Why Tobacco Companies Are Paying to Tell You Smoking Kills
Murray Garnick, the company’s general counsel, said in the statement
that “includes communicating openly about the health effects of our products, continuing to support cessation efforts, helping reduce underage tobacco use and developing potentially reduced-risk products.”
R. J. Reynolds, which is part of British American Tobacco with Lorillard, said in an email
that the company was “fully complying with its obligations under the court order.”
The initial order came from a 1,600-page civil racketeering judgment from Judge Gladys Kessler
that excoriated the tobacco industry for lying about and misrepresenting its products beginning in the 1950s.
“The original ruling was so that the American public would understand
that they had been deceived through multiple means about whether smoking caused disease, whether smoking killed people, whether secondhand smoke caused disease, whether nicotine was addictive,” she said.
We manipulated cigarettes to make them more addictive.”
Tobacco companies argued that the initially proposed statements were “forced public confessions” designed to “shame
and humiliate them.” They also said the statements were unnecessary after a 2009 law gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products