Brown & Williamson was an American tobacco company and subsidiary of the giant British American Tobacco.
They produced the smokes I love; the Kool King. A menthol poem for the working, drinking, smoking man.
The company became infamous for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes.
Their former vice-president of research and development, Jeffrey Wigand, became the whistleblower in an investigation conducted by the CBS news program, 60 Minutes, an event that was dramatized in the film The Insider.
Wigand claimed that B&W had introduced chemicals such as ammonia into cigarettes to increase nicotine delivery and increase addictiveness.
That made them, at least in my addled and addicted estimation, so very wonderful.
Brown & Williamson ultimately merged with R.J. Reynolds, creating a new publicly traded company, Reynolds American Inc.
B&W was also involved in genetically modifying tobacco – the delicious Y1 strain, anyone?
