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Pacific Legal Foundation  

The Pacific Legal Foundation is a Sacramento, California-based legal organization that was established March 5, 1973 [1] to support pro-business causes. In recent years, it has taken a lead in pursuing anti-affirmative action policies.

It is the key right-wing public interest litigation firm in a network of similar organizations funded initially by Scaife Foundations money across the USA to support capitalism and oppose environmental and health activism and government regulation.

The organization has been [2] partially funded by a range of corporations and conservative foundations. . . .

PLF is listed as a "key third party ally" in a September 14, 1999 Philip Morris document.[4]

In 1989, Philip Morris began funding the organization through its Mission Viejo (gated-community land-development company) subsidiary, mainly because the organisation was active in the property rights area and had won cases limiting the States' ability to expropriate or regulate private property. The Mission Viejo subsidiary was interested in fighting a no-growth initiative which had been blocking some of their development projects. At this stage Philip Morris only gave an annual grant of $5,000 each year, just to keep the organisation on side and available, but it may have also funded specific legal projects.

By 1991 the PLF had a major budget crisis. It was in deficit to the tune of about $1 million, which was about a quarter of its $4 million annual requirements. Not long after, Roy Marden, the Philip Morris executive in charge of maintaining relations with the right-wing think tanks and advocacy institutes, joined the PLF board. Overnight the funding increased substantially to $10,000, and then $22,000 by 1993. Philip Morris also began to utilize the PLF to undertake hidden media and political activities on its behalf.

For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its determination that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.[5])

At this time Philip Morris was also heavily funded two of PLF's unacknowledged offspring, the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Atlantic Legal Foundation. The Washington Legal Foundation was another of a similar kind favoured and funded ($200,000) by Philip Morris, but it was independent of the Scaife-funded, PLF-based network. [6]

The PLF also intervened successful in Keller v. California State Bar, where it established a legal precedent that California lawyers could challenge the use of their dues to the state bar for political purposes. This was an successful attempt to block collective actions by the more liberal Californian lawyers who were involving themselves in such policy areas as class-actions and product liability. . . .

In 1997-1998 the PLF joined forces with the $10 million funded (by Philip Morris) National Smokers Alliance, in a fierce and vindictive legal attack on Professor Stanton Arnold Glantz, a leader of California's main anti-smoking organization, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights[7] and attempted to brand him in the public mind as having something to hide ... a destroyer of legal document (a ruse the tobacco industry used itself on a massive scale). Glantz had received documents from the early tobacco industry whistleblowers, and he had established the first public-access Internet web site revealing how the industry operated.

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EDITORIAL: Tobacco display: all cost and no effect 

Five nail-biting months after legislation outlawing tobacco displays was passed by MPs, the government has finally set out its vision of how a ban will look in England and Wales.

While most still believe the ban is a disproportionate and untested reaction to a complex problem, and that it will impose both installation and operational costs, the picture for small stores is not quite as grim as it could have been.

There is some concession on the 'permitted display area' the amount of gantry space that can be seen while a retailer is restocking or retrieving a product.

Under the amended rules, a typical convenience store gantry of 2m x 1.5m will now only need to be fitted with four doors, rather than the 20 required in the original proposal. This should mean lower installation costs, and should be easier for retailers to work with. . . .

Fortunately, there is still a chance to overturn the ban. The Conservatives have promised to review the issue should they come to power. They agree that there is no convincing evidence of a ban's effectiveness and we'll be reminding them, and all the other parties, of this in the coming weeks.

What you can do With the general election looming, the major political parties will soon be out canvassing for your vote.

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PACT Act Passes Congress 

"NACS has been working for over 10 years to pass legislation to regulate Internet and mail-order tobacco sales," Beckwith said in a statement. "[That] vote brings us closer to achieving our goal than we have ever been. We will continue to pressure the House to take the final step necessary for passage and enactment."

With the passage of the bill out of Congress, convenience store associations and other organizations applauded the action, along with the effort of their lawmakers and members working to pass the bill.

"Law-abiding mom-and-pop retailers are especially grateful to Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York, the House sponsor, and Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York for their courageous leadership on this issue of fairness and child health protection," James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS), said in a statement. "Congress made a sensible choice to have them sold in a controlled environment where there is verifiable compliance with tax, age verification and other laws designed to protect public health."

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Retailer Factsheet: Protecting Kids - Tobacco Retailers and the FDA 

On March 19, 2010, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will publish a rule that restricts the sale, distribution, and marketing of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to protect children and adolescents. The rule is required by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act and is intended to protect kids by making tobacco products less accessible and attractive to them.

As a retailer, you play an important role in protecting children and adolescents from the risks associated with using tobacco products. This is important because every day nearly 4,000 kids try their first cigarette and 1,000 kids become daily smokers. Many of these kids will become addicted before they are old enough to understand the risks and will ultimately die too young of tobacco-related diseases. This is an avoidable personal tragedy for those kids and their families as well as a preventable public health disaster for our country. Retailers are uniquely positioned to reduce underage access to tobacco products by complying with the FDA rule.

The FDA Center for Tobacco Products wants to provide you with information and tools to help you comply with the new requirements

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Judge snuffs gasoline retailers lawsuit 

A Nassau County Supreme Court Judge has thrown out a lawsuit against the state for boosting tobacco taxes paid by retailers.

A group of gas station operators sued the state opposing an amended tax law to increase fees for stores selling tobacco from a $100 flat fee to a graduated scale ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 based on the gross sales of all products sold, rather than just tobacco items.

The suit was led by the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, as well as four other trade associations representing about 10,000 retailers statewide. In September, the associations won a temporary restraining order allowing them not to have to pay the new fees until a judge could determine the impact of the changes to the law.

But Justice Thomas Feinman ruled on Wednesday that the groups did not have standing in the case and they did not prove that their business would be adversely affected by the new fees.

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Congress Passes NACS Priority Issue: Regulate Internet Tobacco 

“Our industry is one step away from ending a 10-plus-year battle to close loopholes that placed significant competitive disadvantages on convenience retailers,” said NACS Senior Vice President of Government Relations Lyle Beckwith. “The PACT Act allows our industry to compete on equal footing for not just the sale of individual products, but for customers.”

The Senate bill was authored by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and the House version was authored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

Once it is signed into law, the PACT Act will significantly strengthen federal laws that apply to online cigarette sales.

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AUDIO: Advertising syndicate weigh in on draft tobacco law 

The Lebanese Syndicate of Advertising Agencies and the International Advertising Association (IAA)) asked the Parliamentary Administration and Justice Commission on Wednesday to take their demands into consideration while discussing a law to limit tobacco smoking. The two associations said the draft law prohibited advertising for tobacco products and this would harm the advertising sector in terms of reducing employment and profits. They added that it would also harm merchants, restaurants, hotels and night clubs that sell tobacco.They then asked the commission to consider alternative steps in combating smoking, such as raising the price of tobacco products first then censoring tobacco advertisements and not abolishing them. They also demanded that they be kept included in all discussions

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Raid at Watsonville cigarette shop lends momentum to tobacco licensing proposal  

In a high-profile police crackdown Monday, two tobacco shops in Watsonville were busted for selling cigarettes to minors, a raid that turned up more than just illegal cigarette vending. Illicit knife sales were also uncovered.

A week earlier, a little-known county commission was working behind the scenes on legislation that would have targeted just these types of crimes. The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, at its March 8 meeting, proposed an ordinance that would require tobacco retailers to get a license from the county, a program designed to generate money and means to monitor cigarette shops for criminal activity.

"This would have increased police presence and given police the opportunity to find out about (the cigarette and knife sales) possibly much earlier," said Natasha Kowalski, a county health educator and coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission.

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NICHOLS: Switchblades and brass knuckles help sell cigarettes 

Store owner Khalil Rahim will surely get his. And I'm bettin' his stores will soon close for good. But a cigarette smoker is far more likely to die from smoking than from being stabbed or bludgeoned to death by brass knuckles. In fact, smoking kills more people in the United States every year than AIDS, illegal drugs, alcohol, car crashes, suicides and murders combined! (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

According to a 2008 survey by the Santa Cruz County Tobacco Education Coalition, a group dedicated to reducing tobacco sales to minors, underage youth can expect to be successful buying cigarettes in one out of every six local stores. Any 16-year-old kid who is carded and turned away by a responsible retailer won't have far to go to find an irresponsible one sympathetic to his wants. . . .

The environment in Rahim's cigarette shops is one youth could relate to. One with pop culture posters, candy, soda pop, chips, marijuana stuff, imitation guns, forbidden toys ... and forbidden cigarettes. Youth are drawn to the sweet and forbidden.

To address the concern of sales to youth, the coalition proposes an ordinance, successfully implemented in more than 60 California counties and cities, that has dramatically reduced the number of stores willing to sell cigarettes to minors. It requires sellers to be licensed. The Tobacco Retail License fees would provide resources for sting operations -- like the ones recently visited upon Mr. Rahim's stores. Violators would face fines and suspension or revocation of their licenses.

The Santa Cruz County Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission unanimously passed a resolution in July urging the board of supervisors to adopt such an ordinance. This month, in support of the coalition's current effort to recruit a supervisor to sponsor the ordinance, the commission unanimously reaffirmed its July resolution.

It's time the County of Santa Cruz took action to protect youth from clever tobacco marketers and irresponsible retailers.

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• GALLOWAY: An anti-tax ad with every pack of cigarettes 

That Phillip Morris USA, the tobacco company, has had radio ads up this week to rally support against a cigarette tax hike being considered by state lawmakers should come as no surprise.

But in a new wrinkle aimed at smokers, purchasers of cigarettes in many grocery stores throughout metro Atlanta are being handed a little political ad along with their receipts:

That's not the end of the sales pitch. Note that the receipt itself separates out the excise as well as the sales tax on tobacco purchases.

One doesn't generally think of a grocery store as a campaign medium in and of itself.

You do wonder, though, whether a cigarette ad might clash with all the breast-cancer pink at Kroger.

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• Swedish Match Targets Wall Street Smokers With Snus Tobacco  

Swedish Match AB plans to broaden U.S. availability of snus smokeless tobacco and increase marketing to target Wall Street workers and other smokers forced to leave the office to light up.

The company aims to double distribution of its General snus to about 1,200 U.S. stores, possibly by the end of the year, Richard Flaherty, president of Stockholm-based Swedish Match’s U.S. sales division, said yesterday in a telephone interview. He wouldn’t disclose projected spending on marketing, which includes handing out samples in New York, Chicago, Washington, Denver and Dallas.

“We are going after bankers, Wall Streeters, people who work in offices and take the elevator down and stand out in the cold for cigarettes,” Flaherty, 51, said from Richmond, Virginia, where Swedish Match’s U.S. division is based. “A perfect place for that is in New York, and the big banks.”

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Wellness programs thrive at 2 Chicago-area companies  

Workplace wellness programs aren't just for large corporations.

Mechanical Devices Co. in Bloomington and the Town of Normal are among central Illinois medium-size businesses that have developed wellness programs suited to their employees and are reaping the dividends of healthier, happier workers. . . .

In addition to the yearly screenings, Mechanical Devices offered smoking cessation classes in advance of the company going smoke-free throughout its property two years ago.

"I got 10 to 15 (employees) to stop smoking and everyone else (other smokers) reduced smoking," Fillingham said.

Jackie Felts, a quality control employee, joined the eight-week program in January 2007. The program included weekly meetings, counseling, tips and a nicotine patch to assist with quitting smoking. Felts quit smoking Feb. 13, 2007.

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Newsagents outline fears over shop crime and tobacco display ban 

Independent newsagents raised concerns about plans for a tobacco display ban and shop crime when a delegation from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) visited Northern Ireland.

The delegation, including its national president Suleman Khonat, aired their concerns in a meeting SDLP deputy leader Patsy McGlone at a meeting in Stormont.

They told the MLA for Mid Ulster that, while they were supportive of efforts to reduce tobacco consumption, especially among young people, they were concerned that banning displays would place a further burden on retailers rather than achieve the target of reducing youth smoking.

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Homeowners Quit Smoking and Save Pounds on their Insurance Policies 

UK smokers are forking out at least 20% more on home insurance than their non-smoking counterparts, according to leading high street insurance retailer, Swinton.

With nearly a third of all house fires caused by smoking and more and more people smoking at home as a result of the smoking ban, smokers are often perceived by home insurance providers as higher risk resulting in more expensive premiums.

Steve Chelton, Insurance Development Manager at Swinton said, "Smoking is an expensive habit in itself, but many people do not realise the implications it can have on their household insurance policies. Most insurers will now ask if you are a smoker. British non-smokers could save up to 20% on their house insurance which offers an additional incentive to quit."

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Robbins Umeda LLP Announces Investigation of Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. 

Robbins Umeda LLP has commenced an investigation into possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by certain officers and directors at Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. ("Schweitzer " or the "Company") /quotes/comstock/13*!swm/quotes/nls/swm (SWM 45.88, +0.89, +1.98%) . Schweitzer manufactures and sells paper and reconstituted tobacco products to the tobacco industry, as well as specialized paper products for use in other applications. The Company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Robbins Umeda LLP's investigation concerns whether the Company's directors and officers caused the Company to issue materially false and misleading statements. Specifically, the investigation will determine whether these directors and officers misrepresented the strength of Schweitzer's competitive position in the United States and its ability to withstand European competition.

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