When California leads, the rest of the country follows. When it comes to fighting Big Tobacco’s deadly epidemic, our state is no exception. In the past few decades, we’ve cut the adult smoking rate by over 60%, achieved the lowest youth vaping rate in the county, slashed lung cancer rates by 42%, and saved over one million Californians from tobacco-related deaths. Two California cities have already created healthier communities by ending the sale of tobacco products.
Despite monumental progress, Big Tobacco remains an urgent threat to our community’s health, particularly for kids. The tobacco industry has doubled down on their business model of making a profit by getting young people addicted to nicotine with products like vapes and oral nicotine pouches. They target our kids online and through social media tricking them into thinking nicotine is harmless. And even though California has the lowest youth vaping rate in the US, vapes are the most used tobacco products with 6% of high school youth currently vaping and use of oral nicotine pouches among California high school youth nearly doubled in one year.  
Now is the moment to break the cycle of destruction Big Tobacco causes in our families and community—and we need your help. We have the power to create a better future for our kids, and it starts with keeping Big Tobacco from targeting them with addiction, disease, and death. With your leadership we can undo Big Tobacco’s deadly epidemic.

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When California leads, the rest of the country follows. When it comes to fighting Big Tobacco’s deadly epidemic, our state is no exception. In the past few decades, we’ve cut the adult smoking rate by over 60%, achieved the lowest youth vaping rate in the county, slashed lung cancer rates by 42%, and saved over one million Californians from tobacco-related deaths. Two California cities have already created healthier communities by ending the sale of tobacco products.
Despite monumental progress, Big Tobacco remains an urgent threat to our community’s health, particularly for kids. The tobacco industry has doubled down on their business model of making a profit by getting young people addicted to nicotine with products like vapes and oral nicotine pouches. They target our kids online and through social media tricking them into thinking nicotine is harmless. And even though California has the lowest youth vaping rate in the US, vapes are the most used tobacco products with 6% of high school youth currently vaping and use of oral nicotine pouches among California high school youth nearly doubled in one year.  
Now is the moment to break the cycle of destruction Big Tobacco causes in our families and community—and we need your help. We have the power to create a better future for our kids, and it starts with keeping Big Tobacco from targeting them with addiction, disease, and death. With your leadership we can undo Big Tobacco’s deadly epidemic.
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About us

Story of Inequity: About the Project

Story of Inequity

Speak up

Speak up! How you can help

How you can help

African American/Black

American Indian

Asian/Pacific Islander

Hispanic/Latino

LGBTQ+

Low-income

People With Mental Health Challenges

Rural Communities

California has already protected people from other harmful products, and it's time to hold the tobacco industry to the same standards.

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Raise your voice against the tobacco industry

Hold the industry accountable

The tobacco industry currently spends billions each year on slick marketing tactics and political influence so they can profit off death and disease.

Influence, manipulation & deceit

Learn more

Even for people who don’t use tobacco, there can be deadly consequences.

Death & disease

The industry calls kids their “replacement customers. Big Tobacco sentences them to a lifetime of addiction and disease.

Addicting kids

This racist and unjust industry has strategically targeted certain communities with deadly products and manipulative messaging.

Racism & injustice

No one’s safe from the environmental damage and health risks from toxic tobacco waste and its plastic pollution.

Environmental destruction

Explore the tobacco industry's damage

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s diverse communities with predatory practices. Internal documents from Big Tobacco outline their strategies – many of which are shocking attempts to peddle deadly products by way of product discounts and manipulative advertising. They even gave away free products to youth in the past. These tactics masquerade as support for communities under the guise of cultural celebration.
Unfortunately, the tactics have worked. Big Tobacco aggressively targeted communities and, as a result, some populations have higher rates of tobacco use, experience greater secondhand smoke exposure at work and at home, and have higher rates of tobacco-related disease than the general population.[1]
Addressing tobacco-related health inequities is key to California’s efforts to fight tobacco, our state’s number one cause of preventable death and disease.[2] Tobacco use, pricing, and its impact across California were analyzed where significant disparities were found across various populations. See how Big Tobacco affects each community in the nation’s most diverse state.
<a href="https://wp.undo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Story-of-Inequity-Methodology-final-12-14-2022.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Story Of Inequity methodology &gt;</a>

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s diverse communities with predatory practices.

Based on July 25, 1989 Congressional testimony of the former "Winston Man" for Winston Cigarettes

There are up to ten times more tobacco ads in African American/Black neighborhoods than in others.

See the full story

An African American/Black man sitting down in a light background

An African American/Black man sitting on a chair watching cigarette ads

Big Tobacco has been targeting California's diverse communities for decades. See and share other stories to help bring attention to these insidious ploys to get and keep people addicted to deadly products.

A Story of Inequity

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s African American/Black communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets African American/Black Communities

The tobacco industry appropriates American Indian cultures in marketing, using valued traditions to promote tobacco use.

An American Indian woman in a yellow dress standing in a bright room

An American Indian woman in a yellow dress standing in a light background

An American Indian woman dressed in traditional clothing standing in a dark room with American Indian accessories on display

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s American Indian communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets American Indian Communities

Big Tobacco gave $75,000 to the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce to mail 92,000 letters urging businesses to protest tobacco tax increases.

A Hispanic/Latino man in a suit standing in a light background

A Hispanic/Latino man in a dark room made into a puppeteer

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s Hispanic/Latino communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets Hispanic/Latino Communities

A Tobacco executive stated that Asian American populations would be a profitable target due to “this community being generally predisposed toward smoking.&#8221;

An Asian/Pacific Islander man playing with soccer ball

An Asian/Pacific Islander man with clones of him standing next to each other in a dark background

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s Asian/Pacific Islander communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets Asian/Pacific Islander Communities

Big Tobacco targeted children living in low-income housing projects by handing out free packs of cigarettes in the 1950s.

A man sitting on a stool in a light background

A man sitting on a stool in a dark space next to a conveyor belt dropping off cigarette cartridges

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s Low Income communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets Low Income Communities

In 1995, a tobacco company created a targeted marketing plan for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) communities called “Project SCUM.”

A non-binary person looking away in a light background

A non-binary person in a dark jail cell room

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s LGBTQ+ communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets LGBTQ+ Communities

Big Tobacco promoted cigarettes as a medicinal substance in behavioral health treatment facilities.

A woman in a skirt standing and smiling with a light background

Woman sitting in the dark with IV bag filled with smoke

 For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s People With Mental Health Challenges communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How Big Tobacco Targets People With Mental Health Challenges Communities

Big Tobacco warps rural masculine ideals by depicting rugged images of cowboys, hunters, and racecar drivers in their advertising, making people living in rural communities some of Big Tobacco&#8217;s best customers.

Man in plaid shirt standing with a light background behind him

Man in dark background with smoke around face

For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s Rural communities with their predatory practices. Read more about the industry’s tactics.

How you see you

How Big Tobacco sees you

We don’t smoke the sh*t. We just sell it. We reserve that right for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid.

— R.J. Reynolds executive