Tobacco.org

• Judge rejects call to dismiss tobacco suit 

A Massachusetts judge has rejected Lorillard Tobacco Co.'s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of a woman who allegedly started receiving free Newport cigarettes when she was 9 years old. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Paul E. Troy's decision, announced yesterday, clears the way for the nation's first trial of claims that a cigarette maker illegally handed out cigarettes to lure minority children to smoke.

Marie Evans , who died of lung cancer in 2002 at age 54, said she started receiving sample packs of Newport cigarettes in 1957 at company giveaways on the edge of a Roxbury playground. Lawyers for her son, Will Evans , allege that she was too young to recognize the hazards of smoking and that the child was dazzled by Newport advertising aimed at African-Americans, turning her into a smoker for more than 40 years.

"I would not call it racism, but Lorillard handed out free samples of its cigarettes to a poor minority community in Boston," said Rebecca McIntyre, a lawyer for Will Evans, who filed the lawsuit in 2004. McIntyre argued that the cigarette giveaway was a form of "battery" on Marie Evans because she was tricked into consuming a toxic substance.

Lawyers for Lorillard Tobacco declined to comment, but in court filings, the company argued that it should not be held liable for any harm to Evans that occurred after 1969, when Congress required cigarettes to carry a warning label. Evans's health problems from cigarettes did not begin until she suffered a heart attack in 1984

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• Tobacco suit cites youth push 

The son of a woman who started receiving free Newport cigarettes at her Roxbury housing project when she was just 9 years old is suing the brand's maker for its role in his mother's death in what legal experts say is the nation's first lawsuit to accuse a tobacco company of deliberately targeting its product to African-American children.

Marie Evans, who died from lung cancer at age 54 in 2002, said that, as a child, she would regularly get free sample packs of 4 to 10 Newports during company giveaways on the edge of a playground at the Orchard Park housing complex. In interviews with lawyers before she died, Evans estimated that she received samples from the "Newport van" 25 to 50 times. She initially traded them for candy, but said she began to smoke at age 13.

"They have employed these marketing strategies to target not only children, but children in the black community," said Rebecca McIntyre of Weisman & McIntyre in Boston, which is filing the lawsuit against North Carolina-based Lorillard Tobacco on Monday in Suffolk Superior Court. "It's evil." . . .

legal analysts say Evans' case could short-circuit the industry's standard argument against adult smokers: they were old enough to know better.

"I don't think any of the other lawsuits have focused on the issue of the deliberate campaign of handing out free samples to a child," said Edward L. Sweda, Jr. . . .

Will Evans argues that his mother was seduced by a marketing strategy that was illegal even in the 1950s . . .

Norman Black, creative director for the advertising agency that promoted Newports from 1974 to 1992, admits he geared his ads to attract underage smokers . . .

Black, who made a public service announcement for Massachusetts in 2000 apologizing for his work for Newport, is remorseful about his career now.

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They set out to addict a child, addicted her and then killed her. We will have a trial.
Michael D. Weisman, who is working on the Evans case -- the nation's first lawsuit to accuse a tobacco company of deliberately targeting its product to African-American children.

• Suit Alleges Cancer Worse From Cigarettes 

The son of a woman who died of lung cancer is planning to sue the cigarette maker that gave her free samples when she was a girl, contending the giveaways were aimed at black children.

The lawsuit against Lorillard Tobacco Co., maker of Newport cigarettes, is thought by legal experts to be the first to accuse a tobacco company of targeting black children. It is to be filed Monday in Suffolk Superior Court, The Boston Globe reported in its Saturday editions.

Marie Evans, in interviews with lawyers before she died in 2002 at age 54, said as a child she would get free sample packs of four to 10 Newport cigarettes from a company van that regularly came to the Boston housing project where she lived. . . .

Norman Black, the creative director for the advertising agency that promoted Newport from 1974 to 1992, said his ad campaigns were geared toward young people, though not necessarily blacks, since they smoked Newports in large numbers anyway.

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