Tobacco companies to print warnings

America’s biggest tobacco companies say they are ready and willing to pass along factual public health information about cigarettes.

However, they will not go along with being forced to underwrite an ad campaign that would have them brand themselves as liars.

In 2006, US District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the largest cigarette makers to publicly admit that they had lied for decades about the dangers of smoking. The ruling came after testimony from 162 witnesses, a nine-month bench trial, and thousands of findings by the judge that defendants engaged in a massive campaign of fraud.

The companies argue that the ads are designed to ensure that the public “does not believe anything the companies say on any topic”, and they want an appeals court to set aside the “corrective statements,” as the ads are known, and craft new ones.

Oral arguments were set to begin last night before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ads would be in all cigarette packs sold for 12 weeks over the course of two years, in TV spots once per week for a year, in a separate newspaper ad by each company, on company websites indefinitely and at certain retail outlets.

They stem from a civil case the government brought in 1999 under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act.

The preamble to the ads says a “federal court has ruled that Altria, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard, and Philip Morris USA deliberately deceived the American public”. The companies say the statement is overbroad and misleading.

The companies in the case include Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group, owner of the biggest US tobacco company, Philip Morris USA; number two cigarette maker RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co, owned by Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Reynolds American Inc; and number three cigarette maker Lorillard Inc, based in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Kessler required the companies to publicly address smoking’s adverse health effects, nicotine manipulation and the health impact of second-hand smoke. The judge also required that the companies address the truth about “light” and “low tar” brands and the nature of cigarette addiction.

Meanwhile, smokers are around 70% more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety than ex-smokers and non-smokers, a study has suggested.

Lead researcher Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London, said: “Our study found that long-term ex-smokers have similar prevalence of anxiety and depression to non-smokers and considerably lower levels than smokers,” he said.

The British Heart Foundation released the findings ahead of No Smoking Day on March 11.