The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. and two others about using terms like "organic" and "natural"to imply healthier cigarettes. 

There is nothing healthier about organic or natural anything, it is just a marketing claim, though that has not stopped organic industry marketing groups and Whole Foods from suggesting their more expensive products are also better for you.

That the Food and Drug Administration finally seems a little irked by this leads to an obvious question: What took them so long? Santa Fe has been claiming it since 1982.  Sports Illustrated, TIME, Vanity Fair and many more have been happy to take Big Tobacco money and President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 to stop just this sort of thing. Yet they did not. It may be because they wanted to make sure they weren't also undermining the organic food business which, like the anti-vaccines movement, is dominated by Obama voters.

Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.
Organic, so it must be a healthier cigarette, at least if Big Organic claims about food are true. Credit: Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.

There was a time when critics who were worried about corporate denial of science and health facts would claim a technique was 'right out of the Big Tobacco playbook', but that analogy seems anachronistic to modern sensibilities. Instead, cigarettes makers are now using tactics 'right out of the Big Organic playbook.'

Invoke a health halo, then charge a premium of 20 to 25 percent.