On May 12, 1994, a package containing 4,000 pages of secret internal tobacco industry documents arrived at the office of Professor Stanton Glantz at the University of California, San Francisco. The anonymous source of these "cigarette papers" was identified in the return address only as "Mr. Butts" - presumably a reference to the Doonesbury cartoon character.

These documents provide a shocking inside account of the activities of one tobacco company, Brown & Williamson, and its multinational parent, British American Tobacco, over more than thirty years.

The Cigarette Papers provides the definitive examination of these striking documents, combined with other material subpoenaed by Congress and obtained by Professor Glantz. Quoting extensively from the papers and adding needed background and context, this book offers a keyhole view of the tobacco industry, promising to fundamentally change the public's perception of the industry, of tobacco litigation, and of public policy making.