If this Government is so worried about tobacco problems, why hasn’t it ratified WHO FCTC yet?

Please, do it!!

Berta-Isabel
Non Smokers Club
www.goodrelationssl.com

MSA payments go to the states, as a result of the states’ suit.

This is a federal suit. Entirely separate from state ligitation, MSA money, etc.

“If the cigarette industry ceased to exist, the American people would see a tax increase that they would go nuts over.”

Killing millions of people with highly addictive slow poison is OK if it can be used to lower taxes; an interesting argument.

And yet not a new one. The tobacco industry sees a payoff when its product kills its customer, and thinks it’s a good thing:
http://tobaccofreekids.org/reports/philipmorris/#czech

You bet. What would you like it to tax instead?

Whose taxes would you like to raise so that America’s most lethal drug is cheap?

> government should have to disgorge tobacco taxes

Yes, and tobacco retailers should disgorge too: drugstores, convenience stores, supermarkets, liquor stores; they all made money on tobacco product. As did advertising agencies. Billboard firms. Magazines. TV. Movies. Tobacco farmers. Shipping firms. Paper manufacturers. So they should all disgorge. Right?

Oh wait, they didn’t lie to the public. Cover up what they knew about the product. Engineer the product for addiction. Market it to kids. That distinction belongs to Big Tobacco alone. That’s why it’s on trial here.

> why does alcohol get a free pass? The refined sugar industry? Hostess cupcakes? Burger King whoppers?

They don’t get a free pass. They’re highly regulated. Unlike tobacco, which is specifically exempted from consumer product safety regulation.

These products aren’t on trial because these products, used as intended, don’t hurt anyone. They’re actually good for you, in moderation.

The vendors of these products didn’t lie to the public, cover up what they knew, engineer product for addiction, or market highly addictive slow poison to kids.

These products don’t kill half their best customers.

Three reasons why the vendors of these products aren’t on trial right now.

Tobacco is unique: it’s the only consumer product that, used as intended, kills half its best customers.

Comparing tobacco to fat is taken directly from tobacco industry PR. Oh, the slippery slope!

What tobacco industry PR never mentions: tobacco is more comparable to other addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine. That’s a slippery slope the industry doesn’t like to talk about.

You write:

This industry’s product is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States.

This product kills one out of five Americans.

This product kills half its best customers.

This product kills the people closest to its customers.

This product is engineered for addiction.

————————

Fair enough, but you forget to mention the countless levels of government that gorge themselves on taxes from tobacco sales. If you’re going to throw out numbers, then throw out all the numbers. Go into the financial statemtns of MO, RAI, Carolina Group, and others in the DOJ case and disclose the level of excise taxes pafind the sales volumes. Extrapolate from there to find the billions upon billions of $ that go to governments from tobacco, to include the MSA payments that are mis-used by nearly every state that was a signatory.

If disgorgement is to be made, shouldn’t local, state, and the federal governments have to disgorge their ill-gotten taxes?

And why does alcohol get a free pass? The refined sugar industry? Hostess cupcakes? Burger King whoppers?

Bottom line is the FTC and other federal/state/local agencies are just as culpable as tobacco here, if any entity is truly to be held accountable.

As a caveat, what is the DOJ going to have once the disgorgement is 100% thrown out over the course of the next 30-45 days? If DOJ wants $280 B, then file a criminal case. Don’t file what amounts to an anti-trust civil case and ask for backward-looking monetary disgorgement.

This industry’s product is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States.

This product kills one out of five Americans.

This product kills half its best customers.

This product kills the people closest to its customers.

This product is engineered for addiction.

These are a few facts this industry doesn’t mention on its website and its other public utterances.

It prefers softer language. “Risks” and so on.

Yet nothing stops it from telling the truth about itself and its products. It could do that any time it liked.

It chooses instead to softpedal in its PR.

And in court, it chooses denial and evasion.

Its PR projects an image of a “new reformed tobacco industry” that’s open and honest.

The reality is, the same old denial, evasion, obfuscation, and softpedaling of the facts.

For 50 years this has been an industry that cannot tell the truth. It just can’t seem to speak the plain truth about itself, its marketing, its products, or what they do to its customers and the people closest to its customers.

In this trial, and in its PR, this industry keeps keeps crying that it’s changed.

But its statements in this trial are “the same old doublespeak”:
http://tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=543

And that’s the point of the report. Not merely that it’s doublespeak, but that it’s the same old thing, the same sort of denial and evasion that we’ve heard for 50 years.

Is this the “new, reformed” tobacco industry?

Is this “open and honest”?

Has the tobacco industry really changed?

The only thing that has changed is its PR strategy:

http://www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/trustus.html#_16._Epilogue%E2%80%94Has_the

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/philipmorris/

Brilliant. A gov’t commissioned report has discovered that statements made by defendants in a court of law tend to be more evasive than the statements made in their public relations pieces. Wow, I’m so glad my federal tax money is going to good use!

=================
But yes, it is soft. “Smoking” causes disease, not cigarettes, not Philip Morris product, used as intended. “Smokers” get disease, not customers. After one “cause” the language goes back to the softer “more likely to develop”. And so on.
=================

That’s not “soft”, that’s “accurate”. Smoking DOES cause disease (not cigarettes. . .which don’t exactly light themselves and throw the smoke down one’s throat). Smokers ARE more likely to get disease. . .even you would agree that there are many smokers who don’t.

So your problem with Philip Morris is that they don’t scream bloody murder, is that it? If you needed to learn more about the risks of smoking, you could follow one of the numerous weblinks they have to other sites detailing them from their website. Is the surgeon general unbiased enough for you? It sure seems like no matter what tobacco does, its never enough.

If they don’t make health statements. . .the anti-smokers say they are being evasive. If they do make health statements. . .the anti-smokers say they are lying. If they make clear, explicit health statements, the anti-smokers say they aren’t going far enough!

I won’t bicker, but it simply isn’t tobacco’s role to point out every possible drawback of their product in graphic detail. They are not health authorities, and they SHOULD NOT be asked to do that. Not only is that expectation unrealistic, its inadviseable for all of the reasons listed above. Nobody should be asking tobacco for public health information. . .and nobody should be asking them to provide it. You want to force car companies to run ads showing whiplash injuries and flaming wrecks? Maybe every Budweiser ad should have a caption showing a cirrhotic liver and a car crash? There are plenty of organizations and health agencies whose job it is to publicize the risks associated with smoking. Even more ironic, a good bit of the budgets of these agencies comes from the taxes levied on cigarettes, which as you know, are the most highly taxed product in the United States. I believe said tobacco money was even used to fund Mr. Borio’s website for a while.

The point of the report: the public image the industry projects doesn’t square with the reality of what the industry says in court.

The image: a new tobacco industry, reformed, open, honest.

The reality: denial, evasion, much the same as this industry has done for 50 years.

That’s the point of the report.

My point: it’s easier for the industry to appear open and honest when it gets to choose the questions and it’s not under oath. That’s the case on Philip Morris corporate website, so sure, it doesn’t seem evasive.

But yes, it is soft. “Smoking” causes disease, not cigarettes, not Philip Morris product, used as intended. “Smokers” get disease, not customers. After one “cause” the language goes back to the softer “more likely to develop”. And so on.

The American Council on Science and Health puts it this way:

“When an industry has been lying for more than half a century, then announces it is going to tell the truth but only tells a fraction of the truth, the impact can be as bad as or worse than the original lie.”

“Philip Morris wants you to believe that it is now open and candid, allowing customers to make fully informed decisions, but in reality they have cleverly muddied the waters further…”

“Philip Morris was very careful not to give an overview of the horrors of cigarette-related disease in the United States. For example: nowhere did they mention the fact that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, causally linked to one in every four deaths daily — one in every two premature deaths…”

http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.461/healthissue_detail.asp

http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.276/news_detail.asp

In sum:

In public, the tobacco industry softpedals what its product does to its customers, and to those nearest its customer. It tells only a fraction of the truth. Yet it manages to sound open and honest, projecting an image of a new, reformed tobacco industry. It manages that because it doesn’t have to answer specific questions. When it does have to answer specific questions under oath, it sounds very different: evasion, denial, obfuscation, much like the tobacco industry for 50 years.