Tobacco On Trial

Ted Wells, Co-counsel for Philip Morris presented the defense’s core theme: that such profound change has occurred in the industry over the few years that there is NO likelihood of future violations.

If you look at how the industry communicates today,he said, is it in a fraudulent manner or not? The industry says, quite clearly, “Smoking is dangerous, and addictive, and there is no such thing as a safe cigarette.” Wells even ran a recent Philip Morris TV ad on smoking and health.

He said that 6 of the 7 “Pillars” of deceit had already collapsed. The historical allegations are “dated and stale.” Only Teen smoking marketing needed to be addressed as a possible ongoing problem today.

He said the Defense will refute ideas that the industry had engaged in a deceitful enterprise. What was important, he said, was what was in the minds of the CEOs who met in the Plaza Hotel on Dec. 14, 1953.

Following Wells, David Berrick from B&W spoke, indicating there was no intent to deceive, from the Plaza Hotel meeting through the decades. He brought up a document that refuted DOJ’s claim that John Hill was at the Plaza on Dec. 14. He claimed the meeting was clearly not an effort to institute a public relations campaign.

He said FTC smoking machine/ “compensation” issues were known, and were no secret held from the government.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004 at 11:24 am and is filed under Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.