- The tobacco industry in the US has faced increasing regulations and restrictions over the past 50 years, leading to a decrease in smoking rates.
- However, tobacco companies have expanded their markets in other parts of the world, such as Indonesia, where there are fewer restrictions and high smoking rates.
- Philip Morris International (PMI) owns several top international brands, including Marlboro, and has boosted its global market share through aggressive marketing campaigns.
- Australia implemented plain packaging laws for cigarettes, which led to a decrease in tobacco consumption, but faced legal challenges from tobacco companies.
- PMI sued Australia through an international court, claiming that removing branding from cigarette packs devalues their trademarks and intellectual property.
- Other countries, including Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Ukraine, have also filed complaints against Australia's plain packaging laws.

- Tobacco companies have encouraged lawsuits against countries like Ukraine and Uruguay for implementing stricter tobacco laws
- Uruguay has received support from organizations like the World Health Organization and Michael Bloomberg in their legal battle against Philip Morris International (PMI)
- PMI has also threatened to sue Togo over new tobacco laws, despite the country being one of the poorest in the world
- British American Tobacco has sent similar letters to Namibia and the Solomon Islands
- The video suggests a compromise by presenting a new face for Marlboro, "Jeff the Diseased Lung in a Cowboy Hat"
- The video encourages viewers to tweet and post about Jeff using the hashtag #JeffWeCan to raise awareness and get PMI's attention

Thanks to tobacco industry regulations and marketing restrictions in the US, smoking rates have dropped dramatically. John Oliver explains how tobacco companies are keeping their business strong overseas.

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It used to be a cornerstone of American life.

It was how we knew sex was over before the female orgasm was invented.

Even if you didn't smoke, You could not escape those who did.

Cigarettes were in the hands of trusted newsmen, beloved cartoon characters, and cowboys in TV commercials.

You start to Think about Saturday night in town.

That, of course, is the iconic Marlborough man, as synonymous with ruggedness and freedom as he was with dying from smoking-related diseases.

Because, and this is true, that's what happened to at least 4 of the actors who played him.

It's like if there was a gas leak on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Look, you can admit it, it is weird seeing those cigarette ads now.

And that's because for the past half century, America has steadily limited how tobacco companies are able to behave.

We've put warning labels on packaging and banned cigarette ads from TV, all while tobacco executives defended themselves against hard public health questions.

It's true, the babies born from women who smoke are smaller, but they're just as healthy as the babies born from women who do not smoke.

And some women would prefer having smaller babies.

Enough cigarettes, and you're pretty much just shooting out Lego babies.

By the late 90s, the regulations were such that tobacco companies here voluntarily retired not just the Marlboro man, but also Joe Camel, who people had ridiculously accused of being targeted at children, just because he was an adorable cartoon camel who dressed like the Fonz and smoked.

All these restrictions help lower smoking rates in the U.S.

From about 43 percent in 1965 to 18 percent today, which you would assume would decimate the American tobacco industry, which is what makes this clip from 2008 so surprising.

Tobacco is what you might call smoking hot.

Is this the best time ever to be a tobacco farmer?

So it's an aging product that's decreasing in popularity, and yet somehow, it just can't stop making money.

It's basically the agricultural equivalent of U2.

1 of the reasons for this might be that while Americans are smoking less, In some parts of the world, people are smoking more, to an occasionally shocking extent.

Video of this two-year-old boy, he's just puffing away on a cigarette in Indonesia and it's gone completely viral.

The mom says he's totally addicted and if he doesn't get the smokes, he gets angry, starts banging his head on the wall.

Yeah, of course he gets mad when you take away his smokes.

--LAUGHTER --The Smoking Baby was such a media sensation, news crews from across the world attempted to find him.

Just across this bridge lies the small fishing village that is home to the smoking baby.

We briefly caught up with Aldi and his mother Diana at the airport, flanked by a local TV crew.

All he's missing is 3 other kids dressed like him and a casino!

And this is where this story gets really interesting.

Because that baby's favorite brand of cigarettes was A-Mild, which is owned by Philip Morris International, the company that sells Philip Morris brands everywhere but America.

They, like other multinational companies, have flocked to Indonesia, a market where two-thirds of adult males smoke.

This is the entrance to a school, and come with me.

Just a few steps away from the entrance, there is this kiosk that is sponsored by Marlboro Lights.

And at this kiosk, a student can come and buy an individual cigarette.

They're only a dime a piece, and they even have a lighter on a string.

Yeah, well, of course the lighter's on a string.

What kind of irresponsible cigarette vendor outside a school would let a child walk away with a lighter?

And look, Indonesia is far from the only country where Philip Morris International, or PMI, has expanded.

They own 7 of the world's top 15 international brands, including Marlboro.

And recently, Marlboro has boosted its global market share, thanks to its worldwide Don't Be a Maybe, Be Marlboro campaign.

And if you're thinking, What the fuck does don't be a maybe mean?

Please let this video by the people responsible for the campaign explain it to you.

As a brand, Marlboro was not resonating with adult smokers, even though its values of freedom, authenticity, and master of destiny were.

Smokers missed the essence of the cowboy, which led us to our opportunity.

Eliminate the word maybe from our smokers' vocabulary to become the catalyst that inspires smokers from just thinking about life to taking the lead in their life.

Even Don Draper looks at that ad and goes, -"Pull it back a little bit." -$50,000.

These are cigarettes we're talking about, not Jesus.

Now, countries can try to counteract the influence of that kind of marketing, but If tobacco companies feel too threatened, they'll put them through legal hell.

Let me take you on a world tour of how they attack laws intended to protect public health, because it's kind of amazing.

In 2011, they passed a plain packaging law, and what that means is this.

Pretty drab coloring, messaging the Australian government, right, pictures it chooses, the brand name there really relegated to the bottom.

Australia's plain packaging law banned tobacco company branding from packaging and replaced it with upsetting photos, such as the toe-tack on a corpse, the cancerous mouth, the nightmarish eyeball, or the diseased lung.

Now, yes, I'm pretty sure I would find a healthy lung disgusting, but...

That thing does look like you're trying to breathe through baked ziti, so just take that down.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, since this law was implemented, total consumption of tobacco and cigarettes in Australia fell to record lows, and nightmares about eyeballs have risen to record highs.

♪ To get these laws, though, Australia's had to run a gamut of lawsuits.

First, 2 tobacco companies sued Australia in its highest court to stop them.

The result was a little surprising, as Australia's Attorney General let everyone know.

I'm delighted to be able to say that we have won that legal action, and just as some icing on the cake, it seems that the big tobacco companies will also be required to pay the government's costs.

Even if that little guy is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of land mass.

And the tobacco companies didn't just lose.

The judges called their case delusive, unreal, and synthetic, and said it had fatal defects.

Which sounds a little like the early reviews of NBC's The Slap.

-♪ ♪ -♪ But Australia's legal troubles were just beginning, because then Philip Morris Asia got involved.

The company is threatening to take the Australian government to an international court and says that removing brands from cigarette packs will lower the value of its trademark and intellectual property.

That's right, a company was able to sue a country over a public health measure through an international court.

They did it by digging up a 1993 trade agreement between Australia and Hong Kong, which had a provision that Australia couldn't seize Hong Kong-based company's property.

So, 9 months before the lawsuit started, PMI put its Australian business in the hands of its Hong Kong-based Philip Morris Asia division, and then they sued, claiming that the seized property in question were the trademarks on their cigarette packages.

And you've got to give it to them, that's impressive.

Someone should really give those lawyers a pat on the back, and a punch in the face, but a pat on

here, because you will never guess who else is coming after Australia.

3 governments, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Ukraine, have filed complaints with the World Trade Organization against Australia's plane packaging laws.

That's right, Ukraine is charging Australia with hurting its tobacco exports, something which was a bit of a surprise to a Ukrainian member of parliament.

Because we have a zero-trade exchange between Australia

So Ukraine is inserting themselves into something they have nothing to do with.

They're taking the Kanye West approach to international trade disputes.

The truth is, as you have probably guessed by now, tobacco companies have encouraged these suits, even covering some of the legal costs, meaning the tobacco industry is treating Ukraine like a stage parent treats a child in a beauty pageant.

Oh, yes, I paid for her outfit and I pushed her onto the stage, but this was all her idea.

And I swear to God, Brandy, if you drop that flaming baton, you are fucking walking home.

And tobacco companies aren't just going after big countries like Australia.

Philip Morris has also launched a legal challenge against the small South American country of Uruguay for damaging its business prospects.

Uruguay has a population of just 3 and a half million people and is a relatively tiny cigarette market.

That's right, Philip Morris International is currently suing Uruguay, a country that you think about so little that you didn't even notice that that's not Uruguay, this is

9 years ago, Uruguay started introducing increasingly larger health warnings.

Smoking rates dropped, and Uruguayans liked the laws, with 68 percent of smokers saying that they should be stronger.

But just because they wanted it, hasn't stopped PMI from suing them for the past 5 years.

And that's a lot for a small country to take on.

Uruguay has received the support of the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization, as well as the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, who donated $500,000 for payment of attorney's fees.

The legal fees were getting so expensive, they had to take money from Michael Bloomberg.

On the scale of how shitty that has got to feel, it's just barely higher than borrowing money from your ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend's stepdad.

And if forcing Uruguay to do that was not bad enough.

Let me tell you what Philip Morris International has done to Togo.

Togo is 1 of the 10 poorest countries on Earth, and they recently unveiled some new tobacco laws.

Togo is setting conditions on the sale of tobacco.

Starting on September 1st, 2014, packs of cigarettes sold in Togo must bear warnings in French, Avey and Cabier, about the health risk associated with the conception of tobacco.

Now, at first, written warnings sound great, until you learn that 40% of the adult population of Togo is illiterate, which is why some members of the Togolese government wanted something more like Australia's Ziti lung packaging.

Take it down, take it down, it's still disgusting.

But when they got wind of this, Philip Morris International, a company with annual net revenues of $80 billion, basically threatened to sue Togo, whose entire GDP is 4.3 billion.

And when your GDP is only a couple of billion more than the box office of Avatar, a protracted legal case is not really what you need.

Now, we actually reached out to Togo and asked to see their correspondence with the tobacco companies, and they gave us this letter from PMI.

We had to translate it from French, but it was worth it, because this thing is almost comically appalling.

It informs Togo that plain packaging laws would result in an incalculable amount of international trade litigation, suggesting Togo would lose any legal challenge by citing, among other things, an Australian High Court decision, which they write, concluded that plain packaging constitutes a substantial privation of property rights.

Now, the court case they're referring to is the 1 from earlier.

You remember, the 1 tobacco companies lost so badly, they had to cover the court costs.

And yet, they quote the 1 judge in that case who ruled in favor of tobacco, ignoring the other 6 who called their case, if you remember, delusive, unreal, and synthetic, and saying it had fatal defects.

That's like when a shitty movie engineers a good review out of a bad 1, like, Mordecai is a pile of dot, dot, dot, great.

And yet, Togo, justifiably terrified by threats of billion-dollar settlements, backed down from a public health law that many people wanted.

British American Tobacco sent a similar letter to Namibia, and 1 of their subsidiaries sent 1 to the Solomon Islands, a country with a population of 600,000.

At this point, it's safe to say, if You live in an apartment with at least 2 other people, and you ask 1 of them to please smoke outside, you can look forward to a letter from a tobacco company very soon.

And look, I could get angry, and I could call tobacco companies assholes, or monsters, or open sores on Satan's dick.

But instead, instead, instead, let's rise above it and let's try and broker peace.

Countries want to warn their citizens about the health dangers of smoking tobacco.

Tobacco companies want to be able to present branded images that they have spent time and money to cultivate.

I present to you the new face of Marlborough, Jeff the diseased lung in a cowboy hat.

We are offering Jeff to you, Philip Morris International, to use as you wish.

Put him on your billboards, put him on some ads.

We've already started doing that for you.

that we have put up in Uruguay of Jeff the Diseased Lung.

Everyone loves Jeff the diseased lung in a cowboy hat.

To be completely honest, we didn't just do it in Uruguay.

Because we also, and don't be mad, we made some Jeff-branded T-shirts and we shipped them to Togo yesterday, where they've been quite a hit.

And if you don't believe me, check this out.

And I know our viewers would love to help you, get the message out there.

In fact, you can tweet about Jeff using the hashtag, JeffWeCan, to get him trending worldwide and get PMI's attention.

Post Jeff's photo on Google Plus and tag him, Marlboro, which might push him to the top of Marlborough's Google image search.

In fact, who here would like to meet Jeff?

He's not a maybe because he's definitely suffering from emphysema, aren't you, Jeff?

market to children kids love Jeff to don't you kids Let's make Jack happen!


Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Tobacco. It used to be a cornerstone of American life. It was how we knew sex was over before the female orgasm was invented. Even if you didn't smoke, You could not escape those who did. Cigarettes were in the hands of trusted newsmen, beloved cartoon characters, and cowboys in TV commercials.

Speaker 1: You've had your supper and coffee. The horses are settling down. You settle back. You start to Think about Saturday night in town.

Speaker 2: Come to

Speaker 1: where the flavor is. Come to Marlborough country.

Speaker 0: That, of course, is the iconic Marlborough man, as synonymous with ruggedness and freedom as he was with dying from smoking-related diseases. Because, and this is true, that's what happened to at least 4 of the actors who played him. 4 dead actors. It's like if there was a gas leak on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Speaker 3: Why did you have to

Speaker 0: yes and each other? Why? Look, you can admit it, it is weird seeing those cigarette ads now. And that's because for the past half century, America has steadily limited how tobacco companies are able to behave. We've put warning labels on packaging and banned cigarette ads from TV, all while tobacco executives defended themselves against hard public health questions.

Speaker 4: It's true, the babies born from women who smoke are smaller, but they're just as healthy as the babies born from women who do not smoke. And some women would prefer having smaller babies.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, you heard

Speaker 0: it, pregnant ladies. Enough cigarettes, and you're pretty much just shooting out Lego babies. They fit in Star Wars toys. Who wouldn't want that? That's adorable.

By the late 90s, the regulations were such that tobacco companies here voluntarily retired not just the Marlboro man, but also Joe Camel, who people had ridiculously accused of being targeted at children, just because he was an adorable cartoon camel who dressed like the Fonz and smoked. All these restrictions help lower smoking rates in the U.S. From about 43 percent in 1965 to 18 percent today, which you would assume would decimate the American tobacco industry, which is what makes this clip from 2008 so surprising.

Speaker 5: Tobacco is what you might call smoking hot. Is this the best time ever to be a tobacco farmer? Probably the most profitable.

Speaker 0: Wow. So it's an aging product that's decreasing in popularity, and yet somehow, it just can't stop making money. It's basically the agricultural equivalent of U2.

Speaker 3: Now... Now, 1 of the reasons...

Speaker 0: 1 of the reasons for this might be that while Americans are smoking less, In some parts of the world, people are smoking more, to an occasionally shocking extent. You might remember this viral video.

Speaker 5: Video of this two-year-old boy, he's just puffing away on a cigarette in Indonesia and it's gone completely viral. The mom says he's totally addicted and if he doesn't get the smokes, he gets angry, starts banging his head on the wall.

Speaker 0: Yeah, of course he gets mad when you take away his smokes. He thinks they're gone. He doesn't have object permanence yet. --LAUGHTER --The Smoking Baby was such a media sensation, news crews from across the world attempted to find him.

Speaker 6: Just across this bridge lies the small fishing village that is home to the smoking baby.

Speaker 7: We briefly caught up with Aldi and his mother Diana at the airport, flanked by a local TV crew.

Speaker 8: Are you Aldi? Hi. I'm Dan. How you doing, little dude?

Speaker 3: Holy shit, just look at

Speaker 0: that kid! He's his own rat pack! All he's missing is 3 other kids dressed like him and a casino! And this is where this story gets really interesting. Because that baby's favorite brand of cigarettes was A-Mild, which is owned by Philip Morris International, the company that sells Philip Morris brands everywhere but America.

They, like other multinational companies, have flocked to Indonesia, a market where two-thirds of adult males smoke. And there are very few restrictions. And I do mean very few.

Speaker 8: This really brings home the point. This is the entrance to a school, and come with me. Just a few steps away from the entrance, there is this kiosk that is sponsored by Marlboro Lights. And at this kiosk, a student can come and buy an individual cigarette. They're only a dime a piece, and they even have a lighter on a string.

Speaker 0: Yeah, well, of course the lighter's on a string. What kind of irresponsible cigarette vendor outside a school would let a child walk away with a lighter? They're dangerous! Think about it. Just think about that.

And look, Indonesia is far from the only country where Philip Morris International, or PMI, has expanded. They own 7 of the world's top 15 international brands, including Marlboro. And recently, Marlboro has boosted its global market share, thanks to its worldwide Don't Be a Maybe, Be Marlboro campaign. And if you're thinking, What the fuck does don't be a maybe mean? Please let this video by the people responsible for the campaign explain it to you.

Speaker 9: As a brand, Marlboro was not resonating with adult smokers, even though its values of freedom, authenticity, and master of destiny were. Smokers missed the essence of the cowboy, which led us to our opportunity. Eliminate the word maybe from our smokers' vocabulary to become the catalyst that inspires smokers from just thinking about life to taking the lead in their life. To live the Marlboro values. To be true, bold, and forever forward.

Speaker 0: That is a pile of horse shit. Even... Think about it.

Speaker 3: Just think about

Speaker 0: this. Even Don Draper looks at that ad and goes, -"Pull it back a little bit." -$50,000. These are cigarettes we're talking about, not Jesus. Now, countries can try to counteract the influence of that kind of marketing, but If tobacco companies feel too threatened, they'll put them through legal hell. Let me take you on a world tour of how they attack laws intended to protect public health, because it's kind of amazing.

Let's start in Australia. In 2011, they passed a plain packaging law, and what that means is this. Cigarettes come in packaging like this. Pretty drab coloring, messaging the Australian government, right, pictures it chooses, the brand name there really relegated to the bottom. Australia's plain packaging law banned tobacco company branding from packaging and replaced it with upsetting photos, such as the toe-tack on a corpse, the cancerous mouth, the nightmarish eyeball, or the diseased lung.

Now, yes, I'm pretty sure I would find a healthy lung disgusting, but... But... That thing does look like you're trying to breathe through baked ziti, so just take that down. Just take it down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, since this law was implemented, total consumption of tobacco and cigarettes in Australia fell to record lows, and nightmares about eyeballs have risen to record highs.

Take it down! Take down the demon eye! -♪ Take it down! Take it down! ♪ -♪

Speaker 2: Take it down! Take it down!

Speaker 0: ♪ To get these laws, though, Australia's had to run a gamut of lawsuits. First, 2 tobacco companies sued Australia in its highest court to stop them. The result was a little surprising, as Australia's Attorney General let everyone know.

Speaker 10: I'm delighted to be able to say that we have won that legal action, and just as some icing on the cake, it seems that the big tobacco companies will also be required to pay the government's costs.

Speaker 3: Yes! Score 1! Score 1

Speaker 0: for the little guy! Even if that little guy is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of land mass. And the tobacco companies didn't just lose. The judges called their case delusive, unreal, and synthetic, and said it had fatal defects. Which sounds a little like the early reviews of NBC's The Slap.

What? What is this thing? How long am I supposed to watch it for? Which 1 is The Slap? -♪ ♪ -♪ But Australia's legal troubles were just beginning, because then Philip Morris Asia got involved.

Speaker 11: The company is threatening to take the Australian government to an international court and says that removing brands from cigarette packs will lower the value of its trademark and intellectual property.

Speaker 0: That's right, a company was able to sue a country over a public health measure through an international court. How the fuck is that possible? Well, it's really a simple explanation. They did it by digging up a 1993 trade agreement between Australia and Hong Kong, which had a provision that Australia couldn't seize Hong Kong-based company's property. So, 9 months before the lawsuit started, PMI put its Australian business in the hands of its Hong Kong-based Philip Morris Asia division, and then they sued, claiming that the seized property in question were the trademarks on their cigarette packages.

And you've got to give it to them, that's impressive. Someone should really give those lawyers a pat on the back, and a punch in the face, but a pat on

Speaker 3: the back first. Pat, then punch. Pat, punch. They need a pat, punch. Little pat, big punch.

That's what they need. But wait, there is more

Speaker 0: here, because you will never guess who else is coming after Australia.

Speaker 12: 3 governments, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Ukraine, have filed complaints with the World Trade Organization against Australia's plane packaging laws.

Speaker 0: That's right, Ukraine is charging Australia with hurting its tobacco exports, something which was a bit of a surprise to a Ukrainian member of parliament.

Speaker 7: When I first read about the

Speaker 13: position of the government,

Speaker 7: it seems to be a joke. Because we have a zero-trade exchange between Australia

Speaker 14: and Ukraine of any tobacco goods.

Speaker 0: 0 trade! 0! So Ukraine is inserting themselves into something they have nothing to do with. They're taking the Kanye West approach to international trade disputes. That's...

Speaker 3: Just... Just... Just wiggling in there.

Speaker 0: The truth is, as you have probably guessed by now, tobacco companies have encouraged these suits, even covering some of the legal costs, meaning the tobacco industry is treating Ukraine like a stage parent treats a child in a beauty pageant. Oh, no, no, Brandy wants to do it. Oh, yes, I paid for her outfit and I pushed her onto the stage, but this was all her idea. And I swear to God, Brandy, if you drop that flaming baton, you are fucking walking home. You walk home, Brandy.

And tobacco companies aren't just going after big countries like Australia.

Speaker 15: Philip Morris has also launched a legal challenge against the small South American country of Uruguay for damaging its business prospects. Uruguay has a population of just 3 and a half million people and is a relatively tiny cigarette market.

Speaker 0: That's right, Philip Morris International is currently suing Uruguay, a country that you think about so little that you didn't even notice that that's not Uruguay, this is

Speaker 3: Uruguay. Now, the background here.

Speaker 0: 9 years ago, Uruguay started introducing increasingly larger health warnings. Smoking rates dropped, and Uruguayans liked the laws, with 68 percent of smokers saying that they should be stronger. But just because they wanted it, hasn't stopped PMI from suing them for the past 5 years. And that's a lot for a small country to take on. Luckily, they have had help.

Speaker 6: Uruguay has received the support of the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization, as well as the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, who donated $500,000 for payment of attorney's fees.

Speaker 0: The legal fees were getting so expensive, they had to take money from Michael Bloomberg. On the scale of how shitty that has got to feel, it's just barely higher than borrowing money from your ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend's stepdad. And... And if forcing Uruguay to do that was not bad enough. Let me tell you what Philip Morris International has done to Togo.

Togo is 1 of the 10 poorest countries on Earth, and they recently unveiled some new tobacco laws.

Speaker 16: Togo is setting conditions on the sale of tobacco. Starting on September 1st, 2014, packs of cigarettes sold in Togo must bear warnings in French, Avey and Cabier, about the health risk associated with the conception of tobacco.

Speaker 0: Now, at first, written warnings sound great, until you learn that 40% of the adult population of Togo is illiterate, which is why some members of the Togolese government wanted something more like Australia's Ziti lung packaging. Take it down, take it down, it's still disgusting. But when they got wind of this, Philip Morris International, a company with annual net revenues of $80 billion, basically threatened to sue Togo, whose entire GDP is 4.3 billion. And when your GDP is only a couple of billion more than the box office of Avatar, a protracted legal case is not really what you need. Now, we actually reached out to Togo and asked to see their correspondence with the tobacco companies, and they gave us this letter from PMI.

We had to translate it from French, but it was worth it, because this thing is almost comically appalling. It informs Togo that plain packaging laws would result in an incalculable amount of international trade litigation, suggesting Togo would lose any legal challenge by citing, among other things, an Australian High Court decision, which they write, concluded that plain packaging constitutes a substantial privation of property rights. Now, the court case they're referring to is the 1 from earlier. You remember, the 1 tobacco companies lost so badly, they had to cover the court costs. And yet, they quote the 1 judge in that case who ruled in favor of tobacco, ignoring the other 6 who called their case, if you remember, delusive, unreal, and synthetic, and saying it had fatal defects.

That's like when a shitty movie engineers a good review out of a bad 1, like, Mordecai is a pile of dot, dot, dot, great. This letter is bullshit. And yet, Togo, justifiably terrified by threats of billion-dollar settlements, backed down from a public health law that many people wanted. And it's not just Togo. British American Tobacco sent a similar letter to Namibia, and 1 of their subsidiaries sent 1 to the Solomon Islands, a country with a population of 600,000.

At this point, it's safe to say, if You live in an apartment with at least 2 other people, and you ask 1 of them to please smoke outside, you can look forward to a letter from a tobacco company very soon. And look, I could get angry, and I could call tobacco companies assholes, or monsters, or open sores on Satan's dick. But instead, instead, instead, let's rise above it and let's try and broker peace. Because it's clear what each side wants. Countries want to warn their citizens about the health dangers of smoking tobacco.

Tobacco companies want to be able to present branded images that they have spent time and money to cultivate. So may I suggest a compromise? I present to you the new face of Marlborough, Jeff the diseased lung in a cowboy hat. We are offering Jeff to you, Philip Morris International, to use as you wish. Put him on your billboards, put him on some ads.

In fact, and don't be mad... We've... We've already started doing that for you. This is an actual billboard

Speaker 3: that we have put up in Uruguay of Jeff the Diseased Lung. That... That is in

Speaker 0: Montevideo right now. And people seem to like

Speaker 3: it there. Because, of course they like it.

Speaker 0: Of course they like it. Everyone loves Jeff the diseased lung in a cowboy hat. Oh, 1 more thing. To be completely honest, we didn't just do it in Uruguay. Because we also, and don't be mad, we made some Jeff-branded T-shirts and we shipped them to Togo yesterday, where they've been quite a hit.

And if you don't believe me, check this out.

Speaker 2: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Yeah! Yeah!

Speaker 3: Yeah! Marva, Jeff's already out there. You just

Speaker 0: need to claim him. Our lawyers, unlike yours, will not sue. And I know our viewers would love to help you, get the message out there. In fact, you can tweet about Jeff using the hashtag, JeffWeCan, to get him trending worldwide and get PMI's attention. Post Jeff's photo on Google Plus and tag him, Marlboro, which might push him to the top of Marlborough's Google image search.

We can do this, everyone. Don't be a maybe about this. In fact... In fact, who here would like to meet Jeff?

Speaker 3: Let's bring Jeff out. Come on, Jeff. It's Jeff. It's Jeff, everyone. It's Jeff the diseased lung.

Look at him, Marlborough. He's not a maybe. He's not a maybe because he's definitely suffering from emphysema, aren't you, Jeff? HE COUGHS Classic Jeff! And guess what, PMI, even though, and

Speaker 0: I cannot stress this enough, you do not

Speaker 3: market to children kids love Jeff to don't you kids Let's make Jack happen! That's our show! See you next week! Good night!

Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no!

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