Tobacco.org

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

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