April 18, 1996. SmithKline Beecham's Nicorette gum went on sale over-the-counter today. The two-week supply--plus audio tape and stop smoking tips--sells for about $50.

SmithKline Beecham said the gum is the first FDA-approved smoking cessation device to be sold OTC, and is sold without a prescription in 34 of the 50 countries where it is available. A spokesperson said prescriptions for Nicorette accounted for an astonishing 35% of all prescriptions written in the US.

In an unusual partnership, SmithKline Beecham is working with the American Lung Association in providing a "Counselors on Call" smoking cessation program. The counselors are available April 17 through 26, toll-free at 888-ALA-0805, 8 am to midnight.

The company said it will also sponsor ALA smoking cessation community seminars, in-store counseling, local hotlines and other promotions. Further information may be found on the company's website: http:\\www.nicorette.com.

In related news Friday, April 19, an FDA advisory panel recommended OTC sales of two nicotine transdermal patches, Nicotrol, made by Pharmacia & Upjohn, and Nicoderm, made by Alza Corp and Hoechst AG. A third patch, Habitrol by Ciba-Geigy, is due to be considered for OTC sales soon.

FEDERAL

Reno Won't Investigate Starr

4/11/96. JANET RENO said the Govt would not investigate conflict of interest charges against Whitewater independent counsel cum tobacco company attorney KENNETH STARR, who is representing Brown & Williamson, in the Castano case.

Clinton declares April 11 NATIONAL D.A.R.E. DAY (4/10/96)

LOCAL

Mass. Bill to Force Additive Disclosure

4/10/96. The Massachusetts Senate passed a bill requiring companies to disclose their cigarettes' nicotine levels and additives.

Ligget Pays Florida 1st $200G

4/11/96. Liggett made its first $200,000 payment to Florida, the first "penny" ever paid by the industry in a tobacco liability case.

New Jersey Set to Sue Tobacco

4/11/96 NEW JERSEY Gov. Christie Whitman said NJ would join the parade of states suing tobacco companies for health care costs

INTERNATIONAL

Zimbabwe Tobacco Tax Furor

Harare, Zimbabwe. April 19, 1996. The government's plan to ease its economic crisis by imposing a 5% tax on auction sales of tobacco has met stiff opposition from the large tobacco farmers, who say it will damage confidence in Zimbabwe's number one cash export crop. Zimbabwe's auctions open Tuesday Parliament approved the tax last month, and president Robert Mugabe said it would raise $32 million. Zimbabwe is the world's third largest producer of tobacco, next to the United States and Brazil.

In another tobacco-related development, the president of the Zimbabwe Association of Tobacco Merchants accused Agriculture Minister Denis Norman--one of two white ministers in Mugabe's cabinet--of promoting "white supremacy in areas such as tobacco." The statement was made in a Sunday Mail full page ad placed by several black lobbying groups

The groups also published a directive it said Norman had issued, forcing the Tobacco Merchand Board to issue a license to buy tobacco at the auctions to a previously-rejected white-run business.

CHINA: Medical U. Goes Smokefree

4/1/96 SHANGHAI, CHINA: The Medical Sciences University in Shanghai today became China's first smoke-free University. 2,000 faculty, staff and students--including the University's president--signed a 20-meter lenght of cloth to celebrate the event. A group set up last year to ban smoking on the campus said smokers would not be sought for enrollment, and that some University-affiliated hospitals refuse to hire smokers.

SOUTH AFRICA to Restrict Tobacco Ads?

4/1/96 SOUTH AFRICA:Monday's Business Day reports that the government is considering a tobacco advertising ban.

GIBRALTAR: Cig Smuggling Death Heightens Tensions

4/11/96. GIBRALTAR: Spain blames England's lax enforcement of cigarette smuggling for the death of a policeman killed when his helicopter fell into the sea chasing a Gibraltar-based speedboat.

PORTUGAL to Privatize Tobacco Monopoly

4/11/96. PORTUGAL'S cabinet approved a privatization plan for Tabaqueira-Empresa Industrial.

CHINA & ZIMBABWE to Cooperate on Tobacco

4/10/96. A CHINESE delegation visited ZIMBABWE looking to cooperatively improve the production, purchasing, processing and selling of tobacco and cotton.

SAS, Lufthansa Increase Non-smoking flights

4/11/96. SAS and LUFTHANSA are adding more non-smoking flights on their international flights.

BUSINESS

BAT's US Legal Bill: $50M/year

London, April 25, 1996. Under fierce questioning by a tobacco control group at its annual shareholders meeting, B.A.T Industries Plc chairman Lord Cairns disclosed the company spends US$50-$60 million a year in legal fees fighting 174 health-related lawsuits, most in the US.

BAT's pre-tax profit was up 26% over 1995, and BAT Chief Executive Martin Broughton said tobacco's legal bill paled next to BAT's Insurance business' fees. "We accept it as a cost of the tobacco business," he told Reuters.

In a speech addressing concerns about nicotine addiction and health hazards from secondhand smoke, Cairns said BAT is "not prepared to cede the case to a highly vocal anti-smoking movement," and would continue to vigorously defend itself from "opportunistic" lawsuits.

The tobacco control group, Action on Smoking and Health, warned litigation costs would rise, and urged shareholders to divest in BAT.

BAT stock was down by 2.3 percent on the London Stock Exchange, trading at 499 pence (US$7.50) a share, according to AP.

BAT's US subsidiary, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., is a defendant in several major pending cases.

Lorillard Quits NYC for Greensboro, NC

New York, NY. April 25, 1996. The Tisch family's Lorillard Tobacco Co. is leaving New York City, and taking 100 high-paying executive jobs with it, according to Douglas Feiden of the New York Daily News, who said the move was revealed in an Loews Corp. SEC filing.

Lorillard is a unit of Loews, whose largest shareholders are the Tisch family, which has long been deeply involved in New York's social and financial scene. Lorillard is moving to Greensboro, NC, where its manufacturing site is located.

Lover Gets Boot; Feds Get Files

Richmond, VA. April 10, 1996. They met at the Tobacco Company restaurant in Richmond in 1993.

She, Harriet "Hatsy" Heep, a 45-year-old interior designer, answered a personal ad.

He, Ronald A. Tamol, a 59-year-old retired Philip Morris engineer in research and development, who for a time during his tenure from 1963-1992, had worked at the cigarette-shaped Philip Morris Research Center in South Richmond.

They were engaged in December, 1994, and he moved into her Richmond, Virginia home in November of 1995. He called her, "my little addict," she said in a sworn statement, but they had been fighting a lot lately.

The real trouble began when her 21-year-old daughter came to visit, and mentioned that she had quit smoking Marlboros, Philip Morris' top brand.

According to Heep's testimony, Tamol said she was not supposed to be able to do that, and asked if she would meet with Philip Morris researchers.

"Hatsy just went ballistic," said Castano case lawyer Wendell Gauthier, who told reporters of Heep's testimony.

"Are you telling me Marlboros are designed so you can't quit ... you addicted her or your company did and now you want to find a method to make sure no one else can quit like she did," Gauthier quoted her as saying.

She quoted Tamol as saying that Philip Morris's strategy was, "Once you got them, we never want to lose them.' That was the theory at R&D: 'Once they're ours, they're ours for life.'"

Shortly after this incident, Tamol moved out, taking with him most of 70 boxes and trash bags of documents he had stored in her basement.

Apparently, there was a dispute about the remaining 8 boxes. Heep told the Castano lawyers that Tamol urged her to destroy them, and that agents of Philip Morris came by looking for them. "If you expect to keep wearing $200 pumps you'd better cooperate," Tamol told her.

But, said Ms. Heep, "I'm not stupid and I'm not a Philip Morris wife who is terrified that my next meal and my pretty pumps are not going to be paid for."

After one altercation, Heep dialed 911; the police helped Tamol remove more documents, according to Heep.

"I progressively came to realize the significance and importance of the documents," she said. "I didn't feel I could be a part of the destruction of these things"

So, last week, having watched the proceedings of the addiction-based Castano case on Tuesday, she turned them over to the lawyers, who on Friday turned them over to the FBI.

On Saturday, both Heep and Tamol were interviewed by the FBI for the Justice Department, which is investigating the tobacco industry on a number of issues, including whether Philip Morris executives knew nicotine was addictive. Heep's statement ran to 63 pages; Tamol reportedly told the FBI, "Philip Morris is not manipulating nicotine."

On Monday night and Tuesday, the FBI served four subpoenas for documents to Heep, Tamol, Tamol's son, and retired PM research director Dr. Thomas I. Osdene, who also was mentioned in the Uydess testimony.

Also on Tuesday, news of the tabloid-style development hit ABC World News Tonight, and NBC-TV.

THE DOCUMENTS

The documents, about 10,000 pages, date from 1962-1992, and "are handwritten notes, original, unaltered, unadulterated notes" of Tamol, as well as internal Philip Morris memos, according to Castano lawyers.

Reporters have noted that one document, stamped R.A. Tamol, in a characteristic Philip Morris style, and dated Feb. 1, 1995, contained the handwritten phrase, "determine minimum nicotine drop to keep normal smokers `hooked.'"

Another, dated 1989 and issued to "R. Tamol," has a warning: "If the report has served its purpose and is no longer needed, please return it to the central file at the research center for recordkeeping and destruction."

REACTION

"I swear on my mother's grave," Tamol has told reporters, "These things are absurd.... I'm probably going to sue her for all this false information that she's passed along."

Tamol has said the documents were his own, not Philip Morris'--"old notes from the '60s ... and if they're there, they're just my own scribblings, nothing to do with Philip Morris." He said they were kept for things he wanted to deal with in the future in his independent consulting business. "Anything I would have had for Philip Morris, I would have thrown out."

Philip Morris has said that despite repeated requests, it has been unable to see the documents. "We cannot at this time even verify whether these documents are authentic, and we cannot address the outrageous and desperate characterization of the purported documents by the plaintiffs' lawyers," the company said, adding, "this may be the most bizarre stunt [the Castano lawyers] have pulled to date. This is part of an all too familiar pattern of documents being leaked to the media."

Tobacco stories have been under-represented in a number of news venues. Perhaps with this development--now that Tonya Harding and O.J. Simpson are only sporadically newsworthy--we'll see more tobacco items in the National Star as well as on Ted Koppel's Nightline.

Double-digit Earnings for PM, RJR?

4/11/96. Financial analysts estimate that PHILIP MORRIS AND RJR, despite Big Tobacco's most intense legal, federal and social pressure ever, are heading for double-digit earnings growth for the first quarter. Sales are strong nationally and booming abroad.

Hatsy in the News

4/11/96. The AP reported a detailed precis of HATSY HEEP'S financial entanglements, while the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Heep made a sworn statement that Philip Morris lawyers "demanded that everything [presumably the Tamol documents in her basement] be removed and be destroyed."

LAWSUITS

Industry Must Disclose Gov't Contacts--Judge

Jackson, Miss. April 18, 1996 A state judge today ordered tobacco defendants to disclose any and all contacts between industry representatives and state employees or officials--elected or appointed--which may have concerned Mississippi's ongoing "Medicaid" case. Judge William H. Myers also ordered disclosure of the names of those involved, along with the nature of the contacts. He also ordered disclosure of the names of those state employees who have received contributions or gifts of any value from the industry.

Most of the requirements of the order date from December 31, 1989 to the present.

Myers's order stems froma request by Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore seeking information about the defendants' possible efforts to obstruct the suit through political means.

While the defendants have argued such disclosure would violate First Amendment rights to petition the government, Steve Bozeman, a lawyer for Mississippi, said those rights do not include the "right to petition our government in secret."

In another decision, according to a Philip Morris press release, the judge allowed the tobacco companies to take depositions from 20 individual welfare recipients who say they were injured by smoking.

The State of Mississippi v. American Tobacco et. al., was filed on May 23, 1994, in the Chancery Court of Jackson County, Mississippi (Cause No. 94-1429).

Justice Dept. Wins Delay in Healthy Buildings Case

Washington, DC. April 18, 1996. The judge in a civil fraud case against tobacco industry associate Healthy Buildings International has ordered a 6 month delay after the Justice Department argued the case would conflict with its grand jury investigation into the tobacco industry and its affiliates, which is being heard in nearby Alexandria, VA.

The fraud suit was filed by a former employee, who alleges HBI, which grew from a tiny consulting business to an international leader while receiving massive funding from tobacco companies, was "virtually a front" for the industry, and rigged tests so as to diminish the role of secondhand smoke in indoor air pollution. Justice is investigating because of Congressional subcommitte testimony that some Congressmen felt revealed "a widespread pattern of significant data alteration" in reports HBI submitted to various government agencies, including the EPA.

HBI's lawyer argued against U.S. District Judge William B. Bryant's order, saying the delay would subject the company to "face the certainty of a slow death by rumor."

SOCIETY

2 1/2 Years for Airline Smoking

Alexandria, VA. 4/21/96 A British man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for fighting with crew and pilots after trying to smoke in the bathroom on a United Airlines flight from London to Dulles International. A fight broke out between bricklayer Jantzen Shaun Coles, 25, and flight personnel and passengers when they tried to extricate him from the bathroom. Coles pled guilty to three counts of interfering with a flight crew. "U.S. officials said Coles' criminal record in Britain showed six adult convictions for crimes ranging from theft to burglary," according to UPI.

Regine Free on $100,000 Bond, Blasts US over Airline Smoking Row

Boston, MA: April 21, 1996. French nightclub owner Regine Choukroun, 66, blasted US police after a row over smoking in a nonsmoking section led to her and her son's arrest on charges of assaulting and interfering with a flight crew. "There was an argument, that's all. Does smoking one cigarette in a no-smoking compartment deserve such a violation of human rights as taking people to prison, handcuffing them, giving them a body search?" Choukroun told French-Info Radio. "It's a disgrace.. We are talking about significant moral and psychological damage here."

The attendants claim that her son, Lionel Rotcajg, 47, went "berserk" when told he couldn't smoke, pushed one attendant and threatened to shoot another.

The American Airlines Paris to Miami flight was diverted to Boston, where the FBI arrested Choukroun and Rotcajg, who claim the incident was the result of cultural and language differences, and was blown out of proportion. They were freed on $100,000 bond.

Choukroun is the owner of "Regine's" nightclubs in Paris, New York and Brazil, and has written a book on addiction. She received the Legion of Honor from President Jacques Chirac a few weeks ago. Rotcajg was an editor of the French version of Rolling Stone. They had been traveling with Rotcajg's 7 year old daughter to "get away from it all" after the death of her mother from cancer a few months ago. The family had been unable to get seats in the smoking section..

Starting June 1, 1996, American will ban smoking completely on all its flights to and from Europe and the Carribbean while keeping some smoking flights between the US and Latin America and Japan. Also on June 1, USAir will ban smoking on all its flights.

Ashes to Ashes Reviewed

4/12/96. "ASHES TO ASHES," Richar Kluger's massive tobacco industry history received a lukewarm review in the Wall St. Journal

4/15/96. "ASHES TO ASHES" received a postitive review from Christopher Lehman-Haupt in the New York Times: What is perhaps most disturbing about reading this minutely detailed volume - at least to someone who smoked his way through three decades of Kluger's 100-year history - is to learn how completely manipulated one was. Not only is "Ashes to Ashes" another report of the banality of evil, it is also an exercise in horrifying nostalgia.

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�1996 Gene Borio, the Tobacco BBS (212-982-4645. WebPage: http://www.tobacco.org)

Original Tobacco BBS material may be reprinted in any non-commercial venue if accompanied by this credit line.

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TOBACCO NEWS April, 1996

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HEALTH

Nicorette gum now OTC; Programs set up with ALA