The United States government opened a $280-billion civil trial against the giants of the tobacco industry on Tuesday, arguing that the firms conspired for decades to hide the dangers of smoking, and illegally marketed cigarettes to children.
In the biggest tobacco trial to date, lawyers for the US justice department used racketeering legislation originally designed to fight the mafia to sue for the recovery of $280bn (about £160bn) in ”ill-gotten gains” from nine tobacco companies and two industry groups. The defendants include Marlboro-maker Philip Morris, the Camel cigarette group RJ Reynolds and two businesses associated with the UK’s British American Tobacco.
The landmark case, five years in the making, could also lead to tighter tobacco legislation, including a ban on such descriptions as ”low tar” and ”light” cigarettes.
In opening statements, lawyers described a clandestine campaign by the tobacco industry to combat the growing body of scientific evidence linking smoking to disease, beginning with a secret strategy session at the Plaza Hotel in New York in December 1953.
”The industry believed its survival depended on fraud,” said Frank Marine, a lawyer for the justice department.
”The defendants well knew that scientific evidence had established a causal link between smoking and cancer and other diseases.”
The meeting at the Plaza of tobacco executives and a public relations firm led to the creation of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, whose mission most emphatically was not to explore the potential dangers of smoking, but to sow confusion about established links between cigarettes and smokers’ diseases, Marine said.
Another industry group, the Centre for Indoor Air Research, was established later when evidence began to emerge of the dangers of passive smoking.
”The problem was not that their products were killing people,” Marine said.
”Their problem was that people might stop smoking because of health concerns.”
The executives apparently were pleased with the results of their research councils — ”the best and cheapest insurance the tobacco industry can buy”, one internal company memo said. Another memo warned that it was essential to provide smokers with the ”psychological crutch and some rationale to continue smoking”.
But, according to the justice department, the conspiracy by the industry went beyond a campaign to discredit scientific research on the dangers of smoking.
The industry continually sought to expand its pool of potential customers by exploiting the addictive properties of nicotine, and by marketing cigarettes to young people — replacements for smokers who had died off, said another justice department lawyer, Sharon Eubanks.
”The defendants designed cigarettes to make sure smokers had sufficient nicotine to become dependent on their addiction,” she said.
”The defendants’ intention was to engineer cigarettes to deliver addictive levels of nicotine.”
Lawyers for the tobacco industry are to make opening statements today in a trial expected to call 300 witnesses, and last for six months. They are expected to argue that, while tobacco executives may have dismissed health concerns about smoking in the past, that does not constitute fraud.
”Fraud is, ‘I have a specific intention to mislead you or take money from you by deceiving you’,” William Ohlemeyer, a lawyer for Philip Morris USA, told reporters. ”Fraud is a very high bar.”
Defendants in the case include: Philip Morris USA and its parent, Altria Group; RJ Reynolds Tobacco; Brown & Williamson Tobacco; BAT (Investments); Lorillard Tobacco; Liggett Group; Council for Tobacco Research-USA; and the Tobacco Institute.
Brown & Williamson used to be wholly owned by BAT but was merged earlier this year with RJR’s US business. BAT (Investments) is a scientific research centre still owned by BAT.
The courtroom battle is seen by anti-smoking advocates as the pinnacle of tobacco legislation, both for the size of the damages sought and because it is being brought by the US government.
The justice department initially had sought to recover the costs of treating illnesses caused by smoking. The judge, Gladys Kessler, ruled out that course of action, but did allow the department to sue under racketeering statutes originally designed for organised crime. – Guardian Unlimited Â