The Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company is a tobacco manufacturer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, best known for its production of the Natural American Spirit cigarette brand. The company was purchased by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 2001 and is currently a division of Reynolds American.
A controversy emerged surrounding this brand for its claims to be natural, purportedly often misconstrued as meaning that the product is healthier for a smoker. In Civil Action No. 99-2496 (GK) (March 16, 2007), Reynolds American was criticized by the United States Department of Justice for making deceptive statements about "natural" tobacco products:
All these activities, despite being carried out beyond our shores, were part of the Defendants’ scheme to defraud the American public about the adverse health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke. The activities which took place abroad were all devoted to advancing and furthering the efforts of the Defendants to mislead and deceive American smokers and potential smokers about the lower health risks of “low tar,” “lite,” “ultra lite,” “mild” and “natural” cigarettes, as well as the dangers of smoking, nicotine addiction, and environmental tobacco smoke.Famous quotes containing the words santa fe, santa, natural, tobacco and/or company:
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”
—Shirley Temple Black (b. 1928)
“The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed August 1789, published September 1791)
“There is held to be no surer test of civilisation than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognisable poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilisation altogether.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“The delicious faces of children, the beauty of school-girls, “the sweet seriousness of sixteen,” the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, the passionate histories in the looks and manners of youth and early manhood, and the varied power in all that well-known company that escort us through life,—we know how these forms thrill, paralyze, provoke, inspire, and enlarge us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)