Jump to full article: Portsmouth (NH) Herald, 2004-06-26
Intro: The son of a woman who started receiving free cigarettes at her city housing project when she was 9 years old is suing the manufacturer for its alleged role in his mother's death.
The lawsuit, which will be filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday according to The Boston Globe, is thought to be the first to accuse a tobacco company of targeting black children.
Marie Evans, said in interviews with lawyers before she died in 2002 at age 54, that as a child she would get free sample packs of four to 10 Newport cigarettes from a company giveaway van that regularly came to her Orchard Park housing project in the Roxbury neighborhood.
She estimated that she received free cigarettes 25 to 50 times, and at first traded them for candy, then started smoking at 13. . . .
Michael D. Weisman, who is also working on the Evans case, expects Lorillard to try "to bury us in paperwork," but he says it won't work.
"They set out to addict a child, addicted her and then killed her," he said. "We will have a trial."
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