R.J. Reynolds, a spin-off of Reynolds American Inc., may have broken a spending record with its anti-Oregon Ballot Measure 50 advertisements.
R.J. Reynolds, which owns six of the 10 most popular U.S. cigarette brands, recently ran a series of advertisements decrying the proposed 84.5-cent tax on cigarettes. Its first ad, which began airing Sept. 5, claimed that more than 70 percent of the measure’s projected $153 million profit will not benefit children’s health care.

Healthy Kids Oregon spokeswoman Cathy Kaufmann called the claim an “outright lie” and said that 70 percent of the profits will provide health care to kids. The remaining money will fund health care programs aimed at low-income adults and tobacco prevention.
R.J. Reynolds also claimed in its ad that HMOs and health insurance companies were pushing the cigarette tax measure.
“If the purpose is to insure children, insurance companies will get money,” said J.L. Wilson, a spokesman for Oregonians Against the Blank Check, a campaign opposing the measure. “That’s why they’re funding the pro-50 campaign.”
Kaufmann called the claim “ridiculous” and said the bulk of revenue to fund the pro-50 campaign does not come from HMOs, but from a long list of health organizations including the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.
“They figure if kids are getting insurance, insurers are benefiting,” she said, “but the population that’s going to benefit are kids with no money for health insurance.”
Misleading statistics weren’t the only controversial aspects of the R.J. Reynolds advertisements. Soon after television stations began airing the ads, they discovered that the tagline, which read “Paid for by Oregonians Against the Blank Check and Reynolds American, Inc.,” was false. R.J. Reynolds revealed that, although Oregonians Against the Blank Check had expressed its support for R.J. Reynolds and its advertisements, it hadn’t actually contributed money. At least half a dozen Oregon TV stations, including two in Eugene, pulled the ad and refused to replay it until R.J. Reynolds corrected the tagline. It now reads “Paid for by Reynolds American Inc. and authorized by Oregonians Against the Blank Check.”
“We changed it because we were asked to, not required to,” said Wilson. “Most stations were fine with it, but some weren’t, so we obliged and reworded it.”
Wilson said the attributions were technically never incorrect. Reynolds American, he said, “is the primary funder of Oregonians Against the Blank Check” and the organization name was only created so that it could be used as a committee name for the ad campaign.
Also recently discovered was a mass-mailed anti-50 letter that appeared to have been sent by Salem first grade teacher Ben Matthews, but was actually sent by affiliates of tobacco lobbyist Mark Nelson. The letter’s envelope listed Nelson’s office as the return address and “Ben Matthews” had a wildly varying signature, according to the Healthy Kids Oregon’s web site.
R.J. Reynolds has already spent more than $4.5 million on its advertising campaign. Kaufmann estimates that this sum is potentially the largest to ever be spent on ballot campaign media in the state.
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