Judgment Against Philip Morris Is Upheld

[techs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_on_bi_ge/oregon_tobacco_ruling
The Oregon Supreme Court upheld on Thursday a $79.5 million punitive damages award to the family of an Oregon smoker who died of lung cancer, saying the amount isn't excessive given the "reprehensible" conduct of tobacco giant Philip Morris in marketing cigarettes.

The decision upholds a lower court ruling and responds to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that asked Oregon courts to consider whether the award in the lawsuit against Philip Morris USA Inc., a unit of Altria Group Inc., was excessive.

The state Supreme Court said it was not, given "such extreme and outrageous circumstances."

"Philip Morris knew that smoking caused serious and sometimes fatal disease, but it nevertheless spread false or misleading information to suggest to the public that doubts remained about the issue," the court said.

"It deliberately did so to keep smokers smoking, knowing that it was putting the smokers' health and lives at risk, and it continued to do so for nearly half a century," it said.


IMO tobacco industry execs deserve to be prosecuted for manslaugter.

 

[Harvey]

:beer: :thumbsup:

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: techs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_on_bi_ge/oregon_tobacco_ruling
The Oregon Supreme Court upheld on Thursday a $79.5 million punitive damages award to the family of an Oregon smoker who died of lung cancer, saying the amount isn't excessive given the "reprehensible" conduct of tobacco giant Philip Morris in marketing cigarettes.

The decision upholds a lower court ruling and responds to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that asked Oregon courts to consider whether the award in the lawsuit against Philip Morris USA Inc., a unit of Altria Group Inc., was excessive.

The state Supreme Court said it was not, given "such extreme and outrageous circumstances."

"Philip Morris knew that smoking caused serious and sometimes fatal disease, but it nevertheless spread false or misleading information to suggest to the public that doubts remained about the issue," the court said.

"It deliberately did so to keep smokers smoking, knowing that it was putting the smokers' health and lives at risk, and it continued to do so for nearly half a century," it said.


IMO tobacco industry execs deserve to be prosecuted for manslaugter.

But there's no reason punitive damages should be awarded to victims.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
But there's no reason punitive damages should be awarded to victims.

Of course, there are. As this court decision states, despite knowing about the dangers of tobacco for at least fifty years, the tobacco companies have knowingly continued to market their products, and they have a documented history of working to keep the information secret and of bribing and coercing legislators to quash anti-tobacco legislation.

I truly hate the tobacco companies. I think every tobacco exec for the last fifty years should be tried for crimes against humanity for the killer products they continue to market. I watched those lying assholes raise their hands before Congress and swear that tobacco was not addictive or carcinogenic.

A few years ago, California passed an initiatiative that is one of the strongest anti-smoking laws in the country. Despite the tobacco lobby spending a record amount for a private interest to defeat this initiative, it passed by a record margin of 80% - 20% margin. In the very next session of the state legislature, our elected representatives in the State Assembly passed a bill to overturn that initiative. Fortunately, the media stink that followed caused the State Senate to think better of the idea and kill it. I still have to wonder how much money it takes to get over half of a state legilative body to overturn a law passed by 80% of the voters.

Now, Philip Morris's saccherine anti-smoking commercials are equally lame. If they believed 10% of what they say, they would immediately stop selling their tobacco products.

To hide the association with their other products, they now call the parent company, Altria. From their site

Marketing Excellence and Innovation

Philip Morris International?s brand portfolio includes seven of the top 20 international brands, including Marlboro, which has been the best-selling international cigarette brand since 1972, and L&M, which is now the No. 3 brand in the world over the last decade. Other brands include Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark and Parliament.

Can you say lying, two faced mofos, boys and girls? :|

If you don't smoke, your buying decisions about tobacco are irrelevant to them. However, you, and those with whom you share the info, below, can have an effect by boycotting tobacco-owned food products, depriving them of income from those sources. Here's a list from Philip Morris' Altria/Kraft Foods site:

A-1 Sauces
Altoids mints
Athenos Cheeses
Back to Nature
Baker's Chocolate and Coconut
Barnum's Animals
Biscos
Baker's Chocolate and Coconut
Boca (meat alternatives)
Breakstone's Sour Cream, Cottage Cheese, etc.
Breyer's Ice Cream, Yogurt, etc.
Bull's-Eye barbecue and grilling sauces
Café Creme
California Pizza Kitchen pizza
Callard & Bowser Toffees
Calumet Baking Powder
Cameo
Campbell Soups
Capri Sun
CarbWell
Churny Cheeses
Claussen Pickles
Comet Cups Icecream Cones
Cool Whip
Corn Nuts
Country Time Lemonade
Cracker Barrel cheeses
Cream of Wheat
CremeSavers
Crystal Light
Dad's Cookies
Dream Whip
D-Zerta
Di Giorno Italian foods
Easy Cheese Process Cheese Spread
Ever Fresh Fruit Preservatives
Fruit20 drinks
General Foods (all products)
Gevalia Coffee
Good Seasons Salad Dressing Mixes
Grey Poupon
Handi-Snacks
Harvest Moon cheeses
Hoffman's cheeses
It's Pasta Anytime
Jack's Pizza
Jello
Jet-Puffed
Knudsen dairy products
Kool-Aid
Kool Stuf Toaster Pastries
Kraft Foods
La Vie De La Vosgienne candies
Life Savers
Light n' Lively cottage cheese
Louis Rich lunch meats
Lunchables
Maxwell House Coffee
Milk-Bone Dog Biscuits
Milka L'il Scoops
Miller Beer
Minute Brand Deserts
Minute Rice
Mirácoli pasta
Nabisco products
Oscar Meyer
Oven Fry Coatings
Planters Nuts, etc.
Polly-O Cheeses
Post Cereals
Postum
Ragu Sauces, etc.
Sanka Coffee
Sather's Candies
Sauceworks
Sealtest dairy products
Seattle's Best Coffee (Packaged products in stores)
Seven Seas Salad Dressings
Shake 'N Bake
Starbucks coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Stove Top Stuffings, etc.
Taco Bell dinner kits, Salsa, etc.
Tang
Tazo coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Torrefazione Italia coffees (Packaged products in stores)
Temp-tee cream cheese
Terry's candies
Toblerone and Tobler Candies
Tombstone Pizza
Trolli Candies
Veryfine
Woody's Cold Pack Cheese
Yuban Coffee

Death to the tobacco murderers! :| :| :|

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
But there's no reason punitive damages should be awarded to victims.

Of course, there are. As this court decision states, despite knowing about the dangers of tobacco for at least fifty years, the tobacco companies have knowingly continued to market their products, and they have a documented history of working to keep the information secret and of bribing and coercing legislators to quash anti-tobacco legislation.
(snip)
Death to the tobacco murderers! :| :| :|

Sorry, what about this tells you that punitive damages should beawarded to the victims, I didn't - and won't - say that there shouldn't have been punitive damages assessed.

 

[TallBill]

No chance in hell that I'll stop buying altoids and mac n' cheese.

Anyways, its a rediculous amount of money.

Smoking is a rediculous bad habbit as it is. I make fun of the few smokers that I do know daily. At least use drugs, you'll get some sort of effect out of those.

 

[ntdz]

As long as Philip Morris discloses EVERYTHING that are in their smokes, I see absolutely no reason they should be held liable because people abuse their products.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: ntdz
As long as Philip Morris discloses EVERYTHING that are in their smokes, I see absolutely no reason they should be held liable because people abuse their products.

You're ignoring all the deaths and diseases they caused for over a half century before they were forced by law to disclose anything, let alone put warnings on the packages. I'm old enough to have had and lost too many friends for exactly that reason.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: ntdz
As long as Philip Morris discloses EVERYTHING that are in their smokes, I see absolutely no reason they should be held liable because people abuse their products.

Do you think people who smoke are intelligent?

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: zendari
Do you think people who smoke are intelligent?

I know lots of very intelligent smokers. This doesn't do much for their IQ in my book, but I don't think there's a necessary link between stupidity and smoking.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: zendari
Do you think people who smoke are intelligent?

I know lots of very intelligent smokers. This doesn't do much for their IQ in my book, but I don't think there's a necessary link between stupidity and smoking.

If they have brains, they can figure out how to live with their own habits instead of playing the blame game.

 

[Genx87]

Cost passed onto the smokers.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: zendari
If they have brains, they can figure out how to live with their own habits instead of playing the blame game.

I don't think anyone here will advocate people who have started smoking in the last 15-20 years getting any money from a tobacco company. These people chose to start smoking with the full knowledge that it would eventually kill them. However, as others here have stated, people who started smoking prior to the full disclosure by the tobacco companies of the harmful nature of their product have a right to some form of compensation for being killed by something advertised as a harmless product.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: zendari
If they have brains, they can figure out how to live with their own habits instead of playing the blame game.

I don't think anyone here will advocate people who have started smoking in the last 15-20 years getting any money from a tobacco company. These people chose to start smoking with the full knowledge that it would eventually kill them. However, as others here have stated, people who started smoking prior to the full disclosure by the tobacco companies of the harmful nature of their product have a right to some form of compensation for being killed by something advertised as a harmless product.

I will advocate that smokers who started in the last 15-20 years DO have a legitimate beef against the tobacco companies.
As recently as the Senate hearings in 1994 the tobacco companies rolled out scientist after scientist who claimed there was absolutely no evidence cigarrette smoking was harmful.
And in one famous (infamous?) exchange the President of a large tobacco company was asked if nicotine was addictive. And the tobacco company president said cigarrettes were no more addictive than.....GummiBears. Yes, GummiBears.
Of course within a few years as secret company documents were made public we found out that at the time of the hearings the tobacco companies own scientists were saying cigarettes caused cancer and nicotine was addictive.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: techs
I will advocate that smokers who started in the last 15-20 years DO have a legitimate beef against the tobacco companies.

There is not a single person brought up in the US in the last 20 years that didn't know smoking caused many possibly fatal illnesses. Knowing this, if you started smoking, then the company is entitled to your money. At some point you have to take responsibility for your actions. In this case, the smoker knew he would, in all probability, die from the habit if he started smoking. He did it anyway. Case closed.

Should my family be entitled to sue a gun manufacturer because I shot myself in the head using their handgun? No. I knew full well that the gun could kill me if I used it in said manner. The responsibility, therefore, falls on me, not the gun manufacturer.

 

[fornax]

Originally posted by: techs
I will advocate that smokers who started in the last 15-20 years DO have a legitimate beef against the tobacco companies.
As recently as the Senate hearings in 1994 the tobacco companies rolled out scientist after scientist who claimed there was absolutely no evidence cigarrette smoking was harmful.
And in one famous (infamous?) exchange the President of a large tobacco company was asked if nicotine was addictive. And the tobacco company president said cigarrettes were no more addictive than.....GummiBears. Yes, GummiBears.
Of course within a few years as secret company documents were made public we found out that at the time of the hearings the tobacco companies own scientists were saying cigarettes caused cancer and nicotine was addictive.

And people who started smoking were listening to the Senate testimony? Give me a break. How long have the warning labels been on the cigarette boxes? How long has it been since newspapers, radio, TV, schools, etc. started talking about the danger of smoking? Are you telling me that smokers in the last 20-30 years didn't know that smoking is bad for you? Maybe 1% of them, if that.

Did the tobacco companies manufacture and market a harmful product? Yes. Did they try to convince people that smoking is harmless? Not in the lifetime of the last generation. So I don't see why smokers would claim damages when it is mostly their fault.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: techs
I will advocate that smokers who started in the last 15-20 years DO have a legitimate beef against the tobacco companies.
As recently as the Senate hearings in 1994 the tobacco companies rolled out scientist after scientist who claimed there was absolutely no evidence cigarrette smoking was harmful.
And in one famous (infamous?) exchange the President of a large tobacco company was asked if nicotine was addictive. And the tobacco company president said cigarrettes were no more addictive than.....GummiBears. Yes, GummiBears.
Of course within a few years as secret company documents were made public we found out that at the time of the hearings the tobacco companies own scientists were saying cigarettes caused cancer and nicotine was addictive.

And people who started smoking were listening to the Senate testimony? Give me a break. How long have the warning labels been on the cigarette boxes? How long has it been since newspapers, radio, TV, schools, etc. started talking about the danger of smoking? Are you telling me that smokers in the last 20-30 years didn't know that smoking is bad for you? Maybe 1% of them, if that.

Did the tobacco companies manufacture and market a harmful product? Yes. Did they try to convince people that smoking is harmless? Not in the lifetime of the last generation. So I don't see why smokers would claim damages when it is mostly their fault.

What? They sure did!

There was government and private literature and ad campaigns out there talking about the dangers of smoking, but tobacco companies were most definitely continuing to deny, deny, deny.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: ntdz
As long as Philip Morris discloses EVERYTHING that are in their smokes, I see absolutely no reason they should be held liable because people abuse their products.

Do you think people who smoke are intelligent?

I don't think intelligence has anything to do with whether you smoke or not. People smoke socially, people smoke once in awhile for the buzz or to relieve stress.

 

[Stunt]

Kraft and Philip Morris are now separate companies Harvey...
Time to relax on the emotional accusations.

 

[RichardE]

http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/Tobacco_History20-1.html

Interesting for anyone to read... Tobbaco begins throwing money around in 1900-1906

 

[RichardE]

1903-08: The August Harpers Weekly says, "A great many thoughtful and intelligent men who smoke don't know if it does them good or harm. They notice bad effects when they smoke too much. They know that having once acquired the habit, it bothers them . . . to have their allowance of tobacco cut off."

1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.

1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."

1909: 15 states have passed legislation banning the sale of cigarettes.

1910: CONSUMPTION: Per capita cigarette consumption: 94/year. Per capita cigar consumption: 77/year. (International Smoking Statistice) Because of the heavy use of the inexpensive cigarette by immigrants, New York still accounts for 25% of all cigarette sales. A New York Times editorial praises the Non Smokers Protective League, saying anything that could be done to allay "the general and indiscriminate use of tobacco in public places, hotels, restaurants, and railroad cars, will receive the approval of everybody whose approval is worth having." (RK)


# 1911-05-29: SCOTUS: "Trustbusters" break up American Tobacco Co. US Supreme Court dissolves Duke's trust as a monopoly and in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890). The major companies to emerge are: American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company (Durham, NC), Lorillard and British-American Tobacco (BAT). RJ Reynolds says, "Now watch me give Buck Duke hell." BAT is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

* Liggett & Myers was given about 28 per cent of the cigarette market:
o Piedmont
o Fatima
o American Beauty
o Home Run
o Imperiales
o Coupon
o King Bee
o Fatima (the only 15 Turkish blend
o and the cheap straight domestic brands.

* P. Lorillard received 15 per cent of the nation's business:
o Helmar
o Egyptian Deities
o Turkish Trophies
o Murad
o Mogul
o and all straight Turkish brands

* American Tobacco retained 37 per cent of the market:
o Pall Mall, its expensive all-Turkish brand, named for a fashionable London street in the 18th century where "pall-mall" (a precursor to croquet) was played.
o Sweet Caporal
o Hassan
o Mecca

* R. J. Reynolds received no cigarette line but was awarded 20 per cent of the plug trade.


1912: BUSINESS: Book matches are finally perfected by Diamond Co., making the appeal of cigarettes - in portability and ease of use - even greater.

1912: USA: Reprint of report of the perfection of a nicotine oil spray. This makes it easier to apply the nicotine extract as an insecticde to plants. (LB)

1912: HEALTH: First strong link made between lung cancer and smoking. In a monograph, Dr. Isaac Adler is the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking.

1913: AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE CONTROL OF CANCER is formed to inform the public about the disease. It will later become the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY.(RK)

 

[RichardE]

1917: BUSINESS: American Tobacco unleashes an ad campaign for Lucky Strike aimed at women: "Avoid that future shadow," warns one ad, comparing ladies' jowls.

1919: HEALTH: Washington University medical student Alton Ochsner is summoned to observe lung cancer surgery--something, he is told, he may never see again. He doesn't see another case for 17 years. Then he sees 8 in six months--all smokers who had picked up the habit in WW I.

1921: BUSINESS: RJR spends $8 million in advertising, mostly on Camel; inaugurates the "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel" slogan. (RK)

1925: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' Marlboro, "Mild as May," targets "decent, respectable" women. "Has smoking any more to do with a woman's morals than has the color of her hair?" A 1927 ad reads, "Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, and repose in so many handbags."

1928: HEALTH: German scientist proposes that lung cancers among non-smoking women could be caused by inhalation of their husbands' smoke. Schnönherr E. Beitrag zur Statistik und Klinik der Lungentumoren. Z Krebsforsch 1928;27: 436-50.

 

[RichardE]

1929: HEALTH: Fritz Lickint of Dresden publishes the first formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer-tobacco link, based on a case series showing that lung cancer sufferers were likely to be smokers. Lickint also argued that tobacco use was the best way to explain the fact that lung cancer struck men four or five times more often than women (since women smoked much less). (Proctor)

# 1930s: ADVERTISING: A Philip Morris ad states: "You're bound to inhale sometimes, but you can have this proven protection."
# 1930: HEALTH: 2,357 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. (RK) The lung cancer death rate in white males is 3.8 per 100,000.
# 1930: SCIENCE: Researchers in Cologne, Germany, made a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking.

1934: LEGISLATION: GARRISON ACT is passed outlawing marijuana and other drugs; tobacco is not considered.

1938: SCIENCE: Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reports to New York Academy of Medicine that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers.("The Search for Longevity") His findings are printed in the Science News Letter (March 12 (or 4) 1938 p. 163) under the title "Tobacco Smoking and Longevity." "Smoking is associated with a definite impairment of longevity. . . This impairment is proportional to the habitual amount of tobacco usage by smoking, being great for heavy smokers and less for moderate smokers." Of the (6,813 persons reported on, two-thirds of the nonsmokers had lived beyond sixty, but only 46 per cent of the heavy smokers reached age sixty. Time magazine suggested that they would frighten tobacco manufacturers to death and "make tobacco users' flesh creep."

1939: GERMANY: Fritz Lickint, in collaboration with the Reich Committee for the Struggle against Adictive Drugs and the German Antitobacco League, publishes Tabak und Organismus (Tobacco and the Organism). Proctor calls the 1,100 page volume "arguably the most comprehensive scholarly indictment of tobacco ever published." It blamed smoking for cancers all along the Rauchstrasse ("smoke alley")--lips, tongue, mouth, jaw, esophagus, windpipe and lungs, and included "a convincing argu ent that 'passive smoking' ( Passivrauchen. . . ) posed a serious threat to nonsmokers."

1948: HEALTH: UK: Sir Richard Doll has written: On I January 1948, when I began to work with Bradford Hill, there was, if anything, less awareness of the possible iii effects of smoking than there had been 50 years before. For the spread of the cigarette habit, which was as entrenched among male doctors as among the rest of the adult male population (80 per cent of whom smoked) had so dulled the collective sense that tobacco might be a threat to health that the possibility that it might be the culprit was given only scant attention. Doll, R. "The First Reports on Smoking and Lung Cancer.

1950: HEALTH: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer

* In the May 27, 1950 issue of JAMA, Morton Levin publishes first major study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer.
* In the same issue, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases," by Ernst L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham of the United States, found that 96.5% of lung cancer patients interviewed were moderate heavy-to-chain-smokers.
* 1950-09:30: RICHARD DOLL and A BRADFORD HILL publish first report on Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung in the British Medical Journal, finding that heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to contract lung cancer. The cancer advisory committee of the Ministry of Health say they have demonstrated an association, not a cause, and advise the Government to do nothing.

 

[RichardE]

I think I made my point, if you started smoking in the last 100 years, it is your fault

 

[glenn1]

I almost hope Harvey would get his wish. I'd laugh my ass off if MO and the other tobacco majors decided to stop selling cigarettes in his state. I don't think you realize exactly how much the government makes off taxes on smokes (hint: Phillip Morris is the nation's largest taxpayer by a wide margin, they paid $7.6 billion in just excise taxes last QUARTER). Add the smokers who would mob the state capital with torches in hand since they'd have to drive 5 hours to buy a pack and you'd see the state government sh!t their pants, then drop to their knees in about 5 seconds begging to get the tobacco companies back.