The Danse Macabre of George
Bush Jr.
and
Philip Morris - 9/30/2007
by
William Schmidt, Ph.D.
Author
of
www.tigersoft.com
Philip Morris and George Bush Jr.have
boosted each other for more than 10 years.
They richly deserve each other! But the
United States of America does not. The CDC
says
cigarettes kill 430,000 Americans a year - a lot
more than foreign terrorists do. That number
is projected to rise for 30 more years. Smoking kills more people
than are killed by AIDs, car
accidents, alcohol,
homicides, illegal drugs, suicides and fires combined. The 50 million smokers
will live 14 years less on average. The health
care and productivity costs of tobacco are $92 billion
a year. Each day, 3000 children in the US
take up smoking. They average 12 1/2 years...
(The latest public health dangers of smoking
appear in http://www.aaphp.org/Feb07tobaccbill.html
)
Now I must confess I am from a line of Eastern Baptist ministers. I can not escape
their shadow. If what I say here upsets
you, I only ask that you not shoot the messenger and
see the Cigarette Jokes at the bottom.
Before you jump on me for being too harsh, read the
evidence and appreciate, however well justified,
I do mostly leave out rhetoric like:
"Without A Single Bullet, Phiip Morris Is The Biggest Serial Killer in
History!",
"Don't Just Put 'Em Out of Business, Hang em!" or more simply
"Dirty Rotten Lying Bastards", etc.
There's a lot of research here. More
will be added as it becomes available. This is a labor
of revenge. At the end of the materials, I will
post more information as I find it, provided it cannot
be easily inserted in what is already written. I
acknowledge this is a very big subject. I hope my
work here may serve as an introductory Reader and Guide to
others wanting to understand why
America has tolerated the existence of tobacco companies so
long. More formally, it is the study
of the "Politics, Economics and Public Health Care
Costs of Big Tobacco". What I think you
will soon see below is the overwhelming amount of evidence
supporting my contention that Bush
and Big Tobacco have combined forces in a way that
seriously menaces and undermines Public
Health. This dance of death must be
ended. Big Tobacco will probably long outlast George
Bush unless the American political process suddenly works
better than it has until now
and our political leaders finally take charge of the fate
of millions of Americans subjected to
cigar and cigarette smoke.
I have
tried to show the references that I have used and show readers where they may go
to find more still materials, if they are so
motivated. The Time-Line at the bottom and the section
on the Supreme Court will be kept up to date, if time
permits. And I note that I should also
add materials on the best methods to stop smoking.
Finally, "NO" I do not smoke. I have
enough another vices to work on!
Here is an Outline of this length
study.
My Family History
Introduction
Madison Avenue Ads
Made Philip Morris Rich
Philip Morris'
Danse Macabre
Why Don't They
Just Stop Smoking?
"The Smoking
Gun"
ADDICTION BY
DESIGN
Up in Smoke:
Failures of The Tobacco Settlement
Tobacco
Settlement of 1998
Health Advances
since Tobacco Agreement
Big Tobacco Is
Doing Very Well
Philip Morris'
Stock Keep Rising
The Best
Government That Money Can Buy
Big Tobacco's
Heavy Backing of George Bush Junior
Karl Rove's Close
Ties with Big Tobacco
Bush Junior Put
Tobacco Foxes In Charge of Protecting Public Health!
House Republican
Majority Leaders' Ties To Big Tobacco
Bag Man
Tort Limitation
Would Serve Big Tobacco Well
Big Tobacco Seeks
To Topple Key Republican Lawmaker Who Didn't Vote as Ordered.
Justice for Sale,
Illinois Style!
Campaign
Contributions from Big Tobacco
Starting in 1994,
Big Tobacco Starts Giving Much More Money To Republicans
Bush's Supreme
Court Sides with Big Tobacco, Time after Time!
Detailed Tobacco Line since 1990
Supplemental Materials
Epilogue - New Push for FDA Regulation of Cigarettes
Products To Help Smokers Quit.
Quotations
Smoking Humor (Is this possible?)
 My Family History
Don't ever get me started about the evils committed by cigarette companies. My grandfather
and my father died of Emphysema.
And my brother has it and he has the premature dementia that
smoking can cause. Each of them
tried hard to quit, after realizing the morning coughing would not
go away. It grew longer and long,
often lasting for thirty minutes to an hour So they tried to stop.
They tried hard! But they could
not. They each blamed themselves, thinking they were just weak.
Now we know Philip Morris knowingly
addicted them to a drug that would kill them..
Introduction
What they did not know was that for years tobacco companies deliberately concealed how
addictive cigarettes were or that they
went out of their way to enhance the addictive properties of
their cigarettes, so that many people
could not stop smoking, no matter how much they wanted to.
And of course, my grandfather and father
didn't know all the ways cigarette smoking could kill:
ways that went beyond lung cancer, which
became well know in the early 1960s. As a college
kid in the early 1960s, we talked about
how cigarettes caused lung cancer. But we had not heard
of nicotine craving, cigarette caused
Emphysema, Heart Disease or the dangers of second hand smoke.
It's a fact that one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related.
Smoking is, by
far, the single most preventable
cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than
430,000 Americans die from cigarette
smoking. Add to that the huge medical cost, between $50
billion and $70 billion per year, in medical expenses of
treating those with smoking related illnesses.
(These
figures come from the Center for Disease Control
and Prevention.)
Why - if each year the government spends vast sums to reduce automobile deaths, to stop
terrorists who killed 4,000
Americans at the World Trade Center, to reduce deaths from illegal
drugs, Aids and crime - does it tolerate
the continued existence of companies like Philip Morris,
which makes half the cigarettes in the
US? The answer, of course, is MONEY. Philip
Morris is one of the richest companies in
the world. It is the DJI-30. As late as 1990, it ranked #1
in corporate profits. MO survives and thrives, because it is so adept at advertising and buying
politicians.
We may not want to admit it, but Philip Morris is proof of how venal
America is. It is proof
that we put money above people, every day
and Sunday, too. Is this too extreme? See the Movie, Insider.
It shows how easily Big Tobacco made CBS
cut the 60 Minutes story about Big Tobacco's nicotine
manipulation as told by insider Jeffrey Weigand, the
ex-Research Director of Brown and Williamson.
See the Mike Wallace interview about
the whole affair: how CBS did not want to lose the advertising
of Brown & Williamson Tobacco and it
did not want to be sued by tobacco growers in Kentucky.
Madison Avenue Ads Made Philip Morris Rich
For years tobacco companies would not publicly admit the horrific health risks that their
own
in-house studies showed, and all the
while, targeted insecure, impressionable young people. They
made young men think that smoking somehow
made men "tough" (Marlboro Man, 1954-1972).
(Until the tenth grade, I remember
wanting to be "tough." Then, I wanted to be "cool." Didn't
you?
But I rose to school with my father
in the morning and I saw how much he coughed. So, I wanted
no part of it. My brother who
took up smoking in the Navy did not see him in the mornings. And when
he went away to the Naval Academy,
he saw him even less.)
Clever Madison Avenue ad men knew exactly how to make many other kids think that
among made you "tough",
"cool" or "sexy" and "attractive to women". They knew
the needs
and motivations of kids even better
than the kids themselves knew. Philip Morris' Marlboro
men weren't limited to cowboys.
They were all sorts of rugged individuals who smoked their cigarettes
while performing all sorts of
"manly" tasks, from fixing their cars to fishing or hunting. And
these
ads made Philip Morris great sums
of money.
But in 1957, the widely read Reader's Digest published a study linking
smoking with cancer.
In response, Philip Morris
turned to glamorizing cigarettes. Sultry singer Julie London was seen
sharing a smoke with her male
consort, as a new "Settle Back With a Marlboro" theme played.
When the government banned these
ads on TV in the early 1970s, Philip Morris
cranked up
the advertising in the print media.
Wayne McLaren, one of these Marlboro cigarette cowboys died of cancer in 1992 at the age of 51. The
original
Marlboro Man, David Millar, Jr. died of emphysema in 1987.
The widow of Marlboro Man David McLean, who died of lung
cancer,
sued the company for damages. Other ex-tobacco spokesmen such as David Goerlitz, the Winston Man
from 1981 to 1987, was disabled by
a stroke in his mid-30s. He lost feeling in his left leg, left side
of his face and lost his sense of taste.
 David
Goerlitz, Mr Winston in the 1980s
read this
article in 2009.
Here is the email
I received from him.
More materials on
Mr. Goerlitz's efforts to stop smoking.
http://stanford.wellsphere.com/wellpage/dave-goerlitz-winston-man
Hello Mr. Schmidt, My name is David Goerlitz, and I am
the former Winston Man that you referred to in The Danse Macabre. Just wanted
to introduce myself and praise your work. I too, am the product of a Minister
(Baptist) . Being a PK is tough. What's the saying " to much is given,
much is expected"? I have given 21 years to trying to raise the level of
awareness on tobacco issues proportionate to the havoc that it wreaks on our
society. Just wanted to let you know you'll probably be hearing more about me
and am looking for allies to back me up when the @#*^% hits the fan. I am
planning an all out attack on the same things you have brought to the not only my
attention, but to anyone who cares to read about it. The PROBLEM is I have
found, not too many people know to read the valuable information and resources that you
people like you and I provide. I plan to be the poster boy, (once again) for
exposing not only bad behavior, but illegal and corrupt behavior. I'm like
Popeye and "I can't stans no more, yuk...yuk ',
Would love to chat with you sometime and catch up on your wisdom. If you want you
can me on my cell 609 234-0220. or email me. My website is www.formerwinstonman.org.
Thanks for all your efforts and passions. Sometimes it's lonely, frustrating, and
quite tiring when you are doing battle. It's nice to find and read about
kindred spirits who make sense of this issue.
Best Wishes, David Goerlitz
David B. Goerlitz, Former Winston Man
|
|
Many of tobacco's spolsmen have
died prematurely. Will Thornbury, a Camel model, died of lung
cancer at age of 56
in 1992; and Janet Sackman, a former Lucky Strike girl in the 1950s lost her voice box and part
of a lung to cancer
(Plain Truth April, 1993 p. 28).
In
2003 Marlboro changed their company name to Altria Group, Inc to disguise their connection
with cigarettes..
Their name may have changed, but the cancer their cigarettes causes still
remains the same. One of the most ironic things
about Altria Group, Inc. is that they produce anti-tobacco commercials
warning of the dangers and addictive nature of smoking.
The ad features the voice-over narration of a sympathetic female telling the
viewers that "There are not safe cigarettes."
Yet Altria Group, (Philip Morris) knowing full well, the dangers of tobacco
use, still manufactures them.
http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_marlboro_man.htm
|
In the late 60's and early 70's, "Virginia Slims" dominated the ad scene for
Philip Morris.
I taught at a woman's college at
this time. I still recall how many of the young women aped the
figures in these ads. The rate of
smoking initiation for 12-year-old girls increased 110 percent as a
direct
result of Virginia Slims and other brands aimed at women. Smoking
made women feel empowered,
beautiful, desirous and
independent!
Philip Morris' Danse Macabre
At a secret
Big Tobacco international summit near Bath England, top tobacco executives from
Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds,
British American Tobacco, Imperial and Rothman's met and agreed to
deny that tobacco causes
disease. If governments said otherwise, the documents say, the tobacco
executives pledged to
"strenuously resist with all means at their disposal ... and in any advertising,
claims ... that one cigarette is
healthier or less harmful than another should be avoided..." (This
document was not unearthed
unfortunately until 2000. A million people world died because of this
collusion and cover-up.)
In-house
Philip Morris documents from the 1970's and 1980's show the company paid
university
staff to concoct phony research reports
that made it appear to the public that the scientific community
was divided about the health consequences
of cigarettes.
"These campaigns by U.S. tobacco companies involved spending billions
of dollars on phony
science, fake grass-roots activism, mass psychological manipulation, corporate issues
management, and
all the other techniques for implanting false images in the public mind known collectively
as marketing.
This enterprise served the narrow purpose of selling cigarettes...
Karl Rove ... was a hack
pushing the
phony Big Tobacco campaign to stop kids from smoking. A marketing guru, (he) produced a
report for
Philip Morris concluding that anti-youth-smoking messages can actually help hook
teens on smokes."
(Source: http://www.sfweekly.com/2005-11-30/news/the-smoking-gun/
)
There is no evidence from 1950 until the mid 1990s that Philip Morris
cared one iota about the
millions of people it was killing. They only
changed then because they had to. In-House documents
surfaced showing they were fully
aware that 4/5ths of the lung cancers were caused by smoking and
that cigarettes were more addictive
than heroin. When pressed they admitted there was a correlation
between smoking and lung cancer,
but they denied that causality was proven. They would not admit
that coronary disease risks doubled with
smoking. For years they would not admit that each year as
many as 140,000 spontaneous abortions,
4,000 still births and 2,000 deaths from sudden infant death
syndrome befell pregnant women because
they smoked. They knew these things and they continued
killing people. They did not care!
Perhaps, it will be shown some day that the people who ran these
companies do not have compassion genes;
that they they are a sub species of sociopath Neanderthals.
Republican
Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General, Charles Koop, published in 1982 the Surgeon
General's Report on Smoking and Health.
In this document, Koop targeted smoking as the cause of
deaths from cancer and chronic
obstructive lung disease. Koop showed the dangerous effects of
smoking
on nonsmokers in his 1986 report Health
Consequences of Passive Smoking. As a result, legislatures
began to restrict public smoking. By
1987, smoking was banned in all federal buildings, and regulated
in restaurants, hospitals, and other
public places in over forty states. In 1988, Koop commissioned
studies on smoke in airplanes.
Congress reacted to the results of these studies by banning smoking
on all flights lasting less than six
hours. (Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/charles-everett-koop
Why Don't They Just Stop
Smoking?
I still hear it said that it was the smokers' fault. They
knew the risks. And they kept on smoking.
But this really isn't true.
Lung cancer was known to be a result of smoking in 1959. But Emphysema
and heart disease were not then
linked to smoking. Certainly, how much smoking hurt the babies of
pregnant women was not known.
Nor were the evils of second-hand smoke. And we did not know that
cigarette companies were
deliberately mixing in larger and larger does of nicotine to make quitting
harder and harder. That explains
why each year 20 million Americans attempt to quit smoking, but
less than 5% have long-term
success. And of those that lose a lung to cancer, only one half are able
to stop smoking. It also
explains why cigarettes in 2007 have 10% more nicotine than they did ten
years earlier, according to a
recent Harvard study.
In 1994, the FDA learned that cigarette companies did, despite their denials, blend
tobaccos
to achieves desired levels of
tar and nicotine. More than anyone else, regulating Big
Tobacco was
the work of David Kessler,
who George Bush Sr. appointed as commissioner of the Food and Drug
Administration. He was
both a lawyer and a doctor and had worked for Republican Senator Orrin Hatch,
a Mormon whose faith strongly
disapproved of smoking. His acts to investigate the tobacco industry
were as personally courageous
as they were long over-due. I highly recommend reading David Kessler's
book: A Question of Intent: A
Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry. (In 1977 the
Democratic
President's appointment to
the FDA refused to try to regulate the tobacco industry on grounds that
there was "no
evidence" that the industry altered a natural product or intended the
deleterious effects
that tobacco has!)
Nicotine is what makes cigarettes hard to kick. But Phillip Morris CEO, William
Campbell, assured
FDA Commissioner Kessler that
his company did not deliberately raise the nicotine levels of cigarettes.
He implied that was out of
their control, saying that nicotine levels vary strictly with tar levels. But
Kessler learned on his own
that tar is not a natural part of the tobacco plant. It occurs when the
cigarette is lit.
Nicotine, on the other hand, is a natural part of tobacco. Nicotine
levels in tobacco
vary widely from breed to
breed, from plant to plant and even leaf to leaf. Yet despite these
variations,
FDA testing showed that every
brand's nicotine levels were extremely uniform. Clearly, the tobacco
companies were able to
pre-set the levels of nicotine they wanted.
"The Smoking Gun"
Could they fix the nicotine levels at high rates to achieve dependence?
Kessler sent an FDA
employee to North Carolina
State University library. She discovered a tobacco industry ad in the
Tobacco Encyclopedia.
Its headline read "MORE OR LESS NICOTINE".
Underneath was the
"gun" (though it
was not smoking). The ad read: "Nicotine levels are
becoming a growing
concern for the
designers of modern cigarettes, particularly those with lower tar deliveries. The
Kimberly-Clark tobacco
reconstitution process used by LTR Industries permits adjustments of
nicotine to your exact
requirements. We can help you control your tobacco." Here was proof that
nicotine levels were,
indeed, controllable by the tobacco companies. And that Phillip Morris had
lied. In FDA labs, it was soon determined that nicotine levels had, in fact,
risen 10% to 15% from
1982 to 1991, yet tar
levels had remained the same!
Congressional Hearings were started on the subject on March 25, 1994. Dr. Kessler
appeared.
Big Tobacco's CEOs did
not. Kessler said that cigarette companies wanted the debate to be about
the freedom to choose
to smoke. But he asked, "Whose choice is actually driving the demand...
Is it a choice by
consumers to continue to smoke? Or is it a choice by cigarette companies
to maintain addictive
levels of nicotine in their cigarettes?" Two thirds of adults who smoke
say that they wish they
could quit each year. There are 17 million would-be quitters. But of
those who try to quit,
less than 1 in 10 is successful.
"The public may think of cigarettes as no more than blended
tobacco rolled in paper. But they
ar e more than that.
Some of today's cigarettes ...(are) high-technology nicotine delivery systems
that deliver nicotine
in quantities sufficient to create and sustain addiction in the vast majority of
individuals who smoke
regularly." See Peddling Poison: The
Tobacco Industry And Kids by Clete
Snell, 2005.
ADDICTION BY DESIGN
In 1996, three
more former employees of Philip Morris came forward and gave sworn statements
to the FDA that contradicted
the sworn Congressional testimony by the company's CEO. The statements
alleged that Philip Morris
had, indeed, controlled the levels of niotine in their cigarettes.
The real culpability of these cigarette companies stemmed from their
designing cigarettes
that would be so addictive that
many smokers would never be able to quit until the habit killed them.
In 1994 the state of Minnesota filed
suit against the tobacco industry. This trial is now history,
but its legacy will carry on into
the 21st century because of the revelations contained in the millions
of pages of previously secret internal tobacco
industry documents made public in the trial... These
documents revealed that for decades,
the
tobacco industry knew and internally acknowledged that
nicotine is an addictive drug and cigarettes
are the ultimate nicotine delivery device; that nicotine
addiction can be perpetuated and
even enhanced through cigarette design alterations and manipulations;
and that "health-conscious" smokers
could be captured by low-tar, low-nicotine products, all the while
ensuring the marketplace viability
of their products.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/280/13/1173
Up in Smoke 
Failures of The Tobacco Settlement
After these revelations, it did not take long for state Attorneys General to start
piling on
Philip Morris and filing
racketeering civil lawsuits. These proliferated. They unearthed
more secret internal
documents showing that the companies knew cigarettes were
highly addictive, that the
tobacco companies intentionally enhanced the addictiveness of
cigarettes and that they
targeted minors. NBC and Dateline did important shows on these subjects.
Polls in Texas, as in other
states, showed that public support for the states' lawsuits
against big tobacco rose from
33% in favor in April 1996 to 75% in favor in April 1997.
Under this heavy pressure, the tobacco companies chose to reach an Agreement with
all US states and territories
for the health care costs their cigarettes had created. A record
$369 billion tobacco
settlement was reached in late 1998.
Tobacco Master Settlement
Finally, it looked like Big Tobacco was going to be stopped from killing
people; that Big
Tobacco was finally going to pay
for the all lives it had cruelly and callously snuffed out in
the pursuit of profits. The
Tobacco Master Settlement exempted the four largest tobacco companies
from future tort liability from
state governments and settled the lawsuit in exchange for a combination of
yearly payments to the states and
voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
Signing were the four largest
tobacco companies: Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company,
Brown
& Williamson Tobacco Corp., and Lorillard Tobacco Company. The agreement was later
joined
by over 40 other tobacco companies.
Every U.S. State and 6 U.S. Territories signed the agreement.
Florida, Minnesota, Texas and
Mississippi had already reached individual agreements with the tobacco
industry.
Although the states were to get more than $360 billion over
20 years, the Agreement left
the tobacco companies free to
carry on in much the same way, except that they could not flagrantly place
their ads in front of
children. (Beginning on April 1, 1998, the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products
to people under 18 is now
prohibited by law in all fifty states of the United States
)
The Agreement's omissions were as
wide and deep as the Grand Canyon:
1) The FDA was not given authority to regulate cigarettes and nicotine. It sought to
under Clinton,
but in March 2000, the FDA said it had no such authority,
2) Tobacco companies could still buy politicians with tax-deductible campaign
contributions.
3) Nothing was done to make it easier for individuals to to sue the tobacco companies for
the harm done them.
4) All these legal expenses and the payments to the States were tax deductible. They
could be
made up by increasing the prices on cigarettes.
5) Nothing was said in the agreement to give aggrieved smokers seeking tort redress a
reasonable
chance of winning their suits in the face of endless delaying tactics used by Big Tobacco
in the
appeals process.
6) Nothing was agreed that would prevent the pro-Tobacco majority on the Supreme Court
from
undoing much of the Agreement, especially as it related to the limits placed on Big
Tobacco's advertising
to children, the regulation of tobacco by the FDA, the provision for heavy penalties when
Big
Tobacco was found guilty in court cases and class-action lawsuits against Big Tobacco.
(See - See Mark Curriden, "Up in Smoke" http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/m2fsmoke.html
)
Health Advances since Tobacco
Agreement.
Certainly, all the publicity here had the the effect of conclusively showing most
Americans
that cigarettes are highly addictive, as well as a cause of multiple types of cancer, heart disease,
respiratory
disease, circulatory disease, dementia, premature senility,
birth defects.
Cigarette
consumption in the US, fell to a 50 year low in 2004. Dr. Stephen A. Schroeder wrote in
the
New England Journal of Medicine that
"Although U.S. smoking rates are slowly declining, progress
toward that end [decreasing smoking] "would be faster if federal policymaking matched
both the
rigor of the scientific evidence against tobacco use and the resolve of antitobacco
advocates."
Certainly, more and more state and municipalities ban smoking in restaurants, bars,
public places and even on the beach. And there are pockets of seething contempt for
Big Tobacco, as is shown in an Op-Ed piece from rural Bend, Oregon on September 13, 2007:
"Big
Tobacco Lies in Its Teeth... Why Allow Millions-More (sic) Victims of
Uncontrolled Greed?
They are the sure consequence of long-paid "corporate campaign contributions.":
In Oregon
state politics, "the
Republican Party is the party of Big Tobacco by margin of 27 to 6."
People are still very angry about Big Tobacco in Washington state.
www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoon_1406.html
Big Tobacco Is Doing Very Well Now
Have things really changed since the 1998 Tobacco Settlement? Not so
much.
1) The Settlement has been reduced by 33%.
2) Young adults still are the ones who become new smokers.
3) Despite all the revelations about Big Tobacco's crimes, only a handful of the
smoking victims who have won as plaintiffs before a Judge and Jury, have had their
case make it through the arduous appeals' process and been paid.
4) There is still no federal law to require the cigarette industry to reveal
what chemicals and
additives are mixed in with the tobacco. Without FDA
scrutiny, the nicotine content in
cigarettes has risen by 11% from 1997 to 2005.
5) The Supreme Court decided tobacco companies have not engaged in criminal
racketeering.
6) The Supreme Court has said they will not allow excessively high judgements
against tobacco companies.
7) The Supreme Court has not allowed some states to percent cigarette
advertising
clearly aimed minors.
8) The Supreme Court dismissed suits by foreign nations trying to sue US
tobacco companies for the health damage caused by cigarette smoking. .
Philip Morris' Stock Keep Rising
Profits for Philip Morris were $4.5 billion in 2005 - up 36% from 1997. Philip
Morris' stock keeps
making new highs. In
1995, MO was at 20. Today it's 68.24. The weekly chart below shows its
steady uptrend since the bear
market bottom in March 2003. Mo's stock has tripled since then and
still shows steady
accumulation.
Weekly Chart of Philip Morris
.
|
 |
Can you make out what
the warning label said?
Millions of non-American
men and women have been
killed by Philip Morris and
the other tobacco companies.
 |
According to one internal 1987 memo, R. J.
Reynolds designed a fatter
cigarette to target "13-24-year-old male Marlboro smokers".
The
Best Government That Money Can Buy 
We have seen that Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General and
George Bush's Commissioner of
the FDA started the public health crusade
against tobacco. We have seen that it was Senior Bush's
FDA Commissioner who uncovered the
smoking gun of manipulated levels of nicotine levels and
sought to have the FDA regulate tobacco
as a drug. Two of Senior Bush's three appointments to
the Supreme Court voted to sustain heavy
penalties and stricter regulation of Big Tobacco. Much of
their good work was to be undone by the George
Bush Jr. The "Shrub", as he is called because
he is so
far below his father's moral and intellectual
standards, protected Big Tobacco at every turn. From
appointing pro-tobacco Justice of the Supreme
Court to denying funds to his own DOJ's efforts
to police the Tobacco criminals, Bush was the
best President Philip Morris could buy!
As President, Bush Jr showed he was as morally challenged as he was mentally challenged.
His transcript at Yale is testament to his
innate lack of curiosity and limited intelligence. But I
will give him his due. Running for
President in 2000, he publicly and boldly declared for Big Tobacco.
If elected, he
would not, he said, continue the Justice
Department's suit against the tobacco industry
to
recover Medicare costs. A year before, the Clinton administration had filed suit
against the
industry last year seeking more than $500
billion in payments to make up for the cost to Medicare
of treating tobacco-related diseases.
Republicans in Congress had tried to block money to pay for
the litigation, but the Clinton administration has
vowed to keep it alive. In 1999, Bush told $1,000-a-
person donors at a Raleign, NC fund-raising dinner he
would not raise federal cigarette taxes.
Big Tobacco's Heavy
Backing of George Bush Junior
and Congressional Republicans after 1997.
Between 1995 and the end of 2002, Philip Morris, just by
itself, gave more than $10.7 million
in political contributions, about $9
million to Republicans, making it number four on the
all-time soft-money donor list. Philip Morris was the top TOTAL
contributor to the Republican Party.
Big
Tobacco "soft" money was a significant help to Bush in 2000.
In 2000,
Philip Morris was the second largest DIRECT contributor to the Republican Party,
giving almost $1.5 million. "Soft"
money from Big Tobacco also significantly helped Bush in 2000.
The American political system, especially on the
Republican side, became awash with tobacco money.
When Bush was made President in 2000, there was a loud "sigh of
relief", said a Wall Street analyst.
Tobacco shares leaped upwards. (For more
information on Big Tobacco's campaign contributions, see -
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11470
)
Since the 2002 McCain-Feingold ban on soft-money contributions to political parties,
Big Tobacco has
cut down on its campaign contributions. It used to rely heavily of "soft
money"
contributions,
which were mainly given to the Republican Party. Corporate jet flights and
fund raising
dinners topped
the list. In the 2004 election cycle, Bush was the top recipient of tobacco money
taking in
$167,845. That year, the tobacco industry also gave $2,180,155 to Republican
candidates
and party
committees overall. [Center for Responsive Politics, Accessed 6/8/05]
Karl Rove's Close Ties with Big Tobacco
Karl Rove, sometimes known as "Bush's Brain" and certainly Bush's most trusted
political
strategist since the 1970s, was
on the Philip Morris pay role from 1991 to 1996.
While Rove was masterminding Bush's gubernatorial victory of 1994 in Texas, he himself was
a paid political
intelligence operative for the Philip Morris and reported to another Bush aide,
Jack Dillard,
ubiquitous tobacco lobbyist. (Someone should investigate how many men Big
Tobacco hires and pays,
so that all the while they can do work for their favorite Republican
candidate.
I doubt if this SOFT money contribution was ever reported!)
Bush Junior Put Tobacco Foxes In
Charge
of Protecting Public Health!
Beginning in 2002, he
drastically cut the funding of the Federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco.
In 2001,
the Tobacco Litigation Team was provided with $23 million. However, in 2002,
Bush failed to set aside any funding for continued legal efforts,
including discovery, research and
storage of
billions of pages of documents. The Tobacco Litigation Team informed Ashcroft that
without a
budget increase, "there are no realistic prospects for a settlement" and that
the Team
would be
forced "seriously to consider seeking authority to dismiss the case." [Washington
Post,
4/24/01 and
4/25/01]
In 2005, Senior Justice Department officials, appointed by George
Bush, pressured
experts to change soften their testimony against Big Tobacco. [Washington Post,
6/9/05]
These
same Bush appointed high DOJ officials overrode the objections of career
attorneys running the federal tobacco racketeering trial, ordering them to reduce the
penalties
by
more than $120 billion dollars.
(Source: http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=239033&
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Under pressure from high-ranking Bush administration officials,
government lawyers
argued that the tobacco companies should pay a fine that is a fraction of the amount
called
for by the government’s own witnesses... On June 7, the government announced
that it
was requesting that the industry be forced to pay only $10 billion over five years to fund
a smoking cessation program. The program would be designed to help addicted smokers
quit. A government witness had previously testified that a program to target all existing
smokers
in the US, estimated at about 45 million people, would require funding of $130 billion
over
25 years. It had been widely expected that the Justice Department would follow the
testimony of its own witness in making its request before the District Court.
"The government’s decision this week was so obviously motivated by political
considerations
that it elicited a comment from Judge Gladys Kessler, of the US District Court for the
District of
Columbia, who suggested that perhaps “there are some additional influences
being brought
to bear on the government’s position in this case.” It is no secret that these
“additional influences”
were top officials of the Bush administration itself. The case was based on
the Racketeering
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act."
As it turned out the Supreme Court threw out even this award on October 17, 2006.
See below. And only two or three individual law suits filed against
tobacco companies have
led to payoffs. The tobacco companies have appealed all sizeable jury rewards, all
the way
to the Supreme Court. Each time the Supreme Court ( 8 of its nine Justices
were appointed
by Republican Presidents.) has sided with Big Tobacco every time, and certainly in
all the
biggest cases. ( http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/tob1-j13.shtml
)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Dept. of Justice under Bush
was run by lawyers
with deep ties to Big Tobacco.
1. Former
Senator John Ashcroft - US Attorney General & Big Tobacco
1998 - Date: Wed, Apr 1, 1998 WASHINGTON,
April 1 (UPI) --
A history lesson: The Senate commerce
committee has approved a sweeping tobacco settlement
bill, freeing it for a floor vote sometime in May. Committee members voted 19-1 tonight in
favor
of the bill, which proposes a $1.10 hike in cigarette taxes, promises sharp restrictions
on tobacco
advertising and marketing, and outlines hefty fines for companies if youth smoking is not
reduced
by 60 percent within the next decade. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., was the lone voice
of dissent,
objecting that the bill could destroy the tobacco companies -- and with them the
tobacco farmers
in his state.
(See more : http://www.infoimagination.org/ps/election_2000/bush_action/ag.html
)
2. McCallum, Who Oversees Civil Division, Has Strong Ties to Tobacco.
The Los Angeles Times reported that: "Before his appointment in the Justice
Department in 2001,
McCallum had been a partner at Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based firm that has
done trademark
and patent work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. In 2002, McCallum signed a
friend-of-the-court
brief by the administration urging the Supreme Court not to consider an appeal by
the government
of Canada to reinstate a cigarette smuggling case against R.J. Reynolds that had been
dismissed."
Los Angeles Times, 6/8/05]
3. THEODORE ULLYOT, CHIEF OF STAFF AT DOJ Ullyot Was A Partner
At Kirkland & Ellis, "Top Corporate Law Firm" For Big
Tobacco. Ullyot was a partner of
former Whitewater counsel Kenneth Starr at the Kirkland & Ellis law
firm and also was a law clerk
for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In 2002, Kirkland & Ellis was listed
as the top corporate
law firm for fighting class action lawsuits because of its decades of work defending
tobacco company
Brown & Williamson. [AP, 2/14/05; Fullerton County Daily Report, 4/27/05;
Corporate Board Member, 7/1/02]
4. RAUL YANES, CHIEF COUNSEL TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Yanes Represented Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds In Tobacco Lawsuits.
Yanes was a partner at the New York law firm Davis, Polk and Wardwell, where his
clients included Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds n tobacco lawsuits and the Arthur
Andersen accounting firm. [AP 2/14/05]
5. RALPH BOYD, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL
Boyd Has Advised The Tobacco Industry.
Boyd, the assistant attorney general
overseeing civil rights, has advised the tobacco and gun industries as lawyer with the
Boston firm Goodwin Procter. [Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/1/01; Washington Post,
3/7/01]
Bush's
Director of the US Federal Trade Commission, Howard Beales, was a long time
Big Tobacco operative..
Howard Beales III, worked as a consultant for
R.J. Reynolds when it was being challenged
by the FTC for using advertisements that made tobacco appealing to children and teens.
Beales asserted there was no connection between tobacco advertising and smoking among
young people. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
6/18/01; Deseret News, 6/12/01]
Beales Defended 'Joe Camel.' Beales is an economist who has asserted that there is
no link between cigarette advertisements and smoking among teenagers. Beales
defended the use of the Joe Camel cartoon character in tobacco advertising.
[Deseret News, 6/12/01; Cox News Service, 6/12/01]
Wolf In Charge Of Henhouse. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco
Free Kids, likened Beales's appointment to "putting the wolf in charge of the hen
house."
He added: "Someone with those kinds of ties to the tobacco industry, whose position
on the impact of advertising, particularly on young people, is so far out of the
mainstream,
cannot be counted on to protect our kids." [Washington Post, 5/31/05]
House Republican Majority Leaders' Ties To Big
Tobacco
ABC News reported
that "when DeLay was arraigned in a Texas court last month on criminal
charges, he
flew there on a jet provided by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. DeLay has boasted
that he was
the one who killed the last legislative effort to have the government regulate cigarettes
in a bill
that R.J. Reynolds said would put it out of business." Big Tobacco has provided
lavish parties
during the
Political Convention season. They make available corporate jets. These are
only some
of the more
obvious forms that "soft money" contributions take. As a result of
Republican Tom DeLay's
recent
indictment, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has taken over for a time as majority leader of the
House.
Like DeLay,
At the start of 2006, new Republican Majority Leader Blunt is closely connected to the
tobacco
industry.
His new wife, Abigain Perlman, is a top lobbyist for Philip Morris' parent company,
and
his son
also lobbies for Philip Morris.
See also: http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-bed-with-big-tobacco.html
Bag Man
A 1996 NY Times report: One day last summer Representative John A. Boehner of
Ohio,
chairman of the
House Republican Conference, decided to play Santa Claus. … In any event,
Mr. Boehner took it
upon himself to begin handing out money from tobacco lobbyists to
certain of his
colleagues on the House floor. Boehner stopped handing out the checks only
“after being
questioned about the practice by two freshmen who’d heard about the handoff on
the
House floor”
[Charleston Gazette, 5/11/96]
Tort Limitation Would Serve Big Tobacco Well
American corporations have seen the size of mounting numbers of tobacco settlements and
they are
becoming frightened. Insurance companies, manufacturers of dangerous products and
chemicals,
the tobacco industry and other major industries have been engaged in a nationwide
assault on
the civil justice system. In nearly every state and in Congress, corporations and their
insurers
have waged a relentless campaign to change the laws that give sick and injured consumers
the ability
to hold their offenders responsible for the injuries they cause. Industry spokesmen
do their
best to make it seem that the civil justice system in "out of control".
They call for "tort reform".
Ken Starr,
Clinton's nemesis, had been a tobacco lawyer. He prepared a special "tort
reform" report
in 1991.
Big Tobacco Seeks To Topple Key Republican
Lawmaker
Who Didn't Vote as Ordered.
Philip Morris is also now targeting Republican
lawmakers who don't vote their way
for the 2008
election in some new attack ads sent by mail to select voters. US Senator Gordon
Smith(R-OR) is
their number-1 target. He voted with a small number of Republican moderates
to raise taxes on
cigarettes to help fund federal children's health care programs. He disobeyed
his party's
leadership, George Bush and Big Tobacco, who claim this is a big step towards
socialized
medicine.
(Source: http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2007/09/big-tobacco-seeks-to-topple-republican.html
)
Justice for Sale, Illinois Style!
In 2000, in Illinois, lawyers from Phillip Morris
contributed $16,000 to help elect a judge who
cast a
deciding vote in the Illinois Supreme Court case favoring the tobacco giant. The Republican
judge also
received $1.2 million in campaign money from a group that filed an amicus brief supporting
the
cigarette-maker. Somehow, no one suggested that Judge Lloyd Karmeier excuse himself from a
closely
watched case in which he voted with three others to strike down a $10.1 billion judgment,
handing a
huge victory to Philip Morris. More details below.
Campaign Contributions from Big Tobacco
In the chart above note the big jump in contributions to
Republicans from 1996 to 2002.
See 1996 - "Big Tobacco Is Betting Its Future on
The Republican Party" ny Peter H/ Stone
(Sample excerpted
form Mother Jones, May/June 1996)
"On February 5, Geoffrey Bible, CEO of Philip Morris Cos. Inc., chaired a
little-noticed dinner
for the Republican Governors Association in Washington that smashed records by raking in
$2.6 million.
At the gala, which Philip Morris underwrote to the tune of about $100,000, Bible spoke
passionately
to the governors about tobacco's benefits to the economy."
Election Cycle |
Rank† |
Total Contributions |
Contributions from Individuals |
Contributions from PACs |
Soft Money Contributions |
Donations to Democrats |
Donations to Republicans |
% to Dems |
% to Repubs |
2006* |
64 |
$3,527,103 |
$722,603 |
$2,804,500 |
N/A |
$924,307 |
$2,593,796 |
26% |
74% |
2004* |
65 |
$3,671,427 |
$1,072,344 |
$2,599,083 |
N/A |
$941,922 |
$2,719,055 |
26% |
74% |
2002 |
40 |
$9,151,810 |
$554,690 |
$2,582,604 |
$6,014,516 |
$1,952,502 |
$7,199,308 |
21% |
79% |
2000 |
45 |
$8,627,588 |
$705,660 |
$2,603,389 |
$5,318,539 |
$1,400,587 |
$7,201,901 |
16% |
83% |
1998 |
29 |
$8,620,738 |
$558,694 |
$2,581,002 |
$5,481,042 |
$1,777,340 |
$6,842,398 |
21% |
79% |
1996 |
26 |
$10,585,141 |
$710,435 |
$2,970,019 |
$6,904,687 |
$1,977,328 |
$8,606,813 |
19% |
81% |
1994 |
34 |
$5,323,338 |
$348,229 |
$2,453,716 |
$2,521,393 |
$1,756,471 |
$3,561,567 |
33% |
67% |
1992 |
33 |
$5,880,428 |
$636,077 |
$2,436,396 |
$2,807,955 |
$2,590,467 |
$3,281,993 |
44% |
56% |
1990 |
42 |
$2,293,185 |
$158,852 |
$2,134,333 |
N/A |
$1,128,010 |
$1,165,175 |
49% |
51% |
Total |
45 |
$57,680,758 |
$5,467,584 |
$23,165,042 |
$29,048,132 |
$14,448,934 |
$43,172,006 |
25% |
75% |
Starting in 1994, Big Tobacco Starts
Giving
Much More Money To Republicans
In 1990, tobacco
money split 53 to 47 percent in favor of the Republicans. "Soft money"
campaign contributions rose sharply in the next ten years. Soft money cover
goodies like free
air fare in corporate jets.
Big Tobacco frequently provided corporate jets for Republican
Congressmen. Dozens of such
flights were recorded in
1997 and 1998 for Republicans. No such
trips were recorded for Democratic
Congressmen. This was at a key time in the Tobacco Settlement
negotiations. In 2000 tobacco money favored
the Republicans by a whopping 83-17 margin,
according to the Center for Responsive
Politics. By 2005, tobacco money was too hot for many
Congressman to take. So, some
like R-Jennifer Dunn of Washington got money
from Kraft Foods,
which
is wholly owned by Philip Morris.
=====================================================
Bush's Supreme Court Sides with Big Tobacco,
Time after Time!
If you study the tobacco cases, you will see that the Supreme Court has
only
let stand 4 or 5 lower court rulings and findings
against Big Tobacco
#1
March 21, 2000 ---
US Supreme Court Rules 5-4 for Big Tobacco.
and against FDA Regulation of Tobacco .
It proclaimed 5-4 that the FDA does not have the authority
to regulate tobacco as a drug!
(Editor's note: What a croc!)
FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
Voting in favor of Big Tobacco were:
O'Connor - age, 77, Appointed by conservative President
Ronald Reagan,
Rehnquist - now deceased - Appointed by President Richard
Nixon
He was active in the Republican Party and served as a legal advisor to
Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign.
Scalia age, 71, Appointed by conservative President Ronald
Reagan,
Kennedy - age, 71, Appointed by conservative President
Ronald Reagan,
Thomas - age, 59, Appointed by conservative President George
Bush Sr.
Voting to protect consumers:
Breyer - age, 69, Appointed by President George Bush, Sr.
Stevens age, 87, Appointed by President Gerald Ford
Souter - age, 67, Appointed by President George
Bush, Sr
Ginsburg - age, 74, Appointed by President Clinton
#2 June 29, 2001
Supreme
Court Reins in Local Authorities' Regulation of Tobacco Ads
The Supreme Court today placed significant limits on the ability of state and local
governments
to regulate tobacco advertising in a case from Massachusetts that also appeared to
invalidate a
similar law in New York City. All nine justices agreed that smoking by children was
a serious
public health problem that government policies could appropriately address. But invoking
an amalgam
of statutory and constitutional reasons, all nine also found invalid the core of a
sweeping tobacco
advertising ban that was adopted two years ago in Massachusetts and was the most
far-reaching
It violates FREE SPEECH they said. Although the industry has not challenged the
32-year-old
federal ban on cigarette advertising on radio and television, the court's constitutional
analysis of the
industry's right to market its products to an adult audience would appear to make the ban
vulnerable
if it were attacked on First Amendment grounds.
#3 October
30, 2001 - Foreign Nations Have No Redress
for Health Care Costs
of US Tobacco
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday rejected an appeal by three foreign nations of the
dismissal
of their lawsuits seeking to recover smoking-related health-care costs from the tobacco
industry.
http://no-smoking.org/oct01/10-30-01-3.html
#4
October 17, 2006 -
Supreme
Court Overturns Tobacco Penalty
Arrogantly and"without comment", without
even bothering to explain themselves, the
Supreme Court rejected
the Justice Department's appeal to allow a potential $280 billion penalty
based on racketeering
charges against the tobacco companies.
"It was a big victory for big tobacco. A big, big victory. After a six
year prosecution, the
U.S. Supreme Court
backed a lower court, throwing out the Justice Department attempt to force a group
of tobacco companies to
pay $280 billion for decades of covering up the health effects of smoking.
"The court ruled that the law cited by the government – written in the 1970s to
take down mobsters
and racketeers, could
not be used to prosecute the tobacco companies. The charges, first leveled in 1999,
accuse Philip Morris, RJ
Reynolds, British American Tobacco and Altria of conspiring to promote cigarette
smoking among children and to
hide tobacco’s detrimental health effects.
"The government originally sought $289 billion from the companies. Of the total, $280
billion
represents revenue and
interest from sales between 1971 and 2000 to smokers younger than age 21,
as well as interest. In its
case, the Justice Department charged that the tobacco companies manipulated
nicotine levels, misled
consumers about the health risks of smoking and directed multibillion-dollar
promotional campaigns at
children.
"The government also charged that the companies' marketing of light and ultralight
cigarettes
provided "a false sense
of reassurance to smokers," lessening "their resolve to quit smoking" and
drawing
"ex-smokers back into
the market."
"Among government documents filed in the case were those purporting to show that
cigarette
companies worked to
"financially reward scientists in every world market" with the "overarching
goal"
of downplaying the dangers of
secondhand smoke in an effort to forestall smoking bans. The tobacco
companies denied the
allegations."
( www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/scotus_tobacco.html )
#5 November
28, 2006 Supreme Court rejected
an appeal from smokers who said they were misled
about the health risks
of “light” cigarettes. Arrogantly, "without comment", without
even bothering
to explain themselves,
the Supreme Court refused to revive a $10.1 billion award against Philip
Morris. They left
intact an Illinois Supreme Court decision that threw out the case against Philip Morris
which overturned an
award in 2005. They said that the Federal Trade Commission had actually
endorsed
the “light”
and “low tar” descriptions in settlements with other cigarette makers.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/business/28bizcourt.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/S/Supreme%20Court
#6
"Shielding
The Powerful"
February
20, 2007 Philip
Morris USA v. Williams, Mayola
Again, showing its contempt or jury trials, the Supreme
Court threw out a more than $79.5 million
Oregon jury's judgment
against the Philip Morris tobacco company. The widow of a longtime smoker
had successfully sued the
company for fraud, for deceiving her husband for forty about the dangers of smoking,
even though they knew
cigarettes were deadly.
By a 5 to 4 majority, the
Supreme Court stated that jurors improperly calculated the harm smoking had
done. Juries
must not punish "for harm caused strangers to the
litigation." The Court did
not address the fact that the
ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages was nearly 100 to one.
The mission all along of the
Supreme Court's Bush created majority was clearly to protect big tobacco.
I say this because there are ample
Supreme Court precedents where the "reprehensibility"
of a defendant's
conduct IS a factor the jury
may consider. The decision reverts the case back to the Oregon
Supreme Court. The New York Times opined that the decision "stretches ...due
process in a way that
will make it easier for
companies that act reprehensibly to sidestep serious punishment.
Voting for Big Tobacco were:
Breyer - age, 69, Appointed by President George
Bush, Sr.
Roberts, George
Bush Jr. appointee.
Kennedy, Four years earlier he
wrote that "few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio"
would meet the test of "due process".
Souter - age, 68, Appointed by
President George Bush, Sr
Alito - George
Bush Jr. appointee.
Voting against Big Tobacco were:
Ginsburg, - Clinton
appointee.
Scalia - , 71, Appointed by Ronald Reagan,
Thomas.- 59, Appointed by George Bush Sr.
John Paul Stevens - “no procedural error even arguably justifying reversal
occurred at the
trial in this case.” and "A
murderer who kills his victim by throwing a bomb that injures dozens
of bystanders should be punished more severely than one who harms no one other than his
intended victim.”
The New York Times summed it all up. "the court has been far
less activist when ordinary people |
seek protection or challenge their punishments. The ruling stands in particular contrast
with the court’s
2003 decision that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual
punishments” did not bar
California, under its “three strikes” law, from sentencing a man to 50 years in
prison for stealing
$153.53 worth of videotapes. Yesterday’s decision is another disturbing sign that
— as the current
court reads the Constitution — powerful parties have more rights than regular
people."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/opinion/21wed1.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/S/Supreme%20Court&oref=slogin
| TOBACCO TIMELINE
Best
source
X = Big Tobacco
victory. Public Health Victory
is in Blue.
1982-1990 -
125 different law suits against tobacco companies by individuals who were harmed addictive
smoking.
1997-12-31: MINNESOTA Judge Fitzpatrick fines BROWN & WILLIAMSON $100,000 for failure
to turn
over American Tobacco Co. documents now held by
Gallaher in Britain. This is the most severe court sanction
against a tobacco company in decades.
1998-01-07: Justice Department files a criminal information suit against DNA Plant
Technology Corp. of Oakland,
CA accusing them of developing "Y-1"
high-nicotine tobacco with an "unindicted coconspirator"
1998-05-27: LITIGATION: WYNN: Alabama Circuit Judge
William Wynn, files suit seeking to revoke
the
charters of the nation's five major cigarette
companies. Wynn called for the criminal enforcement of tobacco
companies' misdemeanors, and upon finding that the
companies have broken the law, that the state should
revoke the companies' charters to do business in
Alabama.
1998-06-10: LITIGATION: WIDDICK Trial: Largest damages in tobacco litigation history are
awarded.
Jury finds for Widdick, orders B&W to pay almost $1 million. This is Norwood S. Wilner's 2nd
win against B&W
X 1998-08-13: LITIGATION: WIDDICK: A Florida appeals court rules that the Widdick trial was
held in the
wrong county.
X 1998-06-17: LEGISLATION: On a procedural vote, Republicans
in the US Senate kill the McCain tobacco
bill, meant to curb teen smoking.
X 1998-07-17: LITIGATION: Federal
Judge overturns 1993 EPA secondhand smoke report;
.
November
1998 - 55 US state'/territories' tobacco
settlement - $368 billion were to be paid by tobacco
companies over the first 25 years in return for an
end to all state claims against the companies for fraud,
anti-trust violations and smoking-related Medicaid
expenses...
Jeremy Bulow, the Richard A. Stepp Stanford
Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business.
“In reality the settlement preserved tobacco
companies’ profits while it gave the trial lawyers an incredibly large
ongoing source of income gouged from the hides of
smokers and handed state politicians bragging rights as Davids
to Big Tobacco’s Goliaths.” http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0708/kn-tobacco.html
"“Smokers in
some states (including Georgia, Kentucky, North
Carolina and Virginia) are paying over $100 million per year more
for tobacco than the settlement returns to their
states’ coffers.” The agreement allowed Big Tobacco
to raise
prices by about $2 per carton over and beyond all
cost increases linked to tax hikes and settlement
payments. The increase, says Bulow, was about equal
to the entire cost of producing the cigarettes.
Why Tobacco companies agreed:
1) The deal severely
limits FDA's jurisdiction over tobacco and nicotine. It prevented FDA regulation
of nicotine for a decade.
2) The tobacco deal permits smoking in restaurants (except fast food), bars and casinos.
3) It would give the American worker far less protection than OSHA has proposed.
4.) Tobacco companies may continue to conceal secret internal documents.
Koop-Kessler said "All internal tobacco industry documents that bear on the public
health must be disclosed." The disclosures must come before Congress passes any
legislation
so the public can judge what penalties and restrictions are appropriate and fair; not
afterwards,
when it is too late, and all sides are bound by the legislative agreement. The disclosures
must
also be made so consumers and future customers can make an informed choice about the
industry and its products..
5. Tobacco companies did not have to admit that smoking even causes cancer or other
diseases.
Only the Liggett Group has admitted that cigarettes are addictive!.
6. Though it may seem that tobacco has agreed to pay a lot. It is a fact that
smoking costs the
American public over $100 billion a year. Another way to estimate the value of the
settlement of lawsuits is to note that most agencies and jury verdicts value an adult
human life
at over $1 million. Since smoking kills almost 500,000 Americans each year (419,000
smokers and over 60,000 nonsmokers), the annual costs in lives alone (not including those
simply disabled) would be roughly 500,000 times $1 million or $500 billion per year,
or $30 trillion over 60 years. A settlement of even $400 billion would be less than 2
cents
on the dollar.
7. The tobacco company payments will be tax deductible. So, the rest of the tax
payers are subsidizing
this sum.
1998 Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to make the agreement more acceptable to public health
advocates
by increasing the amount the cigarette makers would pay to $516 billion over 25 years. But
the
new price tag was too much for Big Tobacco, which ordered its lobbyists to stop pushing
for passage
of the bill and start fighting it. In June 1998, the McCain
Comprehensive Tobacco Bill died on the
floor of the U.S. Senate after several key senators concluded it was
not’t tough enough on the cigarette
makers. In the eight years since, not a single piece of
tobacco-control legislation has even made it to a
vote. See Mark Curriden, "Up in Smoke" http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/m2fsmoke.html
1999-03-30: LITIGATION: WILLIAMS: JOANN
WILLIAMS-BRANCH V. PHILIP MORRIS: Oregon
jury returns
$81 Million verdict against PM, giving Jesse
Williams' family about $800,000 in compensatory
damages and $79.5 million punitive damages. The
award is later cut to $32M, then reinstated in June, 2002
and then sent back to Oregon Supreme Court from
US Supreme Court in 2006. See below/
but
X 1999-06: LITIGATION: WILLIAMS: Oregon Appellate Court sends Jesse Williams case
back to the
original court and orders the jury to reenter the
original award. Philip Morris says it will appeal to the
Oregon Supreme Court.
1999 - San
Francisco jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $51.5 million to lung cancer victim.
X 1999-05-10:
LITIGATION: KARNEY VS. Philip Morris, et.al.: A jury
in Memphis, TN, finds for the defense
in a trial that consolidated the suits of
3 plaintiffs: Bobby Newcomb, James W. Karney and Florence Bruch
(McDaniel). Jurors found RJR 30%
responsible for Newcomb's lung cancer, and B&W 20% responsible,
but Tennessee law requires damages only
if a company is found more than 50% responsible.
X 1999-05-13:LITIGATION: STEELE VS.
BROWN & WILLIAMSON: A federal jury in
Kansas City, Mo.,
finds the company was not at fault in the
case of Charles Steele, a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1995.
X 1999-05-23:
ENTERTAINMENT: RUPERT MURDOCH's Fox Network runs
"Independence Day," the
world's most expensive cigar
commercial--and popular kid favorite--in prime time. Fox also produced the
film (cigar product placement
by Feature This).
X 1999-05-27: BUSINESS: PHILIP
MORRIS board member Rupert Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group
announces that it will launch a new
Web-cable property called The Health Network.
1999-07-07: LITIGATION: : ENGLE jurors rule that smoking causes diseases such as
lung cancer and that
U.S. cigarette makers hid the dangers of their
products from the public.
1999-10-13: BUSINESS: Philip
Morris launches website; for first time, acknowledges scientific consensus
on smoking. "There is an overwhelming
medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung
cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other
serious diseases in smokers,'' its website,
http://www.philipmorris.com
, states."there is no safe cigarette . . . cigarette smoking is addictive,
as that term
is most commonly used today.''
1999-11-12: LOBBYING: New York Lobbying Commission hits Philip Morris with the
largest fine in
commission history, $75,000; forbids PM's
chief Albany representative Sharon Portnoy from lobbying in
New York state for three years.
X 2000: CONSUMPTION:
29.7% of high school senior girls report having smoked within the last 30 days.
32.8% of high school senior boys report having
smoked within the last 30 days.(U. of Mich, 2000)
2000-02-08: Wholesalers and distributors file suit
against major tobacco companies, accusing them of
collusion/price fixing
because they raised cigarette prices "by the exact amount" during 1997 and 1998.
2000-03-20: LITIGATION: Whiteley
Jurors find against Tobacco
California Superior Court jury finds that the Philip
Morris and RJ Reynolds acted with malice,
knew about the health hazards of smoking and deliberately
misled the public about those dangers.
It also found that the two companies committed fraud.
X 2000-03-21 Republican dominated
US Supreme Court Rules 5-4 against FDA Regulation of Tobacco
"No matter how important, conspicuous,
and controversial the issue, and regardless of how likely
the public is to hold the Executive
Branch politically accountable, an administrative agency's power
to regulate in the public interest must
always be grounded in a valid grant of authority from Congress."
- 2000-03-29: LITIGATION: Federal jury rules UST violated antitrust laws; U.S.
Tobacco Co
ordered to pay
$1.05 billion to Conwood. The Kentucky jury awarded $350 million in damages
to Conwood; U.S. District Judge Thomas
Russell trebled that amount pursuant to federal law.
Conwood charged that UST had engaged in
anti-competitive business practices in trying to control
point-of-sale advertising,
including vandalizing and removing Conwood in-store display racks
2000-04-07: LITIGATION: Engle Jury Awards 3 Smokers $12.7 Million in damages;
punitives
yet to be decided.
but
X 2000-11-04:
LITIGATION: ENGLE: U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages
rules that the
Engle case belongs in state, not federal court.
but
2000-11-06: LITIGATION: ENGLE: Judge Kaye affirms $145 Billion award against
tobacco companies.
2000 - San Francisco jury
ordered Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds to pay $21.7 million to lung cancer
patient..
2000-06-25: BUSINESS: Philip Morris Cos. agrees
to acquire Nabisco Holdings Corp. for $18.9 billion.
2000-07-14: LITIGATION: Engle
Jury Awards Florida Smokers Punitive Damages of $145 Billion--
the biggest judgment in U.S. history.
2000-08-27: LITIGATION:
Russia Sues Tobacco in Miami-Dade County court, Florida, charging
Philip Morris and other tobacco companies with
causing suffering to Russian smokers, hiding the
risks of cigarettes, and damaging Russia's
economy.
2000-08: BUSINESS: RJR spins out Targacept. A
world leader in neuronal nicotinic receptor (NNR)
research and development, Targacept is
dedicated to the design, discovery and development of a new
class of drugs that will treat Alzheimer's
disease, Parkinson's disease, ulcerative colitis and others. The
business was begun out of RJR's 1982 program
investigating the effects of nicotine on the human body.
2000-10-12: LITIGATION: JONES: A Florida jury decides that the R.J. Reynolds
Tobacco Co. was
responsible for the death of Robert Jones' wife
Suzanne M. Jones, and awards compensatory damages
totaling $200,028.57 for negligence on the part
of RJR and a defective cigarette design.
2000-11-03: LITIGATION: European
Union files suit in New York against RJR, Philip Morris on
RICO/smuggling claims.
2000-11-05: LITIGATION: Lorillard, Liggett reach a tentative $8 Billion Settlement of individual
tobacco suits, brokered by NY Judge Weinstein.
2001-03-08: LITIGATION: Grady Carter
collects $1.1 million from Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Corp. The payment, covering a 1996 jury award
of $750,000 plus interest, represents the first time
an individual collected payment from the
tobacco industry for a tobacco-related illness.
X 2001-04-05:
LITIGATION: FL: Miami jury finds cigarette
manufacturers not liable for the lung diseases
of former TWA flight attendant Marie Fontana.
This was the first individual case (out of about 3200 filed)
after the Broin settlement.
X 2001-05-16:
LITIGATION: NJ: jury finds Philip Morris and
RJ Reynolds not liable in the Mehlman
personal lawsuit (Mehlman v. Philip Morris, et.
al.)
June
6, 2001 - In an LA jury trial, a longtime smoker who has lung cancer
today won the largest individual civil award ever levied
against a tobacco company, slightly more than
$3 billion from the Philip Morris Companies. The jury ordered
Philip Morris to pay $3
billion in punitive damages and $5.5 million in general damages to Richard
Boeken,
56, who admitted to smoking at least two packs
of the company's Marlboro cigarettes a day for 40 years.
The smoker's lawyer introduced company
memorandums showing that Philip Morris was aware of the
health hazards of smoking even as it promoted
cigarettes as ''cool.'', The cancer victim Mr. Boeken, said he
had been able to overcome a dependence on
heroin and alcohol but had not been able to defeat his addiction
to cigarettes. 2001-08-09: :Amount is
later reduced to $50 Million on 10/2/2004 because of Supreme Court.
Judge denied a new trial saying:
"The record fully supports findings that Philip
Morris knew by the late 1950s and early
1960s that the nicotine in cigarettes is highly addictive, that substances in cigarette
tar
cause lung cancer, and that no substantial medical or scientific doubt existed on these
crucial
facts. Nevertheless, motivated primarily by a professed desire to generate
wealth, Philip Morris,
in concert with other major American tobacco companies, consistently endeavored through
calculated misrepresentations to create doubts in the minds of snickers , especially
addicted
smokers such as Richard Boeken, that cigarettes are neither addictive nor
disease-producing....
Philip Morris is not being punished for marketing cigarettes, but rather for engaging in a
fraudulent business scheme" Judge Charles W. (The Real) McCoy, Jr.
X 2001-06-28:
US Supreme Court bars Mass. ad restrictions.
X 2001-11-15: BUSINESS: Philip Morris proposes changing its corporate name to Altria, which
would
consist of Miller Beer, Kraft
Foods, and the two cigarette branches, Philip Morris USA and Philip
Morris International.
2001-11-29: Beatle
George Harrison dies of lung cancer. He had been battling various forms of
the disease
for at least three years: In 1998, he underwent
radiation therapy for throat cancer, which he attributed to years
of smoking.
2002-02-22: LITIGATION: Burton wins suit in Kansas.
RJR and B&W are found guilty of failing to warn
about the risks of smoking before warning labels
appeared in the 1960s. Jurors found that
David Burton's
peripheral vascular disease (PVD), which caused him
to lose both his legs, was caused by smoking. They
ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to pay $196,416 in
compensatory damages and Brown & Williamson
Tobacco Corp. to pay $1,984 for Burton's medical
bills and economic losses. Reynolds also was found liable
for punitive damages for fraudulently concealing the
risks and addictiveness of smoking, according to the
unanimous verdict. This is the
first time the industry has lost 1) in the MidWest; 2) in a federal court (except
for Cipollone, which was overturned on appeal); 3) in
connection with PVD.
10/1/2002
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury
last week ordered Philip Morris to pay $850,000 to compensate
Betty Bullock for her illness. This week
the jury will determine the amount of punitive damages designed to punish
the company.
2001-10-16: US Court of
Appeals (First Circuit) reinstates a Massachusetts
law that requires tobacco
companies to disclose the ingredients in their
products.
2002-03-22: LITIGATION: Oregon
Jury finds for Marlene Schwartz; finds Philip Morris lied on
"light"
cigarettes and orders company to Pay $150 M. Award will be
cut to $100 M in May.
2002-04-11: CDC
estimates smoking health and productivity costs reach $150 billion a year,
according to a new study published WMMR. CDC
estimated the total cost of smoking at $3,391
a year for every smoker, and even itemized the
per-pack health/productivity costs at $7.18 per pack.
Further, it estimated the smoking-related medical
costs at $3.45 per pack, and job productivity lost
because of premature death from smoking at
$3.73 per pack.
2002-05: LITIGATION: Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Conrad Aragon fines RJR $14.8
Million
for illegally handing out free cigarettes at
events like street fairs and car races where children are present.
2002-06-05: LITIGATION: WILLIAMS: Oregon Court of Appeals
reinstates $80Billion Williams award.
"[D]efendant's narrow focus on the ratio
between punitive and compensatory damages ignores the underlying
purpose for awarding punitive damages,
which is to punish and deter a wrongdoer. The reprehensibility of the
defendant's actions, the number of people
affected or potentially affected, and indications that the defendant
will not change its actions without
punishment are all relevant factors. It is also clear that the defendant's
wealth
is an important consideration; an award
that might be a serious punishment for one defendant could be
only a minor inconvenience for another."
San Diego County Superior Court.
2002-06-18: LITIGATION: Florida
jury rules for French in Broin spinoff; nation's first award over
secondhand
smoke.
2002-06-06: LITIGATION: California judge fines RJR $20 million for
violating the 1998 tobacco settlement
by targeting youths in a magazine
advertising campaign. a flight attendant who claimed her chronic sinusitis was
the result of exposure to secondhand
smoke while working on flights in the 1970s and 80s, and awarded her
$5.5M in damages.
2002-07-01: HI: Honolulu
smoking ban goes into effect, prohibiting smoking in all workplaces,
restaurants
and bars within restaurants.
2002-08-05: LITIGATION: California
Supreme Court rules on legislators' "Napkin Deal" intentions,
allows 10-year window of immunity: Smokers
can't sue over industry conduct between 1988 and 1998,
unless they claim additives to cigarettes
increased the danger. (Myers v. Philip Morris Cos. Inc)
X 2002-08-28: Ohio Supreme Court rules 6-1 that local health boards lack
authority to restrict smoking in public
places, invalidating smoking bans in a dozen
counties.
2002-09-26: LITIGATION: CA: Philip Morris Loses
Bullock Case. Jury awards Bullock $850,000.
Michael Puize wins 2nd case (after Boeken).
2002-09-26: LITIGATION: CA: Jury
Orders Philip Morris to pay Bullock $28 Billion in punitive damages,
the largest payment to a single plaintiff in history.
(Bullock v. Philip Morris Inc., Cal. Super. Ct., No. BC 249171)
2002-10-10: NY: New York City
holds first hearing on indoor smoking ban that would include all bars
and restaurants. Mayor Bloomberg opens the testimony with a
plea to pass the bill.
2002-11-08: Philip Morris is fined for breaching Australian
tobacco advertising laws.
2002-12-07: REGULATION: A ban on smoking becomes
effective throughout the US Military, in accordance
with Pres. Clinton's 1997 executive order banning
smoking in all federal facilities, and after Defense Secretary
Cohen's 3-year grace period.
2002-12-11: REGULATION: Boston
bans indoor smoking.
2002-12-12: LITIGATION: Federal
appeals court upholds $1.4 million verdict against Olympic
Airways in secondhand smoke death, the largest individual
secondhand smoke award in the US.
2002-12-30: REGULATION: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg
signs clean air bill; bars smoking
in almost all indoor space. Will go into effect March
31, 2003.
----
X December
18, 2002 - CA Superior Court Judge
Warren Ettinger slashed a record-breaking award to a
former smoker to $28 million. The
jury had also awarded cancer victim Bullock $750,000 for compensation
of medical expenses and loss of earnings and
$100,000 for pain and suffering - but the punitive damages were
33,000 times those amounts, a ratio deemed by
Ettinger to be excessive. In a statement, Philip Morris said the
new ratio is nearly 33 to 1, well in excess of
the four-to-one ratio the U.S. Supreme Court has suggested
approaches the constitutional limit of such
awards.
X 2002-12-31: LITIGATION:
Tobacco wins Conley suit. Federal judge
directs a verdict in favor of RJR and
Philip Morris. Judge Saundra Armstrong of the
Northern District of California rules that plaintiffs (Elaine
Conley, Weldon White and Dorothy White) had not
produced sufficient evidence to support their claims
and that a jury could not reasonably return a verdict
against tobacco companies in the 1999 death of 81-year-old
Frank White.
2003: FRANCE: President
Jacques Chirac declares “war on tobacco” and imposes steep tax
increases on
cigarettes.
2003-01-01: LITIGATION: Janoff defeat overturned. Dade
County, Florida, Circuit Court Judge Leslie
B.
Rothenberg grants Suzette Ahrendt Janoff lawyers' motion
for a new trial in a Broin case that had been
decided in Sept. 2002. Judge Rothenberg concluded that
counsel for the tobacco defendants had misled
the Court concerning Florida law on the use of
authoritative texts, thereby introducing evidence to bolster the
opinions rendered by their medical experts. The class
action lawsuit of Susan Miles et al v Philip Morris Inc.
was certified in Madison County Feb. 8, 2001
2003-01-22: REGULATION: TX: Dallas City Council passes a
sweeping smoking ban.
X 2003-01-26: LITIGATION: PA:
Philip Morris wins Carter case. State court jury in
Philadelphia finds that
Katie Carter knew about the health effects of cigarettes
and chose to smoke anyway, and would not have
quit smoking, even knowing all the risks
X 2003-02-07: FL: Tobacco wins
Allen/Broin airline secondhand-smoke suit.
X 2003-02-07: CA: Philip Morris
and RJR win Lucier suit. 2003-02-14: UK: Tobacco advertising comes to an end. The
first stage of the Tobacco Advertising and
Promotion Act 2002 officially begins at one minute past midnight;
banning new tobacco sponsorship
agreements, advertising on billboards and in the press and free
distributions. The ban also covers direct mail,
internet advertising and new promotions.
2003-03-22: IL: Judge
orders Philip Morris to pay $10.1 billion in damages for misleading smokers into
believing that low-tar cigarettes are safer than regular brands.
Susan Miles et al v Philip Morris Inc.
The Court finds that the term 'Lights' not only conveyed a
message of reduced harm
and safety, but also conveyed to Class members that the 'Lights' cigarette product
was lower in tar and nicotine. . . . Philip Morris' strategy was to create doubt about the
negative health implications of smoking without actually denying these allegations. . . .
The evidence at trial establishes that Philip Morris continued this disinformation
campaign
through the mid-1990s. . . Philip Morris' motive was evil and the acts showed a reckless
disregard for the consumers' rights. — Illinois Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Byron.
2003-03-25:
BUSINESS: Ratings agencies downgrade MO, MSA bonds. Because of Philip Morris' $12
Billion bond in the Price case, Moody's
reduces the credit rating for Altria, the parent of Philip Morris. The
next day, Standard & Poor's places
all its ratings on all tobacco settlement revenue securitization and tobacco
litigation settlement securitization
transactions on CreditWatch with negative implications. These actions spark
a sell-off in tobacco bonds. Over the
next few days, MO stock falls to 52-week low.
2003-03-26: New York state passes
near-total statewide smoking ban.
X
2003-04-01: RJR, Lorillard file suit against California's "vilifying" ad
campaign. Filing in federal court in
Sacramento, the companies allege
that the Prop 99-funded ads are a misuse of taxpayer money, poison
the juror pool, violate the companies'
constitutional rights of free speech and make it impossible
"to get a fair trial in the state of
California." The companies seek a halt to ads intended to "vilify" the
industry.
X
2003-05-21: LITIGATION: FL: Florida Appeals Court
overturns Engle verdict, disbands class.
2003-05-23: LITIGATION: AR: BOERNER v.
B&W: A federal jury awards the family of Mary Jane
Boerner $19 Million--$5 Million in
compensatory and 14 Million in punitive damages.
X 2003-07-02:
LITIGATION: AR: US District Judge James
Moody nullifies the $15 Million punitive
damages award in the Boerner case. He upholds the
$4.25 Million compensatory award.
Smoking bans spread around the world and ti
many states.
2003-07-01: Even SMOKEFREE: KY: Lexington, KY,
bans smoking.
2003-07-01: 6 US States raise cigarette
taxes, including Delware and Georgia. 30 states have raised
cigarette taxes since Jan. 1, 2002. By
the end of July, cigarette tax increases will have gone into effect in
eight states -- Delaware, Georgia,
Hawaii, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and
Wyoming. On June 30, New Jersey raised
its tax by 55 cents to $2.05 per pack, the highest in the nation.
This will bring to 30, along
with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the number of states
that have increased cigarette taxes since
January 2002.
2003-08-26: LITIGATION: FL: RJR Pays $196,000 to the estate of Floyd Kenyon.
This is only the 2nd time an
individual has collected payment from the tobacco industry
for a tobacco-related illness.
X
2003-09-23: LITIGATION: CA: Appeals court slashes Henley award. California's
First District Court of Appeals cuts the
$25 million Henly award to $9 million, citing the
CA Supreme
Court's April ruling limiting the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages.
2003-10: RJR
announces serious cutacks. The company says it will cut 2600 jobs, drop marketing for
Winston and Doral, and concentrate
marketing efforts on its Camel and Salem brands.
2003-10-27: RJR and
BAT announce plans to merge B&W and RJR.
2003-11-21: LITIGATION: Solana Beach, CA, ban on beach smoking goes into effect. The measure
was finalized on Oct. 21. Other
localities with beach smoking bans include Honolulu, HI, Carmel, NY,
Sharon, MA, and Belmar, NJ. In 1992,
Solana Beach was the first city in California to ban smoking in
restaurants.
X
2003-12-10: LITIGATION: FL: Jury in Hall lawsuit decides for RJR and B&W.
X
2003-12-10: IL: LITIGATION: Philip Morris files appeal of Price/Miles lawsuit with Illinois Supreme Court.
2003-12-31: NEW YORK: Department of State adopts nation's
first fire-safe regulations.
Secretary of State Randy A. Daniels
today announced the adoption of a fire safety standard for cigarettes
that will require all cigarettes
sold in New York State to be low ignition strength, making them less likely to
cause fires if left unattended. The
cigarette fire safety standard becomes effective June 28, 2004.
All
cigarette brands offered for sale in New York State must be tested to determine if they
self-extinguish
at least 75 percent of the time.
2004 Smokefree
zones, cities, states, provinces and countries keep growing.
2004: CONSUMPTION: Global cigarette
production declines 2.3% from 2003, to 5.5 trillion units, the
lowest since 1972. China produces 1.79
trillion cigarettes, 32% of the global total. USA produced 499
billion cigarettes, exporting 24% of them
2004-01-26: LITIGATION: KENYON: RJR loses
Supreme Court
challenge. US Supreme court refuses
to review Florida judgment. RJR had
already paid the $195,000 judgment
2004-06-09: LITIGATION: OREGON: WILLIAMS: Oregon Court of Appeal
refuses to reduce the $79.5
million punitive damages award.
Philip Morris's conduct here was extraordinarily
reprehensible, by any measure of which
we are aware. It put a significant number of victims at profound risk for an
extended period
of time. The State of Oregon treats such conduct as grounds for a severe criminal
sanction,
but even that did not dissuade Philip Morris from pursuing its scheme. In summary, Philip
Morris, with others, engaged in a massive, continuous, near-half-century scheme to defraud
the plaintiff and many others, even when Philip Morris always had reason to suspect --
and for two or more decades absolutely knew -- that the scheme was damaging the health
of a very large group of Oregonians -- the smoking public -- and was killing a number of
that
group. Under such extreme and outrageous circumstances, we conclude that the jury's $79.5
million
punitive damage award against Philip Morris comported with due process, as we understand
that standard to relate to punitive damage awards.
X
2004-10-02 Following guidance from the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in State Farm v. Campbell, a
California appeals court has ruled that the original $3 billion punitive award against
Philip Morris,
voted by a jury in 2001 in Richard Boeken's lawsuit,
cannot properly exceed $50 million.
2004-10-11:
In an omnibus corporate tax bill, Republican US Congress passes $10 Billion buyout of
tobacco farmers, ending a 70-year federal quota and price support program. The monies will
be
paid by the tobacco companies.
2004: 70.3 million
Americans were current users of a tobacco product in 2004. This is 29.2 percent of the
population aged 12 or older.
59.9 million (24.9 percent) smoked cigarettes, 13.7 million (5.7 percent) smoked
cigars, 7.2 million (3.0
percent) used smokeless tobacco, and 1.8 million (0.8 percent) smoked tobacco in pipes.
2004 The rate of tobacco use declined between 2002 and 2004, from 30.4 to 29.2
percent, primarily due
to a decline in cigarette use
from 26.0 to 24.9 percent. The rate of cigar use remained steady, but
smokeless tobacco use
dropped from 3.3 to 3.0 percent.
X
2004 Young adults
aged 18 to 25 continued to have the highest rate of past month cigarette use
(39.5 percent). The rate did not change significantly between 2002 and 2004. The
number of persons who
smoked cigarettes for the
first time within the past 12 months was 2.1 million in 2004, not significantly
different from the estimates
in 2002
2005-03-21: LITIGATION: CA: HENLEY: Supreme
Court Refuses to hear Henley apeal.
Henley's $9 million award
against Philip Morris stands. Philip Morris pays
$10.5 million in compensatory
and punitive damages and
about $6.2 million in interest to Patricia Henley, the second payout for
Philip Morris, and the
largest. It is also the first punitive damages ever paid to an individual
smoker.
X
2005-04-21: LITIGATION: Riverside, CA: Jury clears Philip Morris USA in Coolidge lung cancer suit.
Bruce Coolidge, 51,
began his suit in 2001. The trial lasted 10 weeks. In 2 hours of deliberations, the jury
found Coolidge had not
proven his lung cancer was caused by smoking. Interesting - what other cause was
there?
X
2005-04-21: LITIGATION: RJR wins Broin-related lawsuit. A jury
found that exposure to secondhand
smoke in airplane
cabins did not cause the chronic sinusitis of Lorraine Swaty, a flight attendant for
US Airways.
2005-06-01: SMOKEFREE: SWEDEN: Total bar
& restaurant smoking ban scheduled to go into effect.
http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/2947/a/17093
2005-06-30: SMOKEFREE: SCOTLAND approves full smoking
ban.
2005-07-01: CA: Statewide
smoking ban in prisons goes into effect.
2005 Cigarette Tax Hikes in many
states.
2005 2005-07-24: Sir Richard
Doll dies at 92. The British epidemiologist's pioneering studies in the 50s
of the link between smoking and
lung cancer saved millions of lives. He finally
concluded his study of
40,000 British doctors in 2004,
finding that smokers lost an average of 10 years of life.
2005-08-07: ABC News anchor Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer, sparking a renewed interest
in the disease and its link
to smoking.
2005-09-29: LITIGATION: Supreme Court of Canada rules tobacco companies
may be sued for health
care costs. The Court dismissed an
appeal from a tobacco company and upheld the validity of British
Columbia's Tobacco Damages And
Health Care Costs Recovery Act.
2005-09-30: CANADA:
Fire-safe cigarette rules go into effect. "All cigarettes
manufactured or imported
for sale in Canada must now meet the new
national standard intended for ignition propensity which will reduce
the risk of fire."
2005-11-08: SMOKEFREE: WA: Voters pass Initiative 901 by over 60%. The
smoking ban's outdoor
restrictions near entrances,
window, etc. make it the toughest in the nation.
X 005-12-15:
LITIGATION: IL: State Supreme Court overturns
Price verdict. One
of the judges
voting to do this received more
than a million dollars from Philip Morris.
2005-09-06: CONSUMPTION: National
Survey on Drug Use and Health finds:
70.3 million Americans were current users of a tobacco product in 2004. This is 29.2
percent
of the population aged 12 or older.
59.9 million (24.9 percent) smoked cigarettes, 13.7 million (5.7 percent) smoked cigars,
7.2 million (3.0 percent) used smokeless tobacco, and 1.8 million (0.8 percent) smoked
tobacco in pipes.
The rate of tobacco use declined between 2002 and 2004, from 30.4 to 29.2 percent,
primarily due to a decline in cigarette use from 26.0 to 24.9 percent. The rate of cigar
use
remained steady, but smokeless tobacco use dropped from 3.3 to 3.0 percent.
Young adults aged 18 to 25 continued to have the highest
rate of past month cigarette use
(40 percent). The rate did not change significantly between 2002 and 2004.
The rate of
cigarette use among youths aged 12 to 17 declined from 13.0 percent in 2002 to 11.9
percent in 2004.
A higher proportion of males than females aged 12 or older smoked cigarettes in 2004 (27.7
vs. 22.3 percent).
Among youths aged 12 to 17, however, girls (12.5 percent) were more likely than boys (11.3
percent) to smoke.
Based on 2003 and 2004 data combined, 18.0 percent of pregnant women aged 15 to 44 smoked
cigarettes
in the past month compared with 30.0 percent of women in that age group who were not
pregnant.
Among the 93.4 million persons who had ever smoked cigarettes daily in their lifetime,
nearly half (46.2 percent)
had stopped smoking in 2004; that is, they did not smoke at all in the past 30 days. The
remaining
53.8 percent were still current smokers.
2006-01-01: TAXES: National state average is now 92 cents per pack.
2006-02-02: LITIGATION: OR: WILLIAMS: Oregon Supreme Court
reaffirms the $79.5 million
punitive damages jury verdict. OR Supreme Court upholds Court
of Appeals approval of 79.5 M
punitive damages.
X
2006-03-13: LITIGATION: Georgia: State Supreme Court
rules MSA protects tobacco companies
from punitive damages. (Gualt v. B&W, http://www.gasupreme.us/op_summaries/opsumm060313.html)
OK 2006-03-20: LITIGATION:
BOEKEN: CA: US Supreme Court allows Boeken
$50M punitive damages
verdict to stand against Philip Morris (compensatory damages: $5.5M). CA Supreme Court
ruling cut the
$100M verdict to $50M.
X
2006-05-15: LITIGATION: WA: Jury finds
for RJR in Kimball case.
2006-06-27: The Health
Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the
Surgeon General
Blockbuster report details the harms of secondhand smoke. SG says, "The debate is
over."
X
2006-07: LITIGATION: FL: Florida Supreme Court
vacates Engle award, decertifies class; allows
individual lawsuits to proceed.
2006-07-19: SMOKEFREE: Marriott announces all its hotel brands (Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance,
Courtyard, etc.) will go smokefree across the US and Canada Sept. 1. This means that 2300
hotels
and 400,000 rooms will be smokefree.
2006-08-17: LITIGATION: DOJ: Judge Kessler releases final order, finding that the tobacco defendants
(except Ligget) are racketeers, having lied for 50 years, and
deceived the American public on health
issues and marketing to children. All that she can do under civil RICO, however, is
enjoin them from lying
in the future, or using "light" type descriptors. She orders them to issue
corrective statements, and expands the
Minnesota document disclosure requirements. If this injunctive
relief is ever implemented, it will only be
after years of appeals.
X
2006-10-31: LITIGATION: OR: WILLIAMS: US Supreme Court
hears Williams appeal.
2007-01-01: TAXES: SD: Election-mandated cigarette tax rises $1 a pack, to $1.53.
2007-03-16: LITIGATION: DOJ: Kessler rules "light" ad restrictions apply
worldwide.
Supplemental Materals
Reagan and Bush Sr. Push Tobacco Exports
The Reagan administration pressured Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to open their markets
to U.S. cigarette companies. And the Bush administration, proving its allegiance to the
tobacco interests, followed suit in the spring of 1989, when Bush's U.S. Trade
Representative, Carla Hills, threatened Thailand with trade sanctions if it didn't open
its markets to American cigarettes. Thailand has had a longstanding policy banning both
domestic and foreign cigarette advertisements on television, radio, newspapers and
magazines. Philip Morris argued that this ban constituted an unfair trade practice.
But Bush met a rising tide of protest from both Asian and American anti-smoking
activists. In the United States, Hills was pressured to hold hearings on the Thailand
issue, and more than 20 anti-smoking activists testified against her bullying. In
Thailand, anti-smoking activists made the tobacco import issue a hot political topic for
Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan. "To export cigarettes and coerce foreign
governments into liberalizing their cigarette market, while simultaneously restricting the
promotion and use of cigarettes in home markets [the United States], is clearly a case of
double standards," read one Thai anti-smoking leaflet.
In a May 31, 1989 letter to Hills, 17 members of Congress warned Hills that to pursue
trade sanctions against Thailand would perpetuate "an extraordinarily expensive and
ultimately lethal health risk abroad." The members of Congress said it was
"hypocritical" for the United States to consider a television advertising ban
abroad an unfair trade practice while at the same time considering a ban on television ads
in this country a "national health priority."
By July 19, 1989, the American Public Health Association (APHA) had collected more than
140,000 signatures calling for a change in U.S. tobacco trade policy.
The APHA pointed out that an estimated 2.5 million people die annually from
smoking-related diseases and that last year alone the U.S. exported 100 billion
cigarettes.
Until recently, most Asian countries had either banned or heavily taxed foreign
cigarettes. Since 1985, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were forced to open their markets as
a result of U.S. trade pressures. The results will be increased death and disease. Since
1985, Japanese cigarette sales have increased 2 percent, reversing a 20-year downward
trend. And the average Taiwanese consumed 80 more cigarettes in 1987 than in 1986, all of
them foreign.
( http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989/12/mokhiber.html
)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue:
This page will be updated as new information becomes available.
New Push for FDA Regulation of Tobacco
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced
legislation lin early 2007 to grant the
FDA authority over the manufacturing, marketing and
sale of tobacco products, including
the power to restrict advertising, require stronger
warning labels, and regulate the amount
of nicotine and other ingredients. The agency would not be able to ban tobacco. The
Supreme
Court had ruled in March 2000 that the FDA did not have
such authority. Legislation to regulate
tobacco last won Senate approval in 2004, but GOP leaders never allowed a vote on it in the
House. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress for
the first time since 1994, proponents
say the legislation has a far better chance, although a
Bush Jr. veto would have to be expected.
--- HR-1108, sponsored by Reps.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Tom Davis (R-VA), and S 625, sponsored
by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John Cornyn
(R-TX). ---
"This is the year when we can pass meaningful legislation," said Rep. Thomas M.
Davis III,
the lead GOP sponsor in the House, whose father died of emphysema.
Predictably, Sen.
Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has said he opposes the bill. Another potential
roadblock is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), whose state is also home to many
tobacco growers.
A Very Watered Down Bill
Nothng in these bills require the companies to fully disclose all their documents relating
to health risks or advertising. The bill also
reserves to Congress the right to reduce nicotine
levels to zero. This loophole
precludes the FDA itself from making cigarettes non-addictive by
virtue of mandating severe reductions in
nicotine levels. Most importantly, the bill provides
Congress with specific veto power over the
FDA's actions. Nothing in the bill would require
tobacco companies to pay for the
research, development and distribution of products to reduce
nicotine dependecy. They
should pay for the trouble they have caused!
(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602017.html
)
Ex-Surgeon General Koop
and ex-FDA Commissioner Kessler, both appointed by Republican
Presidents have issued a joint set of
recommednations:
1. The FDA should have the authority to regulate all areas of nicotine and that authority
should be made explicit in the new legislation.
2. The FDA should continue to have the authority to phase out nicotine and remove
ingreditents
that contribute to the initiation of smoking and dependence on cigarettes. That
authority should
be made explicit in the new legislation.
3. The FDA should have explicit authority to test nicotine levels by brand...
(Source: http://www.aaphp.org/WebLinks/Koop-Kessler_Dec03Tobc.pdf
) Added 10/10/2007
Products To Help Smokers Quick
"...Pharmaceutical companies have had increasing successes in developing
products to help addicted
smokers reduce or eliminate their tobacco habits.
Since the development of the nicotine gum in 1984,
pharmaceutical companies have produced several
variants of gums and patches, as well as a nicotine
nasal spray and an anti-depressant medication,
bupropion, which have proven successful, to varying
degrees, in helping smokers overcome their nicotine
addictions. In 1996, the same year as the FDA’s
famous tobacco ruling, the FDA approved
over-the-counter sale of one brand of nicotine gum (Nicorette)
and two brands of nicotine patch (Nicotrol and
Nicoderm). It also approved the sale by prescription of
a nasal spray and vapor inhaler and Zyban, a brand of
bupropion hydrochloride, marketed as a smoking
cessation medication.
"These products are far less dangerous than the products they seek to replace. The
most obvious
advantage of the NDPs is that they eliminate the
dangers posed by external contaminants in tobacco
products. In the case of cigarettes these
contaminants cause lung cancer and in the case of cigars and
chewing tobacco they may cause lip or mouth cancer.
Moreover, NDPs have been shown to pose a
substantially lower risk of cardiovascular disease
than do cigarettes.[7] ...
"Given
the enormous health risks posed by cigarette addiction and the proven efficacy of NDPs,
the current regulatory approaches towards tobacco
products and NDPs are baffling. Tobacco
manufacturers, even under the 1996 ruling, are able
to label, market and advertise their products with
great flexibility, while pharmaceutical companies
that manufacture NDPs must follow the strict guidelines
laid out for the labeling and marketing of drugs.
Only two NDPs are available over-the-counter, while
every tobacco product from snuff to cigarettes can be
purchased without a prescription. Even the
over-the-counter NDPs are only available in
pharmacies and large supermarkets. Cigarettes, though
no longer sold in vending machines, are still
available at every corner grocer and newsstand....
"Perhaps most
striking, though, is the regulation of health claims made by NDPs as compared
with their less safe competitors. Tobacco companies
are permitted to claim that their products will reduce
a smoker’s exposure to tar or nicotine based on
a test that is widely known to be flawed. The FTC
Cigarette Test Method was developed in the 1960s and
is still used today to measure a smoker’s intake
of tar and nicotine from cigarettes. The test employs
a machine that “puffs” on a cigarette a specified
number of times for a set number of seconds. Numerous
studies have found that the levels of nicotine
and tar measured by this test are seriously flawed,
underestimating the intake of human smokers who
take longer puffs and block ventilation holes that
would otherwise allow toxins to escape.[16] Smokers,
however, eager to reduce their health risks from
smoking, have unquestionably taken these claims to heart,
with low tar and reduced nicotine delivery cigarettes
now accounting for approximately two thirds
of the cigarette market.
"Meanwhile, not only do such “light” brands provide “little or no
health benefit,”[17] they may
actually harm smokers. Health claims of light cigarettes
encourage smokers looking to reduce or eliminate
their cigarette intake to merely switch brands, rather than
pursue medications or abstinence. They may
even lead to an increase in cigarette use, if smokers feel
that they can safely smoke such low-tar or
reduced-delivery cigarettes without the concomitant risks
of smoking. And it is now known that smokers
of reduced-delivery cigarettes take deeper pulls in order
to compensate for the reduced nicotine delivery,
which has led to a sharp increase in adenocarcinomas of the
lower lung among smokers.[18]"
These are the insights of
Adam J Szubin, "The FDA’s Regulation of Nicotine Dependence Products".
Harvard Law School - 1/30/1998 - http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/346/Szubin.html
LEDA = Legal
Electronic Document Archive.
Quotes
"If
you must smoke, take your butt outside." ~Author Unknown
"Nicotine
patches are great. Stick one over each eye and you can't find
your
cigarettes." ~Author Unknown
"Cigarettes
are killers that travel in packs." ~Author Unknown
"The
cigarette does the smoking - you're just the sucker." ~Author Unknown
"1% of Americans now
have more than 90% of Wealth. Democracy needs a middle class
and a working class that has
hope." (Unknown political scientist heard on TV while writing this.)
"I
kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't
had time
for tobacco since." ~Arturo Toscanini
"One
thousand Americans stop smoking every day - by dying." ~Author Unknown
"If someone puts a knife
in your back 10 inches and then pulls it back, is that progress?"
Malcolm X to Mike Wallace.
(See: http://www.quotegarden.com/smoking.html
_
|
Cigarette Jokes
From Australia:
In a School science class four worms were placed into four separate jars.
The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol.
The second worm was put into a jar of cigarette smoke.
The third worm was put into a jar of sperm.
The fourth worm was put into a jar of soil.
After one day, these were the results:
The first worm in alcohol --- dead.
The second worm in cigarette smoke --- dead.
The third worm in sperm --- dead.
The fourth worm in soil --- alive.
So the science teacher asked the class --- "What can you learn from this
experiment."
Little Billy quickly raised his hand and said.
"As long as you drink, smoke and have sex, you won't have worms."
*****************************************
Two voices, one male and one female, overheard on a plane:
"I think everyone's asleep, let's go"
"This one's empty ... no-one's looking... you go in first"
"It's a bit cramped - let me sit down"
"Have you got the condom? Quick - put it on"
Sniff sniff
"Ah perfume - you think of everything"
"This is great....." (long sigh)
Static on the loud speaker then a new voice.
"This is the captain speaking, to those two people in the rear toilet.
We know what you're doing and it is expressly forbidden by airline regulations..
.
Now put those cigarettes out and take the condom off the smoke detector!"
*****************************************
Mornin', Ole,
Ole and Sveda went to the same Lutheran Church. Sveda went every Sunday
and taught Sunday School. Ole went on Christmas and Easter, and maybe
a few times during the year.
One Sunday, Ole was sitting in the pew right behind Sveda and got to noticing
what a fine looking woman she was.
While they were taking up the collection, Ole leaned forward and said,
"Sveda, how about you and me go to dinner in New Ulm next Friday?"
"Yah, Ole, dot vould be nice," Sveda replied.
Ole was tickled as all get out. All week long he polished his old Ford truck.
On Friday he picked up Sveda and took her to the finest restaurant in New Ulm.
When they sat down, Ole looked at Sveda and asked, "Sveda, vould you a
cocktail before supper?"
"Oh, no, Ole," Sveda said, "Vat vould I tell my Sunday School class?"
Ole was a little taken back, but he didn't say much about it. After dinner,
he reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering Sveda one.
"Oh, no, Ole," Sveda said, "Vat vould I tell my Sunday School class?"
Well, Ole was feeling kind of low, having had two offers rebuffed.
On the way home, was they passed the Hot Springs Motel, he figured,
heck, he'd struck out twice, so he had nothing to lose.
"Hey, Sveda, vould you like to stop at the motel with me?"
"Yah, Ole, dot vould be nice," she replied.
Ole couldn't believe his luck. He whipped his Ford into the parking lot,
jumped out of the truck, ran into the hotel office, checked in, ran back out,
and took Sveda right to the hotel room.
The next morning Ole got up first. He looked at Sveda lying on the bed,
her hair spread out all over the pillow. "Vat have I done, vat have I done?"
Ole thought. He shook Sveda awake. "Sveda, I've got to ask you von thing."
"Vot's dat?" she said, sleepily.
"Vat are you going to tell your Sunday School class?"
"The same ting I alvays tell dem. You don't have to drink
and smoke to have a good time."
(Source: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Sox9Zl4f60YJ:www.nsma.org.au/jokes.htm+cigarete+jokes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a
)
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|
