoke, as do many celebs.

And smoking among 20- to 34-year-olds

has actually increased in the last few years.

Despite constant attacks by the anti-tobacco lobby

and government restrictions, the tobacco industry,

unlike some of its customers, shows no sign of dying.

When you've got a highly addictive product used by

a very large number of people, it's a licence to print money.

The tobacco industry sold around six trillion cigarettes last year.

British American Tobacco - BAT -

manufactures 700 billion cigarettes annually.

Its biggest factory is here in Germany.

What first hits you when you enter the factory, apart from the noise

and the smell of tobacco, is its sheer size and scale.

These machines are churning out around 200 million cigarettes a day.

It's really quite staggering.

The industry's profits are even more staggering.

It makes a great deal of money.

The estimate for 2012 is that retail sales for the entire industry

were almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars, and then

the manufacturer profit from that is going to be north of 50 billion.

Ironically, nearly everyone's future is invested in tobacco.

Pension funds are addicted to it, including the BBC's.

And Government is addicted, too.

Tobacco taxes bring in nearly twice the direct cost

to the NHS of treating smoking-related diseases.

Tobacco remains the darling of the City.

It's held on to that position

despite the premature deaths of millions

and decades of attacks from governments and critics.

My first encounter with a tobacco company was in 1975,

when I confronted Imperial Tobacco's board at their AGM

over its refusal to accept the medical evidence.

'Sir John, I ask the question purely as a matter of public interest.

'Out, out, out. Sit down.'

British American Tobacco was the only tobacco company

that opened its doors to us.

BAT is in the London Stock Exchange's top ten.

It makes no apology for what it does.

We're running a successful business.

It's a well-governed international business,

it's a legal business, we have a legitimate right to operate.

Isn't the paradox that your profits continue to increase

despite everything that the Government

and the anti-tobacco lobby has done to try and curb your activities?

Well, we make profits and increase our profits

because we also are responsive to the demands of our shareholders.

And remember, at the same time that we may have increased

our share price and our profits,

governments have also increased their excise take substantially.

In fact, we pay something like £30 billion worth of excise

to exchequers all over the world.

So why, despite all the increasing regulations,

are so many people still smoking?

Most people start before they are 18,

almost half even before they're 16.

With our three teenage smokers now back in the warmth,

I wanted to know why they smoke.

Molly, why did you start?

All of my friends smoked, so I was like...a bit left out,

I had to stay inside while they smoked, so...

-it came social.

-Do you think it's cool to smoke?

I did at the start, I was like, "Oh, God, got a cigarette, I'm cool!"

So we started socially smoking, and it just got more and more, and you

found that when you did have a drink and stuff, you enjoyed a cigarette.

Ian, aren't you concerned about your health?

You started smoking when you were 12,

you're now smoking between 10 and 20 a day.

I've never thought about it, really.

I'm always trying to keep healthy and stuff.

Aren't you worried about getting lung cancer,

-heart disease, bronchitis...

-Yeah, yeah.

..in quite a few years' time?

Well, y-yeah, yeah! Yeah, but...

-It's not going to happen to you?

-I hope not anyway!

You think, "Oh, that's not going to happen to me.

"There's so many people out there smoking, why's it going to be me?"

But I guess it always could be you, couldn't it?

Cos you're doing the exact same thing as them.

Diane and John Marshall also started smoking in their teens.

Yeah, yeah. That's in black and white, so it must have been 1963.

A lifetime of smoking has taken a dreadful toll on both.

-That's me, look, smoking.

-And you wish you'd never had it.

I know, I do. I should have stopped smoking before anyway.

We both should.

Diane started smoking in the 1960s, when she was 19.

I just wanted to be the same as everybody else.

Try it and see what it'd be like.

And I enjoyed it, so I'll carry on smoking.

-How old were when you started smoking, John?

-14.

'John used to be a long-distance lorry driver,

'and he rolled his own.'

-How many did you go on to smoke?

-100 a day when I were driving.

-100 a day?!

-100 a day when I were driving.

I loved it. It was just summat to do.

I really enjoyed it.

Did you ever worry about what your smoking 100 cigarettes a day

might be doing to you?

I did. I'd only heard what everybody else said, like,

"It'll kill you in t'end."

I believe 'em now.

After the Second World War, Britain became a smoker's paradise.

Three out of four men were puffing away,

and women were becoming addicted, too.

Even doctors were promoted as role models.

INFOMERCIAL VOICEOVER: In this nationwide survey...

Try camels yourself.

There was a time when you could smoke any time,

anywhere and everywhere.

On trains...

..on buses...

..on planes...

..and in offices.

Cigarettes were glamorous, but the legacy was anything but -

an awesome toll of death and disease.

PARROT CHIRPS

-What has smoking done to you?

-Knackered me.

-Short of breath, angina...

-Everything.

HE BREATHES RAPIDLY You've got everything, haven't you?

If I'd have known, I would have packed up a long, long while ago.

I wish I'd never, ever even seen a cigarette...

-the amount of trouble I've had.

-Who do you blame?

-It's myself.

Can only blame myself.

John suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease -

COPD - and he has a heart condition, too.

Diane was diagnosed 13 years ago with a virulent form of lung cancer.

She was given a year-and-a-half to live.

What was your reaction when you were told that you had lung cancer?

I didn't really know what to say or what to do,

I just wanted to go in a room on me own and scream.

"Well, it can't be me. It can't have happened to me."

-But I still carried on smoking.

-You carried on smoking?

-Yeah.

-After you'd been diagnosed with lung cancer?

-Yeah.

-Why?

-Cos I liked a cigarette, that were it.

-And today?

Diagnosed with it again, I THINK.

Sadly, it's now been confirmed that Diane has lung cancer again,

and she's undergone radiotherapy.

Every day, her consultant at Nottingham University Hospital

sees patients who are victims of the world's biggest

preventable cause of death and disease.

That coughing you had a minute ago, was that hurting your chest

-when you did that?

-Yeah. Oh, yeah.

What does it feel like?

Like a knife in me, you know when you breathe? Yeah.

Yeah.

The biggest killers in the UK are lung cancer,

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease -

these are all smoking-related, and they're the common things.

We've also got lots of other cancers. For example, throat cancer,

smoking-related, and then things like peripheral vascular disease,

which is where the arteries in your legs fur up with atheroma

and they block off, and you can lose your legs.

Now, this is the left upper lobe...

Nearly 40 years ago, the message from doctors was the same.

Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.

This is a cigarette smoker's lung.

Statistics mean people, and here they are.

Buckets and buckets. This is the work of a hospital.

Buckets and buckets...of lung cancer.

And all these would have been preventable?

All these would have been preventable.

When I was first making documentaries about smoking

in the 1970s, this was my bible,

the report of the Royal College of Physicians of 1962.

It said that smoking is a cause of lung cancer, bronchitis

and probably heart disease.

It went on to say that around 50,000 people every year in this country

die from these smoking-related diseases.

Today, that number has doubled.

The Royal College of Physicians' current expert on smoking

is also a consultant at the same hospital,

treating the victims of smoking every day.

Those people lose an average of ten years of life, healthy life.

That is a huge toll of entirely avoidable disability and death.

But that disability is now concentrated down in the poorest

and most disadvantaged in society.

The very most neglected

and marginalised from our society are where the smoking is now happening.

It's in areas like this part of Derbyshire,

only a few miles from the hospital, that smoking rates are highest.

How would you describe this area?

This is a mixed council estate,

it's one of the most deprived areas in Derbyshire.

-And what are the smoking rates here?

-About 50% of the adult population.

There's these pockets of deprivation

and linked in with that deprivation are these high levels of smoking.

And it's sucking a large amount of the little money they have

out of these areas.

For decades, the industry told barefaced lies

about the growing medical evidence.

They were exposed 20 years ago when tobacco's senior executives

gave evidence before the United States Congress.

Raise your right hand.

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth,

-the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

-ALL:

-Yes.

The chief executives of the world's major tobacco companies

stood up in front of Congress and basically lied

about the addictiveness and harm of their products.

Yes or no, do you believe nicotine is not addictive?

I believe nicotine is not addictive.

And they lied, knowing that they were lying...

I believe nicotine is not addictive.

I believe that nicotine is not addictive.

..and deliberately, I think, misleading people.

I believe that nicotine is not addictive.

And I, too, believe that nicotine is not addictive.

It's a long journey back from making that kind of statement publicly

to being trusted and respected by the public,

and especially the public health community.

Such attempts to conceal the truth also had a profound effect

on the lives of millions,

and, ironically, those who worked in the industry, too.

Brian Jackson started his first job 40 years ago

when he joined Gallaher's,

the makers of Benson & Hedges in the UK, and Silk Cut.

So, the first day I joined, I'm sat round the meeting table,

and we have a sales training manager at the end,

and he pushes, in front of each one of us, a 200 pack of Silk Cut.

And I pushed them away and said, "I'm sorry, I don't smoke."

He said, "Brian, you can't work for us if you don't smoke."

So I had the cigarettes.

So that's how I started smoking.

So, within no time at all, I'm smoking 50 to 60 cigarettes a day.

MACHINE WHIRS

Brian Jackson used to start his day with a cigarette.

He now starts it with an endless cocktail of drugs

he needs just to be able to breathe.

Brian has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,

the result of a lifetime of smoking.

My daughter, from the age of about five or six, used to say to me,

"Oh, Daddy, I wish you wouldn't smoke."

And she came home one day and said, "Daddy, I don't want you to die."

But even...

being told that by a five- to six-year-old child

doesn't necessarily, to a hardened smoker,

have any effect.

Brian had become a habitual smoker by 1980,

the year I went to Brazil and interviewed BAT's local director.

Do you believe that cigarette smoking is harmful to health?

As you know, I'm not a medical man,

and therefore I cannot offer medical opinion,

I would be incompetent to offer medical opinion on that question.

Are you saying you don't know?

That is exactly what I'm saying.

Today, British American Tobacco has a very different view.

Do you believe that cigarette smoking is harmful to health?

Absolutely, and British American Tobacco is clear about that.

Why did you deny it for so many years?

Well, I can't speak about the past. I'd like to talk about now. I...

No, no, the past... One of your issues is trust.

The reason why your industry is not trusted

is because it lied about the medical evidence for so many years.

The point is that that was then, and this is now.

I'd prefer to talk about now, and the future.

But you're...you're evading my question.

Until you accept that, why should people believe what you say now?

Well, I think the key moment was the day that we came out

and we admitted the link between smoking and health,

and what I am most interested is plotting a pathway for this

business over the next decades, over the next hundred years.

For decades, "cancer" was the forbidden word

in BAT's research labs in Southampton.

The killer disease went by the secret codename "zephyr".

BAT's current scientific director speaks a different language.

Hard truth has replaced deception and lies.

So, this is a chart which lays out

the 100 known toxicants in cigarette smoke.

You're inhaling them into your lung,

and that's why smoking represents such a risk to health.

Which are the carcinogens in that?

So, the carcinogens would be substances like benzopyrene.

There are things like cadmium, lead and mercury.

It's unprecedented that a tobacco company

now makes such a frank admission on television.

Cigarette smoking is a cause of real and serious diseases.

Cancer, particularly cancer of the lung, heart disease,

so stroke and heart attack,

and respiratory disease such as bronchitis and emphysema,

and, for a lifetime smoker, about half of them can expect

to die prematurely as a result of their cigarette smoking.

The industry has changed,

but only after decades of unrelenting pressure

that has severely restricted their ability to market its product.

# Yes, the taste is great in the filter tip Tareyton! #

Advertising has always been the engine that drives cigarette sales,

associating the product with anything but their lethal reality.

Satisfying, no flat filtered-out flavour,

and friendly. No dry, smoked-out taste.

I smoke Kent cigarettes.

Why don't you get yourself a carton and try them? Thank you.

Looking back, there was a time, half a century ago,

when Piccadilly Circus was lit up with cigarettes.

For many years, advertising, promotion and sponsorship

were the industry's seductive weapon to associate smoking

with something that was desirable, glamorous and sexy.

But those days are now long gone, as governments have turned the screw

tighter and tighter on tobacco.

In the '60s, advertising cigarettes on TV was banned.

In the '70s, the Government introduced health warnings on packs.

In the last 20 years, the battle has intensified.

Most forms of tobacco advertising in print, on billboards,

and in cinemas, like this iconic Benson & Hedges ad, were prohibited.

Sponsorship of sporting and cultural events was banned.

Smoking was forbidden in offices, restaurants, pubs

and all enclosed public places,

and bigger warnings with gruesome pictures

were put on cigarette packs.

Everyone of these measures was fiercely contested

by the tobacco industry.

The cigarette companies, I think they've long seen themselves

as being in a form of trench warfare, that you fight as long as you can

in the trench you're in before you retreat to the next trench,

because you know that they're simply going to keep coming at you.

Despite all these restrictions, the industry has continued to thrive.

But now it faces its biggest battle in decades

to avoid being stripped of its last vestige of marketing,

with glossy branded packs being replaced with plain

or standardised packs.

That battle started four years ago.

Australia has the most stringent anti-smoking legislation

of any country anywhere in the world.

But it's only the result of a long and fierce battle

with the tobacco industry.

I've come to Australia to see how the latest battle

over plain packaging was fought and won.

This is picture-postcard Australia - sun, sea, sand and surf.

The healthy outdoor life on smoke-free Bondi Beach.

These children, aged between 12 and 14,

are training to be Bondi Beach's next generation life-savers.

-Any of them smokers?

-No.

-Any of them likely smokers?

-No.

-Why do you say that?

I think they've grown up in a culture of anti-smoking.

They just wouldn't even dream of it. I couldn't name one person in the club that smokes, actually.

Smokers in Australia are now an ostracised minority.

A year-and-a-half ago,

glossy packages were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Go into any newsagent's

and you'll find cigarettes hidden away behind closed doors.

Few have seen the change more closely

than those who sell cigarettes,

people like Gerard Munday,

who runs a convenience store in Melbourne.

Show us in the cabinet, yeah.

As you can see, it's all pretty dull and boring.

-That's the intention, isn't it?

-That's the intention, I think, yes.

When you see it like that, as a display, it's quite confronting.

So, do you prefer "damages your gums and teeth"

to "peripheral vascular disease"?

You pick - which one would you like?! HE CHUCKLES

I think I'll... I think I'll give it a pass!

As you may know, cigarettes have been linked to cancer,

addiction, emphysema, heart disease and premature death.

As a result, we, at my tobacco company,

are introducing a total product recall.

All of our product will be withdrawn from sale,

wherever it is in Australia,

until we can guarantee that it poses absolutely no threat

to your health,

because if there's one thing we care about here,

-it's your health.

-HE LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY

The Cancer Council of Victoria was one of those

who led the charge for plain packaging.

Well, this is the Marlboro brand...

Prof Melanie Wakefield provided the crucial data for the legislation,

and is now doing a follow-up study for the Australian government.

..in 1995, in Australia,

but this is how they are now, under plain packaging.

Plain packs are specifically designed to be as unattractive as possible.

The main purpose of plain packaging is to encourage young people

not to start smoking, to avoid taking it up.

Although it's admittedly early days, I went to St Kilda's,

a local Melbourne youth club,

to see how its young members see plain packaging.

Neil, what does that pack say to you?

That a child is struggling with their breathing

-because of second-hand smoke.

-Do you think these warnings are effective?

-Do they put you off?

-Yep. It's disgusting.

Do you think it's a good idea to have those kind of warnings

and photographs on cigarette packets?

It's definitely good, but some people just, you know,

they don't care.

Plain packaging has been a crushing blow.

The industry desperately tried to kill the legislation.

It was feral, it was ferocious.

This was the fiercest reaction from the tobacco industry

to anything that I've seen in about 40 years of work on tobacco.

They threw everything at it.

I make the rules around here,

so I'm going to remove all branding

so every cigarette pack looks the same.

The ad had a target,

the Health Minister who proposed the legislation.

Do as you're told.

What did they say about you?

Oh, all the normal sort of nanny state, Nanny Nicola,

erm, overregulation, all those sorts of arguments.

Stop plain packaging legislation.

Stop this nanny state.

It seemed clear to me that there weren't many mothers around.

Nannies are fundamentally a good thing in my world!

And if that's the worst that someone's going to say about my time in politics,

I'm absolutely happy to wear that as a badge of honour.

Contact your Member of Parliament at NoNannyState.com.au.

'Authorised by Imperial Tobacco Australia...'

Aware that many in Australia saw tobacco as a discredited brand,

the industry used surrogates to make its case.

A new group suddenly popped up,

the Alliance of Australian Retailers,

backed with serious money.

The Government plans to put all cigarettes in plain packaging.

And there's no real evidence it works.

Plain packaging.

It won't work, so why do it?

Authorised by the Alliance of Australian Retailers, Sydney.

Until plain packaging came on the scene,

none of us had ever heard of this thing called

the Alliance of Australian Retailers.

Then, suddenly, we see a massive promotional campaign,

and it was clearly running all the tobacco industry arguments.

We didn't know who was running it, we didn't know how it was being

funded, there was a reference to support from the industry,

but it was being presented as the retailers themselves.

That was a bit of a mystery until, one night,

I woke up and checked my e-mails.

A whistle-blower had been burning the midnight oil.

They came piling in, showing that the Alliance of Australian Retailers

was what's called astroturfing -

trying to give the impression of a popular community movement

when, in fact, it's being run by a major industry.

-It won't work.

-It won't work.

It'll make it harder to run my business.

It turns out the big three tobacco companies, BAT, Philip Morris

and Imperial were funding the alliance

to the tune of over AU 5 million, around £3 million.

We went to meet one of the founders of the alliance.

What support did you have from the tobacco industry?

The tobacco companies gave financial support.

-About AU 5 million, wasn't it?

-Well, something like that.

I don't know the exact figures,

but there was a lot of money spent on advertising.

When we set up the alliance,

tobacco companies could not run the programme.

But the tobacco companies, did they help guide the campaign?

Yes, they paid for professionals to guide the campaign.

-Are you a smoker?

-No, I'm not.

-Why not?

-Because it'll kill you.

BAT claims plain packaging in Australia has been a failure,

just as they had predicted.

Plain packaging hasn't had an impact in increasing

the amount of people quitting smoking.

The real point was to deter young people between the ages of,

say, 12, 15, 16, to take up smoking, that was the purpose of legislation.

Initially, it was to stop people smoking,

and they kept moving the goalposts as they went through the process,

and as it became apparent the plain packaging wasn't working,

the goalposts shifted.

I think the early signs are that things are working

the way we intend, and that most of the tobacco companies' claims

are not turning out to be...

be based on evidence.

In England and Wales, the battle over plain packaging has been

even more politically contentious. And it's not over yet.

At first, the Government was in favour of plain packaging

but then it did a U-turn after intense lobbying by the industry

and its supporters.

The Prime Minister was accused of caving in and being

lobbied by his election strategist, the Australian Lynton Crosby.

Lynton Crosby's agency has listed BAT and Philip Morris

among its clients.

Mr Crosby was accused of abusing his privileged position

to promote the industry's case.

Did you ever lobby the Prime Minister on tobacco?

The Prime Minister's said everything that needs to be said on that issue.

He's never lobbied me on anything!

Mr Speaker, he is the Prime Minister for Benson & Hedge-funds,

and he knows it.

Can't he see there is a devastating conflict of interest

between having your key adviser raking it in from big tobacco

and then advising you not to go ahead with plain packaging?

In the end, Mr Crosby publicly denied there had been any lobbying

or even any conversation with the Prime Minister

about plain packaging.

Then the Government did yet another U-turn and appointed

the paediatrician Prof Sir Cyril Chantler

to review the evidence.

He recommended the Government SHOULD introduce plain packaging.

Most people who smoke as adults started when they were children

and were absolutely addicted by the time they were 25.

There is evidence that young people are particularly susceptible

to addiction.

So, if you can encourage people not to start, then you'll reduce

the suffering and the premature deaths,

and the huge cost that this imposes to our National Health Service,

which, of course, we all pay for.

This was one of more than 50 studies that pointed in the same direction.

Stay really still. So, we're going to track your eye movements

while you look at a whole different range of cigarette packs.

This eye-tracking trial established that young non-smokers

paid more attention to health warnings when branding is removed.

Towards the health warning, it kept their attention down here...

A 2% reduction in the 200,000 or so young people who start smoking

each year will be 4,000 young people not starting smoking each year,

which, of course, would translate, eventually,

into a huge saving, in terms of lives.

Now the Government is minded to legislate,

but only after yet more consultation.

Scotland has already said it will go ahead.

There is no evidence that plain packaging will reduce

the rates of youth uptake of smoking.

There are all sorts of reasons

why children may or may not start smoking.

Our packaging is designed as a marketing lever to be

competitive, to encourage consumers who have chosen to smoke

to switch from a competitor's product to ours.

That's a BAT product.

Who's that designed to appeal to?

This is designed to appeal to adult smokers.

-This is not designed to appeal to children.

-That packet says glamour.

It's called Vogue.

The point that Sir Cyril makes is that children, inevitably,

are affected by the image that that packet and similar packets portray.

Sir Cyril Chantler states in his report quite clearly

that there are limitations with the evidence that

he's found with regard to plain packaging.

And the debate is far from over.

As children lie at its heart,

I went to a school in Lancashire to see what a group

of 11- and 12-year-old children think

about current and plain cigarette packs.

The session was organised by a campaigner

from Tobacco Free Futures.

It's really shiny, so, like, people think it's new and, like,

it's a new way of opening them.

It's got, like, a nice box.

It's golden-y as well inside.

And there's different colours of them.

Well, that one's a bright packet, and it drags you in and makes you

want to smoke them because they're bright and colourful.

And it's like you want to fit in to all your friends.

Certainly, the children I met thought plain packaging would work.

I think it will decrease how many are sold

because it's a lot more plain, a lot more, like...

It tells you a lot more how dangerous it is.

I think it will decrease the people

that start to smoke at a young age

because they won't want to smoke because it's a horrible packet,

and if they read them, then they know it's really bad for them.

And it's not all fancy, and stuff.

But one of our closest neighbours is already committed to introduce

plain packaging later this year, and that's Ireland.

Once, Irish pubs were synonymous with smoking,

but Ireland has led the way in bringing in a range of tough

anti-smoking legislation.

I remember coming into pubs like this

and walking into a thick fug of cigarette smoke.

Of course, all that has now changed

since Ireland introduced a ban on smoking in public places,

and that was ten years ago.

And Ireland was the first country in the world to do so.

The air is much sweeter now.

Every anti-smoking measure has been implacably opposed by the industry.

This mountain of postcards

is a rare glimpse of the scale of its lobbying,

all sent to oppose a draft European proposal on tobacco.

We received about 10,000 submissions.

97% of them were,

I believe, from the tobacco industry.

It was a clearly co-ordinated, concerted campaign

and, of course, the idea is to obfuscate and delay

by bunging our system up with so many submissions

that slows everything down.

But we're wise to their ways.

The Minister has personal reasons for his stand.

My father, who was a doctor, he smoked,

and, unfortunately, at the age of 66, he got a stroke.

My brother was a doctor as well, but he couldn't kick the habit

and he died at 68 from lung cancer.

So I've very personal experience of the consequence of smoking

and what it means for families, and the distress that it causes.

Why are you going to introduce plain packaging, standard packaging?

Because I believe firmly, as the Australians believe,

that it will work.

I've gone so far in the Parliament of this country to call this

industry an evil industry, and I've been written to and told to desist.

But I do struggle to find another term for an industry that seeks

to addict young children to their product, knowing full well

that one in two of them who become addicted will die as a consequence.

To counter all the evidence from Australia and elsewhere,

the industry repeatedly hammers one argument,

that plain packaging will result in an avalanche of cheap,

smuggled cigarettes, both branded and counterfeit.

It argues these illicit cigarettes will encourage people

to smoke more, especially the young.

Australia was the test-bed for the industry's argument.

We're just about to approach a store which we believe...

..illegal cigarettes are being sold.

BAT's spokesman, Scott McIntyre, is happy to show us

how easy it is to buy smuggled cigarettes.

BAT has hired a private security company

and they have an undercover customer we'll call Angie.

When Angie goes into the shop, what does she ask for?

"What have you got that's under 10?" Or, "What's your cheapest brand?"

And she'll buy a couple of cartons

and, hopefully, we'll see her come out of this shop, which is

just around the corner, with a bag full of illegal product.

Here she comes.

BAT do 3,000 covert purchases every year.

Here she comes. She's been successful.

We followed Angie to three more shops,

and in two of them she struck lucky.

Yep, something in the bag.

It's not surprising that Angie's shopping trip was successful

because BAT had checked out the stores first

and established that illegal cigarettes were being sold.

But how typical that is of stores across Australia

is open to question.

BAT claims that plain packaging

has increased illicit tobacco smuggling by around a third.

But there is a supreme irony. In the past,

the tobacco industry has been accused by officials

of increasing smuggling by flooding some markets with more

cigarettes than they could possibly sell. So, inevitably,

their branded cigarettes ended up in the black market.

I don't think that we can just take their assertions at face value.

This is an industry who made assertions for decades after

decades that there was no health risk to smoking

when they knew that there was.

Why we should then believe their claims about counterfeit tobacco is a big question.

The industry does not always tell the truth,

and their claims should be considered very sceptically.

It's impossible to get perfect data on smuggling, as it's illegal,

but there is hard evidence from Australian customs,

and it could have crucial implications for the UK.

Most illicit cigarettes are smuggled in huge containers, like these.

X-rays may reveal any shipments of smuggled cigarettes.

So, what we've got here is the equivalent of approximately

10 million illicit cigarettes

that have been seized by Customs & Border Protection.

All these came out of one 40-ft container.

And when you see it for real,

the scale of such a seizure takes your breath away.

It equates to about AU 1.5 to 2 million of duty that's been evaded,

or attempted to be evaded.

And these are...?

-From China.

-Yes.

Never seen these before.

Cigarettes like these are sold on the streets for half price.

Customs are seizing about 200 million illicit cigarettes a year.

The question is, is the problem getting any worse?

The tobacco industry say that the increase

since the introduction of plain packaging has been dramatic.

Would you describe the increase as being dramatic?

No, I wouldn't describe the increase as being dramatic, as such,

and I wouldn't describe it as being related to plain packaging at all.

So, what of the industry's claim that plain-packaged products

would be much easier to counterfeit?

Customs have seized around 120 shipments

since the new law came into force.

Only one contained plain-packaged cigarettes.

But the industry insist that illicit tobacco is rising sharply

and has now reached almost 14% of the total market.

The Cancer Council of Victoria say that smuggling is

round about 1 to 2%, no more than that.

That is a huge discrepancy from the amount that you're claiming.

Our figures actually show the same trend

that the custom figures show, that they're going up.

Wait a minute, the customs say there has been an increase

but the increase has been small.

You're saying the increase has been considerable, has been great.

Customs aren't saying that.

Customs only scan less than 5% of all containers that come through

the docks of Sydney.

The industry's claim is based on a study

they commissioned the consultants KPMG to do.

A crucial part of the data is based on people

searching for discarded packs in the street and in bins,

and then analysing what percentage is smuggled.

That seems to be hardly the most scientific

way of collecting your data.

It is laid out there in the report, I think there's

a couple of pages on the methodology.

We use KPMG because they are regarded as the world's number one

at these types of reports.

The industry has commissioned research on smuggling

and plain packaging from a whole range of consultants.

They would argue that they do their research, they do it scientifically.

-Do you accept that?

-As an academic researcher, I beg to differ.

I mean, I think quite a lot of the research

that the tobacco industries fund is rubbish.

It uses weak research methods, inadequate sample sizes,

they have questions that are leading,

and I'm not convinced by any of it.

British American Tobacco and KPMG told us

they have complete confidence in their research and stand by it.

Despite all of Australia's efforts,

thousands of young people are still lighting up.

But, perhaps surprisingly, few of the champions of smoking

we spoke to were keen on the habit themselves.

-Do you smoke?

-No, I don't.

-Why don't you smoke?

Because it's obviously very harmful to your health

and, as a young person growing up in Australia, I learned

from a very early age that it can do very serious damage to you,

it can possibly kill you, so I choose not to smoke.

But that doesn't mean that other Australians shouldn't have the

right to do that, knowing the risks as adults over the age of 18.

In the UK, the industry is now resorting to exactly the same

arguments against plain packaging as it's still deploying

so vociferously in Australia, with warnings of a smuggling Armageddon.

We went to the north-west of England to try

and find out how big a problem smuggling is in the UK.

Trading standards.

We've got reason to believe you're selling illicit tobacco.

We followed a trading standards team

supported by the police as they raided a small shop.

Is it under here?

Is it under here?

Yeah, he is putting his nose there.

This is the third time this shop has been raided.

The last couple of times, the owner was fined,

but clearly not enough to deter him.

Good boy. Good boy.

-So you found what you're looking for.

-We're winning.

BAT claims that smuggled cigarettes are 16% of the total

UK market, but as in Australia, those figures are hotly contested.

It's a measure of the importance of the smuggling argument to BAT

that it signed up Northern Ireland's former chief constable as a consultant.

In the UK, the scale is reckoned to be, and this is a conservative

estimate, a loss to the UK Exchequer of more than £8 million per day.

Interestingly, that amounts to just over £3 billion annually.

Indeed, when you consider that in addition to what these

criminals use those profits for

in all sorts of other areas of criminality,

be it human trafficking, terrorism, money-laundering,

I think it's a very significant global problem.

The trading standards team eventually hit the jackpot.

Hidden away, they found around £7,000-worth of illicit cigarettes,

some are probably counterfeit

but most are genuine brands smuggled in without duty being paid.

In addition, there are brands like Jin Ling,

manufactured legally in Russia with a view to being smuggled.

And roughly what would these Marlboros be selling at?

-Around £3.50 a pack.

-Just under half price?

-Yes.

Trading standards say their hard work is paying off,

and the industry is simply scaremongering.

Ten years ago, something like 18% of the market was illicit,

we've reduced that considerably,

so now it's about 9% of the market.

The cigarette companies say that if plain packaging were to be

introduced, all this would increase hugely.

Cigarette companies say every time there is

a change in legislation, every time the duty on cigarettes is

increased, there will be a huge increase in smuggling.

Every year for the last ten years and more,

there has been a consistent and substantial

decrease in the illicit share of the cigarette market.

The industry claims children can get hold of illegal cigarettes

far too easily

and has devised a better way of deterring underaged smokers...

by training retailers.

Now one company has launched a pilot scheme.

Critics say it's simply lobbying by another name.

The first thing that you need to consider is,

is your store laid out correctly?

JTI, makers of Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut in the UK, are spending

£400,000 training shopkeepers of the north-west to ask for ID.

Isn't it a PR exercise, first and foremost?

I don't think for one minute it's a PR exercise.

You know, it's just them doing their bit.

An hour into the research at the other store, trading standards

suspect they've found evidence of children buying cigarettes.

Underneath the counter

so far we've found two open packets of the Marlboro Gold

with ones missing, and the Berkeley,

so I suspect they're selling them singly.

Potentially to children.

Trading standards do their own training of shopkeepers and say

illicit cigarettes are on the decline because of their efforts.

Isn't £400,000 from JTI a welcome contribution to the problem

that you are tackling and they say they want to tackle?

JTI are spending £400,000, which is a drop in the ocean to them,

to try and say that what they're doing is the way to stop

children accessing cigarettes, when actually what

they could do is put their cigarettes in plain packaging,

standardised packaging, which would be far less attractive to

children and stop far more children starting the habit.

Once young people start, this may be their future.

Brian Jackson has now given up smoking, but it's too late.

I can't walk more than 100 yards without being very much

out of breath. I can't go outside if it's cold.

If there's a cold wind or it's raining,

that really does get to my lungs.

You're 62. What does the future hold, given your condition?

I try not to look too far into the future,

but I think I've got to be realistic,

and be fully aware that I probably will not make it to 70.

I would be very surprised if I did. Very surprised.

How do you see the future?

I don't really know, I don't know whether I've got one.

I'm hoping I have, but I don't know.

I know one thing, I'm not having another fag, put it that way.

There's no way I'm having another cigarette now. No way.

Will you apologise for the tens of thousands of smokers who have

suffered as a result of smoking cigarettes?

Our job is to make sure people are informed of the risks of smoking.

Consumers thereafter will make a choice based on those risks,

whether they smoke or not.

We actually say on our website that the only safe way is to quit.

-Do you smoke?

-I do smoke, yes.

-Do your children smoke?

-They're far too young.

-Would you like your children to smoke?

-I'd rather they didn't.

Around the world, the battle continues, and the anti-tobacco

lobby is already thinking of where to strike next.

We always have to keep looking forward.

You need to keep the momentum up, reducing the number of retail

outlets, reducing access, more tax increases.

The louder the tobacco industry scream,

the more effective you know the measure's going to be.

We need to think about smoking in public places,

and extending those policies into areas where children go.

How much would you like to see a packet of 20 cost?

Three times what it costs now.

Talking to smokers, many will say, "If you made it £20 a pack,

"I'd stop smoking."

But the industry now thinks it may be able to remove the stigma

that has long been attached to its business.

It's developing new ways of delivering nicotine that

could save millions of lives.

BAT calls its strategy "harm reduction",

based on its acceptance that conventional cigarettes kill.

It's now developing a range of much safer products based on nicotine

and not tobacco, that produces the deadly carcinogens when burned.

BAT's first electronic, or e-cigarette,

is already on the market.

I think this is a hugely important moment for the tobacco industry.

I think the future is about tobacco harm reduction, it's about

providing a range of alternative nicotine products to consumers,

whilst conventional cigarettes will remain

the mainstay of our business for a long time.

BAT's factory in Germany is still producing

around 200 million cigarettes a day.

E-cigarettes may be a foretaste of the future,

as we will see in the next programme,

but in the UK they're only a small part of the present.

Critics say e-cigarettes are simply a smokescreen to divert

attention from the massive harm that the majority of its business

still causes.

Aren't you trying to rebrand yourselves?

British American Tobacco is committed to a progressive future.

I think we are different because we are at the forefront

of driving that tobacco harm-reduction future.

I understand that we are indeed the problem.

That is no reason for us not to be part of the solution.

I find it remarkable to see how much the public stance

of the tobacco industry, and BAT in particular, has changed.

But the glaring paradox remains.

How can an industry that openly admits its product kills

over 5 million of its consumers every year

carry on producing and marketing cigarettes?

I think for a company that sells a product that kills

half of its users, and continues to promote that product around

the world as widely as it possibly can, it's a public relations joke.

It's far from a PR stunt, it's a very, very clear commercial intent.

It's the right thing to do for society.

It's the right thing to do commercially for our shareholders.

British American Tobacco say that they are now committed to

harm reduction.

When BAT stand up and say, "As of, say, two, three,

"five years from now, we're going to stop selling cigarettes because

"we are a socially responsible company," I'll believe them.

Next time - we investigate how the industry is hooking

millions of new smokers in the developing world,

how a new Marlboro campaign blatantly targets the young,

how cigarette companies exploit loopholes to get round

advertising bans, and how the industry

hopes e-cigarettes will safeguard its future.