Era of Industry Denial Ends as Tobacco Firm Fesses Up
The long battle to hold the nation’s cigarette companies accountable for the harm done by their products has seen a significant victory with Thursday’s agreement by the Liggett Group Inc. to settle lawsuits with 22 states seeking to recover the public health costs of treating smoking-related diseases.
Liggett, which makes Chesterfields, L&M; and a number of other brands, will also begin putting warning labels on its cigarette packs stating that smoking is addictive and causes cancer and other diseases. This unprecedented admission is solid vindication for the Food and Drug Administration, which last year identified cigarettes as a system for delivering an addictive drug, nicotine. It also, of course, simply confirms what every smoker who has ever tried to quit knows only too well.
Liggett’s agreement to cooperate with the suing states against other tobacco companies extends to turning over thousands of documents that, among other things, could support allegations that the companies deliberately hid research--some of it decades old--showing cigarettes are addictive. In 1994 top tobacco industry officials, including the man who was then Liggett’s chief executive officer, swore before a congressional committee that nicotine is not addictive. Liggett will also clear the way for all of its past and current employees to testify in lawsuits against the industry.
Even before Thursday’s agreement was formally announced, however, Philip Morris won a temporary restraining order in a North Carolina court to prevent Liggett from turning over the possibly incriminating documents. Among the papers are notes of meetings between industry lawyers, which Philip Morris and other large tobacco companies contend are privileged communications.
Liggett, the smallest of the tobacco companies, is least able to bear the costs of prolonged litigation and the potential huge costs of a settlement. Under its agreement with the states it will pay 25% of its pretax profits over the next 25 years to compensate for smoking-related public health costs. That echoes an agreement it made a year ago when it reached a settlement with Massachusetts and a number of other states.
Liggett has done what no other tobacco company has had the courage to do, and in so doing may have set the precedent for future settlements by other companies. Liggett’s decision ends an era of industry denial and deception. Cigarettes are addictive and they kill, and finally one tobacco company has agreed to tell the truth about them.
