AP Exclusive: Tobacco's plea — no big US payments

[onehandle]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – Tobacco industry lawyers met secretly with Solicitor General Elena Kagan in an effort to avoid the government's last-ditch attempt to extract billions from companies that illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking, The Associated Press has learned.

Four cigarette makers that control nearly 90 percent of U.S. retail cigarette sales have until Feb. 19 to persuade the government not to go to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to step into a landmark 10-year-old racketeering lawsuit.

In 2006, a judge ruled that the industry concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. Despite that finding, lower courts have said the government is not entitled to collect $280 billion in past profits or $14 billion for a national campaign to curb smoking.

As part of any effort to convince the government that it should skip a trip to the Supreme Court, the tobacco companies may have to drop plans to ask the justices to overturn the ruling that the industry engaged in racketeering.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100116/ap_on_bi_ge/us_tobacco_case

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Just another group of big corporations trying get away with murder.

Literally.

[endless october]

1. you know what, though?

they already settled with all the states. it hasn't cost the tobacco companies a dime. all of it has been paid by smokers, most of whom are poor.

smoking sucks. some drugs suck. no amount of legislation is going to change the fact that people are going to seek these substances, though. theoretically, tobacco should be illegal. but prohibition doesn't work, and regressive taxes suck. so it is what it is.

[rurallib]

4. higher prices have greatly curtailed smoking

That has probably been the one factor that finally got to many people.
I read the other day that when the surgeon general's warning went on cigarette packages over 60% of Americans smoked. Now it is @ 20%.
While I know it is a hard habit to quit, saving $50 or more a week is good incentive

[naaman fletcher]

8. Is there a single smoker who doesn't know smoking is bad for you?

Just sayin. I don't like these guys, but let's face it, the government is just trying to find a pile of money to steal.

[JDPriestly]

10. The government is trying to get back the money it has had to

spend on indigent people who suffer and have suffered from tobacco-related diseases. Those diseases are very often not only terribly painful but expensive to treat. They include diseases such as emphysema, certain lung cancers (not all), certain heart disease, bladder cancers (not all), etc. And nearly every one of these diseases is particularly dificult and costly to treat.

Tobacco companies, like so many other corporations want private enterprise when it comes to profits but government hand-outs when it comes to losses. That is unfair to taxpayers.

Now, the tobacco companies are being asked to reimburse the many, many taxpayers who NEVER SMOKED but who have had to pay for the damages the tobacco companies caused to smokers.

Remember that the tobacco companies not only hid their knowledge that their products killed their users but also enhanced their products to make them more attractive and addictive and used psychologically manipulative advertising to sell their products to children thus addicting them early.

The tobacco companies were not just negligent. They intentionally caused people to use products they knew would prove deadly to many users. The tobacco companies, in my opinion, thus, committed serious crimes.

If an individual seller, say Mr. X persuaded a buyer, say Mr. Y to buy a product that Mr. X knew was not only addictive but contained a poison which, if taken steadily in small doses over a period of time would kill Mr. Y, and Mr. Y enriched Mr. X by buying lots of the product. Wouldn't we call Mr. X to answer for manslaughter or perhaps murder if Mr.Y. died from taking the product in the doses that could cause death? The key word is "that Mr. X knew was . . . addictive -- and the tobacco companies knew their product was addictive and dangerous. The dangers of tobacco were known but denied by tobacco companies long before the Surgeon General's report. The tobacco companies had the science that showed their products were dangerous. Others just observed but could not prove to the satisfaction of the courts that they were dangerous.

I remember watching the examination of the expert medical witness (a doctor) who first testified in a trial (might have been in Florida and I saw it on Court TV) with regard to precisely how smoking caused cancer in the lung thus proving causation. It was an historic moment.

The tobacco companies owe this money to the taxpayers of the United States. They deliberately addicted generations of military personnel and youth in order to expand the market for their poisons.

No pity on the tobacco companies. They owe every cent they are being asked to pay. Alone the cost to the Veteran's Administration of the tobacco damages must be enormous.

[Flaneur]

11. We've known smoking is bad for you for at least 45 years.

Anyone who claims they were deceived by tobacco companies is lying through their teeth.

[daleo]

12. I imagine there are plenty

"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." - Paul Simon.

[Bigmack]

2. I have never understood.....

If the tobacco companies lied to conceal the danger in their products, they are liable for damages. But the execs who lied, it seems to me, are criminally liable for their lies, and they should go to jail.

Otherwise, it seems that people have no culpability at all... and corporations can't be punished beyond fines.

Corporations have been found by the courts to be "persons" ...entitled, it seems to me, to more rights and privileges than mere citizens.

As long as that is the case, corporations will continue to rule.

I'd like to see jail time for corporations, too.... they continue to live, but under the close supervision of the government.

I'm not in favor of capital punishment, but I think the government (the people) should have the right to kill any corporation that has shown itself to be a menace to society.

[Xenotime]

3. Agreed 100%

[Mz Pip]

5. If you can't pay the fine

then don't do the crime.

Did they really believe they would never get caught? That somehow no one would notice all that emphysema and lung cancer befalling all those smokers?

[clixtox]

7. For generations the tobacco industry was the most powerful lobby in DC!

The tobacco industry also were huge advertisers in all media, enough so that the truths about tobacco addiction and health consequences was suppressed. I can remember when the only national "mainstream" periodical that would print negative articles about tobacco was the Readers Digest. In those days the Reader's Digest was among the highest circulation magazines along with TV Guide.

The tobacco industry controlled the Senators and Congress Critters from the many states where tobacco was being grown. Tobacco is/was a hugely profitable enterprise, not surprising when you consider their target market was addicts and adolescents.

The industries hubris was palpable not that long ago when the presidents of the tobacco oligopoly flat out lied to Congress about tobacco's health impacts during hearings under oath.

[johnfunk]

6. Fuck these billionaire drug dealers. Indict, convict, and incarcerate with the terrorists

It's a slam-dunk that these bastards hid information that led to the deaths of far more people than Osama bin Forgotten killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Put the tobacco execs in supermax with the convicted terrorists.

[peacetalksforall]

9. They should extract the money from the tobacco companies and put it in a

government fund to finance cancer care for everyone who has verified lung cancer. Set up a program so that the tobacco companies pay for all lung cancer care of smokers, excluding mining or factory lung cancer which should be funded by the mining and factory industry.

Those who profit should pay for the care. They earn billions and we are stuck paying insurance rates for all the affected people.

The effects of second hand smoke and factory/mining pollution on innocent non-smokers or residents in the vicinity of the mines and factories should get paid for their cancer care first.

Whether is can be accomplished practically without privatization is open for questions, but the philosophy and purpose of the suggestions cannot be challenged. Those who make billions from products that cause cancer should not get a free ride on their customers illness.

[scipan]

13. better link

This one made more sense to me.

Tobacco Companies Said to Have Met With U.S. on Suit (Update1)
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By Greg Stohr

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Tobacco company lawyers met with U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan last month to urge her not to file a Supreme Court appeal in the government’s racketeering case against the industry, an official involved in the Justice Department’s deliberations about the case said.

The meeting, reported by the Associated Press earlier today, ultimately might lead to settlement talks, though the two sides haven’t had any contact since then, the person said.

The discussion with Kagan, the Obama administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, led to an internal Justice Department meeting about the government’s options, the person said.

The two sides have until Feb. 19 to file Supreme Court appeals. In May, a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling that companies including Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA and Winston Salem, North Carolina-based Reynolds American Inc.’s RJ Reynolds Tobacco conspired to defraud the public about the dangers of smoking. The companies have signaled in court papers that they will appeal.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYlznAOWX29g&pos=5