Jump to full article: St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, 2009-06-04
Intro: On May 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld a ruling that cigarette makers had lied for decades about the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke; that they conspired to mislead the public and that they marketed their products to people under 21.
The three-judge panel ruled that tobacco companies knew "that cigarette smoking causes disease, that nicotine is addictive, that light cigarettes do not present lower health risks than regular cigarettes ... and that secondhand smoke is hazardous to health." Yet they continued publicly to insist otherwise.
Tobacco companies say they've turned over a new leaf since the bad old days when they used to insist the science on smoking's health effects was "unsettled."
The truth is that tobacco companies have turned over enough new leaves to make a million cigarettes, yet they keep getting caught at their old tricks.
Industry documents show that cigarette companies paid to establish and sustain so-called "smokers' rights" groups in the 1990s when the first indoor smoking bans were proposed. The industry coordinated "grass roots" opposition to those bans.
Arguments first orchestrated by industry groups more than a decade ago -- years after they first became aware of the health effects of secondhand smoke -- still are being aired by smokers rights groups in Clayton, where the Board of Aldermen is considering a clean indoor air bill, and on the commentary page of this newspaper. . . .
The fact that Philip Morris, the nation's largest cigarette maker, supports FDA regulation worries many long-time public health advocates.
They're right to be suspicious. To paraphrase former President Ronald Reagan, lawmakers should trust, but regulate, Big Tobacco.
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