Tampabay: Whistle-blower tells his tale of tobacco

Whistle-blower tells his tale of tobacco

The whistle-blower who inspired a movie and accused the tobacco industry of lies about cigarettes takes his case to students.

By MONIQUE FIELDS, Times Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG -- Jeffrey Wigand knew that one-third of the eighth-graders seated before him already were addicted to nicotine. He knew most of the rest had at least been offered cigarettes.

It was his job Wednesday to make them understand the stakes.

"Ninety percent of all lung cancers are caused by tobacco," said Wigand, a former tobacco executive turned whistle-blower whose story was featured in the 1999 movie The Insider. "I couldn't name all the diseases caused by tobacco."

Wigand is in St. Petersburg this week for an ethics conference at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Before he will speak at a university, he insists administrators set up a discussion with schoolchildren.

That's why he was at John Hopkins Middle School on Wednesday.

For five years, Wigand was vice president for research and development at the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. He was fired after he told 60 Minutes about industry practices, which he said included lies about the link between cigarettes and cancer and illegal marketing to teens.

Wigand now heads "Smoke-Free Kids," a nonprofit foundation formed to educate children about the dangers of tobacco.

Before about 180 students Wednesday, Wigand tore apart a Marlboro cigarette and pointed out the tobacco leaves, paper and wood inside. He told them a filter doesn't stop the 599 chemicals and 4,000 to 8,000 toxic compounds produced by the cigarette from entering the human body.

"What's the message if I put a filter on a poison?" he asked.

"It's okay to smoke," said Evan Huft, 14.

It's not okay, Wigand said.

To illustrate his point, he talked about white laboratory rats. They tend to be clean and active, spending hours preening their white coats. But after being injected with nicotine, their activity changes.

On the first day, a rat taps a machine once to administer the drug. The next day, he taps three times. He is no longer cleaning himself, eating or drinking. By the end of the week, he's dead.

For humans, it takes nicotine six seconds to reach the brain. Huft said the presentation scared him.

"The fact that just one can get you addicted" was enough to make him think hard about smoking, he said.

Two months ago, he was offered a cigarette and turned it down. His classmate, 13-year-old Phadra McCrae, was offered a cigarette about a year ago.

"I told them no because I had my little sister, and she looks up to me. If I do it, she'll do it," she said.

-- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.