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Tobacco consumption among the youth declines 

The Mental Health & Anti-Addiction Services Administration (MHAASA) announced on Friday that Tobacco use among teens has been reduced.

MHAASA Deputy Prevention & Mental Health Promotion Administrator Julia M. Delgado said those were the findings of a study by the Teen Outreach VI and Inspections of Tobacco selling establishments.

"The MHAASA study has demonstrated a drop in teen smoking, demonstrating that are efforts are having an effect on raising awareness among the island's teen populations and improving their health," Delgado.

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House of Representatives bans smoking on premises 

Smokers will now have to move away from the Capitol Building if they want to light a cigarette after House Speaker Carlos Vizcarrondo signed an executive order to ban smoking in offices and their premises.

New Progressive Party (NPP) and Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) minority leaders Anibal Vega Borges and Victor Garcia San Inocencio, respectively, said they favored the order issued June 25, but disclosed on Wednesday.

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Tobacco Industry Loses Two Trials in One Day for First Time 

On Thursday, September 26, 2002, a jury in Los Angeles found Philip Morris (MO) liable for the lung cancer of Betty Bullock, a 64 year-old Newport Beach resident whose lung cancer has spread to her liver. The compensatory damages of $850,000 was awarded in the first phase of the trial. The same jury will return to the court room on Tuesday to hear testimony regarding the amount of punitive damages it will award. (Betty Bullock v. Philip Morris, Inc. - Los Angeles Sup. Ct. No. BC 249171)...

Northeastern University School of Law Professor Richard Daynard, who also chairs the Tobacco Products Liability Project, observed that, "Cigarette makers have been minimizing the risks they face in litigation for years. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to stuff this 800 pound gorilla in the closet when juries thousands of miles away from each other are coming back with verdicts holding them liable on the same day."

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MUNI WATCH: Puerto Rico Lights Up 1st Tobacco Refunding 

September 26, 2002 1:19 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK -- In what is believed to be the first issuance of a tobacco settlement refunding bond, Puerto Rico plans to sell $1.1 billion of tax-exempt Children's Trust Tobacco asset-backed bonds early next week, according to Salome Galib, director of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico.

The commonwealth has pledged 100% of its tobacco Master Settlement Agreement payments to debt service for the offering, said Steven Moffitt, an associate director at Fitch Ratings. He said Puerto Rico would benefit from the current low interest-rate environment that makes the refunding feasible.

In the initial offering, 50% of tobacco revenues were pledged to pay off a $397 million issue. The refunding would raise close to triple the proceeds, while only doubling the commitment of the MSA payments.

Proceeds from the sale will also finance infrastructure projects on the island, Galib said. Although the initial bond offering limited the use of proceeds to projects benefitting children, Galib said the new offering contains no such restrictions.

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• R.J. Reynolds ordered to pay smoker's son $500,000 

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:RTR), parent of the No. 2 U.S. tobacco firm, said on Thursday it has been ordered by a jury in Puerto Rico to pay $500,000 to the 23-year-old son of a late smoker, an award which it is opposing.

"The evidence presented in this case does not support the verdict against us," Seth Moskowitz, an R.J. Reynolds spokesman, said. He said the ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed two years ago by two sons of a late Puerto Rican man who smoked.

The jury had initially ordered Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds to pay $500,000 to each of the sons, but a judge overturned the portion accorded to the other son, aged 30.

"The judge determined that there were statutes of limitations," Moskowitz told Reuters. He said the company has asked the judge to overturn the remaining order, failing which it would lodge an appeal. . . Moskowitz claimed that an autopsy had not been conducted on the father.

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Fitch Teleconference On Children's Trust Tobacco Settlement Bonds 

On Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Fitch Ratings will host a teleconference to discuss the Children Trust's Tobacco Settlement asset-backed bonds. Fitch analysts Steven Moffitt and Michael Dean of Asset Backed Securities will host the call.

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Fitch Issues Presale Report On Children's Trust Tobacco Settlement 

Fitch Ratings has issued a presale report on the Children's Trust Tobacco Settlement Asset-Backed Bonds (Puerto Rico)

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Fundraisers boom as reforms loom 

On this weekend round of golf at the Candelero Resort at Palmas del Mar, which advertises its oceanfront links as the most breathtaking in the Caribbean, the congressman has no caddy. Instead he is joined by lobbyists from businesses such as Philip Morris and Reliant Energy, who write four- or five-digit checks for the chance to tag along for 18 holes, an official portrait and four hours of face time with some of the most influential politicians in Washington.

Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who as House majority whip is one of the most powerful politicians on Capitol Hill, was host for two days of golf, sightseeing and sport fishing for tuna and blue marlin on Puerto Rico's southeastern coast. Because of weekends like these, DeLay sits at the top tier of the most aggressive and successful fundraisers in politics. . .

Chef Daniel, who runs the neighborhood's French restaurant, catered the Saturday evening soiree, where guests dined outside on tables draped in long white linens. U.S. Tobacco provided the cigars and wine. And the Bacardi rum company furnished liquor and hats.

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Fitch Expects to Rate Puerto Rico Tobacco Transaction `A+' 

Fitch expects to assign an `A+' rating to The Children's Trust Fund's (CTF) issuance of approximately $410 million of tobacco settlement asset- backed bonds, series 2000. The `A+' ratings address the issuer's ability to make timely payment of interest and pay serial maturities and rated maturities. This is the eighth transaction backed by tobacco settlement revenues to be rated by Fitch.

The `A+' rating is based on the credit quality of the collateral securing the bonds, which consists of Initial Payments, Annual Payments and Strategic Contribution Fund Payments to be made by the four largest domestic tobacco manufacturers under the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA)

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S&P Teleconference: Tobacco Settlement Asset-backed Bonds - 10/23 at 10am ET 

Standard & Poor's will hold a telephone conference call on Monday, Oct. 23, 2000, at 10:00 am Eastern Time. Analysts Bernhard Fischer and John Kenward from Standard & Poor's Structured Finance and Public Finance Departments will discuss the preliminary double-'A'-minus/single-'A'-plus/single-'A' ratings assigned to various maturities of the $409.7 million tobacco asset settlement bonds series 2000, issued by The Children's Trust Fund (Puerto Rico).

This is an issuance of bonds for securitization of the revenues to be received under the master settlement agreement between the major tobacco companies and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and 46 states.

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Puerto Rico Lawyers Awarded $75 Mln in Tobacco Accord (Update1) 

Lawyers who represented Puerto Rico in the $206 billion settlement between the tobacco industry and the states will receive $75 million, the Tobacco Fee Arbitration Panel decided.

The industry will have to pay the fees, which equals 3.4 percent of Puerto Rico's $2.2 billion share of the accord, in addition to the settlement. . .

``This effort by national counsel was extraordinary,'' the panel wrote in its decision.

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