Death was a brand of cigarette introduced in the United Kingdom in 1991 by entrepreneur BJ Cunningham, who established a company calling itself The Enlightened Tobacco Company. The packaging was black and featured a white skull and crossbones above the mandatory Government health warning. It marketed itself as the only brand that was completely honest about the dangers of cigarette smoking. The company created a tax arbitrage scheme offering cigarettes from Luxembourg to UK smokers, and allowed customers to buy its products by mail order, thus paying Luxembourg tobacco duty instead of higher UK taxes. The European Court of Justice eventually ruled in favour of the UK Customs and Excise, who insisted that customers had to personally transport the goods into the UK to avoid paying duties at the point of entry. This ruling effectively put an end to the Enlightened Tobacco Company, but Death lives on in select markets. From 1995, it was nearly impossible to get Death-cigarettes, as the sale went down and in 1999 The Enlightened Tobacco Company was dissolved on 14 September [1]
External links
- To the Best of Our Knowledge 12/31/2006: Interview with Boz Temple-Morris who was co-founder and Marketing Director of the Enlightened Tobacco Company. It is the last segment of this public radio show episode.
