Cigarette makers deny trying to hide smoking hazards
The US government is suing the industry for $280 billion (€228bn) that the companies allegedly made by deceiving the public about the hazards of smoking and efforts to get children hooked.
Lawyer Dan Webb, representing Philip Morris, said the company “may have made mistakes in the past” but that they did not constitute fraud. “We’re not perfect,” he said. “The government can probably find flaws with what we do.”
Mr Webb and others cited marketing efforts that were perceived as overly aggressive and sticking with claims that ultimately proved to be wrong. But the lawyers said the companies did not knowingly deceive consumers or conspire to do so, as the government claimed.
A second Philip Morris lawyer, Ted Wells, reminded federal Judge Gladys Kessler during opening arguments in Washington that the law required that the government showed not just that fraud had occurred, but that it would probably continue.
Mr Wells said it would be impossible to demonstrate the likelihood of future fraud because the industry now ran ads and made information available on websites detailing the hazards of smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine.
“It’s an unambiguous and clear message,” Mr Wells said, adding that the statements “are of a permanent, irreversible and everlasting nature”.
Mr Wells mentioned restrictions on how cigarettes were marketed and sold today. Such changes resulted from legal settlements worth $275bn the industry reached with various American states in the late 1990s.
US government lawyers say past fraud is indicative of future behaviour and that the industry has not reformed itself. They accuse tobacco companies of continuing to go after teenagers, while denying doing so, and of denying that secondhand smoke is hazardous to nonsmokers.
The government also says the industry changed only under threat of litigation.
“The defendants’ recent superficial changes in behaviour in reaction to this and other lawsuits are too little, too late,” prosecutor general Matt Zabel said.
Tobacco lawyers tried to poke holes in the government’s argument that the industry colluded to mislead consumers about the alleged health benefits of smoking “low-tar” and “light” cigarettes. Recent studies have shown no benefit to consumers who smoke such cigarettes because people tend to inhale them more deeply or take more puffs.
Industry lawyers noted that the government previously advanced the idea that it was better to smoke cigarettes with lower levels of tar and nicotine.
“The government was out there telling people, ‘If you aren’t going to quit, switch’,” said RJ Reynolds lawyer Peter Biersteker.
The US government’s case rests on internal industry documents in which tobacco executives seem to make statements that conflict with their public remarks. Industry lawyers say the justice department has not put some documents in their proper context.
For example, government lawyers yesterday displayed a Philip Morris document from the 1970s stating that a study had showed “Marlboro Light cigarettes were not smoked like regular Marlboros”.
Mr Biersteker said the study included few people and also conflicted with other studies that had different results.
Lawyer William Newbold, representing the Lorillard Tobacco Company, responded to allegations that the industry manipulates nicotine levels in cigarettes to make sure smokers stay addicted. “The evidence will be that we don’t spike our cigarettes,” he said.
One government theory is that companies add ammonia to boost the effects of nicotine.
Mr Newbold said some companies added it, but only “to improve the quality and the taste” of cigarettes.
The law suit, first filed by the Clinton administration, has taken five years to reach trial. The American government has spent $151m (€123m) on the case so far.
The defendants in the case are Philip Morris USA and its parent company Altria Group; RJ Reynolds Tobacco; Brown & Williamson Tobacco; British American Tobacco; Lorillard; Liggett Group; the Counsel for Tobacco Research-USA and the Tobacco Institute.
