AMERICAN SPIRIT CIGARETTES BUTTS OUT OF ANIMAL TESTS
First-Ever"Cruelty-Free" Smokes Hailed by PETA

For Immediate Release: August 20, 2001

Contact: Jay Kelly 757-622-7382

Smokers who care about animals can breathe a sigh of relief: American Spirit has broken ranks with big tobacco and become the first-ever cruelty-free cigarette in the U.S. Santa Fe Natural Tobacco even includes a factoid to that effect in many packs (see attachment) that says: “Did You Know? Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company does not engage in the practice of testing any of our tobacco products on animals.”

American Spirit has taken a leadership role in the tobacco industry by being the first company to refuse to fund any smoking tests on animals. Other tobacco companies pay experimenters to cut holes in beagles’ throats and strap facemasks to rats, apes, and monkeys, forcing them to breathe concentrated cigarette smoke for up to a year. This occurs despite the fact that our knowledge of the dangers of smoking has come solely from human clinical studies and autopsies of human victims of lung disease. Experiments on thousands of animals are funded every year, even though federal law does not require cigarettes to be tested on animals. Smoking experiments on animals have been illegal in the U.K. since 1997, and the effects of tobacco and nicotine on the human body, including links to lung cancer, emphysema, and other diseases, are well known.

In May of 2000, two-time Oscar-winner Jack Lemmon sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on health and human services, asking that federal funds no longer be used to bankroll smoking experiments on animals. Said Lemmon, “Please make sure animals no longer suffer and die just to prove something we already know—that tobacco kills.”