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Little 'Light' Lies That Leave You Breathless [Source: St. Louis Post - Dispatch] 

The good people at Philip Morris are doing something to enlighten these dim bulbs. The company's brands of light and ultralight cigarettes distributed in Missouri and Southern Illinois -- Marlboro, Merit and Virginia Slims, among others -- now contain an insert entitled "information for smokers." It says, in essence, that everything you've been led to believe by three decades of very expensive advertising is wrong.

Light and ultralight are descriptions of relative taste, not relative harm, the insert explains. Tar and nicotine numbers "are not meant to communicate the amount of tar or nicotine actually inhaled by any smoker," it says. . .

Emphysema? Cancer? It's your own fault for jumping to the conclusion that cigarette brands advertised as being low in tar and nicotine are actually low in tar and nicotine. It's your fault because you "block ventilation holes, inhale more deeply, take more puffs or smoke more cigarettes."

The appearance of those inserts in Missouri and Illinois is no coincidence. Philip Morris is being sued in both states, along with fellow Big Tobacco members R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson. . .

Cigarette companies have known from the beginning, of course, that their claims about low-tar cigarettes were bunk. In part, that's because of the very behaviors described in the insert. Internal industry documents,

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