Tobacco makers blowing smoke for 50 years?

By Peter Kaplan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cigarette makers lied and tried to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking for 50 years, the U.S. government said on Tuesday as its $280 billion case against the industry went to trial.

In opening arguments in the biggest and most ambitious racketeering case in history, the government said a 1953 meeting of tobacco industry executives at New York's Plaza Hotel was the starting point for a conspiracy designed to cast doubt on links between cancer and cigarettes.


www.reuters.com...;jsessionid=QYG4X4D3HMQBSCRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6298565

If this is proven it may turn out to be one of the biggest conspiracy's ever. To knowingly put so many lives at stake for so many years is incredible almost on the scale of mass attempted murder. All in the name of money for the tobacco companies.

1953... wasn't that the year of the world's first hydrogen bomb? In any case, it was eight years after the US started throwing plutonium fallout into the stratosphere, telling everyone that it couldn't hurt a fly because it was happening way way out in the desert.

Plutonium, cigarette smoke, carcinogins what does it matter to the government and/ or big companies as long as they make lots of money? We are only the poor victims of thier excesses.

[edit on 10/2/2004 by esther]

The government is so full of it on this it's not even funny. They'll win the $280 billion of course or it will be settled like last time when the states teamed up on this same issue being double dipped now, but if there was EVER a conspiracy with tobacco, THE GOVERNMENT WAS IN ON IT.

Here's the "smoking gun" they love citing now:

Justice Department attorney Sharon Eubanks cited a 1964 memo from a Philip Morris executive that said the industry had to provide "a psychological crutch and a self rationale to continue smoking."

Ohhhhhhh nooooooooooo, Tobacco engaged in MARKETING. Let's bring back hanging.

Do ad agencies for every product in a consumer driven capitalist society not attempt to provide...

"a psychological crutch and a self rationale to continue DRINKING BEER."

"a psychological crutch and a self rationale to continue DRIVING CADILLACS."

"a psychological crutch and a self rationale to continue TANNING."

"a psychological crutch and a self rationale to continue EATING RED MEAT, ICE CREAM, PIXIE STICKS AND CHEESE."

Did Jim Beam come with labels in 1965 that said "1 in 10 chance this will ruin your life"... Do they now? Does Coke advertise it's contribution to diabetes?

And the reason the government is so hypocritcal on this is they likely can't point to a single product (especially from American farmers) that they've personally benefitted from taxing as much as tobacco.

Tobacco has paid, and paid, and paid, and paid for it's sins. The awareness campaigns are great. All the little flashy ads from Crispin, Porter Bogusky about evil big tobacco to try to keep kids from smoking. Cool.

But now the anit-tobacco lobby is an INDUSTRY that exists to live rich and get fat OFF TOBACCO, just like the Government. :shk:

And MADD sucks too.

Tobaco a weed smoke by the natives of the Espanola, (Santo Domingo) Christobal colon gave that name to this controversial weed.

It sure comes a long way and from (natural herb) is call and evil killing weed.

I wonder what the natives will say now about the magical weed they used to smoke on special occasions, even they knew it was not for everyday consuption.

The natives did not purposely put additive substances in the tobbaco in order to addict people. Natural tobacco and what the cigarette manufacturers produce are not the same things.

Originally posted by jeeze louise
The natives did not purposely put additive substances in the tobbaco in order to addict people. Natural tobacco and what the cigarette manufacturers produce are not the same things.

I agree with you, actually we called tabaco, is grown in the Island where I come from for personal consumption and I remember how the leaves were put to dry on top of metal planks and it was more for chewing that for smoke of it.

When I was growing up I ask my great aunty to let me taste it and it look like a chocolate candy bar, she told me to chew a piece swallow the juices and spit the rest, I did and I got so dizzy and sick I never did it again, also I smoke the tabaco too and it was nasty.

Thank got that made me stay away from cigarettes for the rest of my life.

i buy the cigaretes that cost $2.50

its all i can afford, they taste like $#!+ and have loads of worse chemicals. i can feel they are worse then the more costly cigaretes. those taxes dent my pocket, plus its giving me an ulcer! i need to quit............

smoking = bad bad bad

You get cigarettes for 2.50 I remember buying cigarettes for my mother from the cigarette machines they use to have at the local store for 45. Cents.

I most be that old ha,

My mother is still a smoker, but she now only drinks organic coffee.

Well they were 45 cents when I first started, a pack. They are now 4 or 5 bucks a pack at the wine shop or 3 bucks at the local store.

Anyone that thinks smoking isn't addictive is stupid!

I've been smoking since I was a kid and even seeing the Marlboro man on his horse with an oxygen bottle before he died didn't slow me down. I can't quit even though I managed to quit several other bad and/or illeagal habbits

Don't start.

These companies have known for years that smoking is addictive. That is why they sell cigarettes. That is why they make BILLIONS a year.

If Phillip Morris was a poor kid from a poor home accused of manslaughter here in Texas instead of a billion dollar company, Phillip would have been convicted and sentenced to prison 50 years ago.

edit: smoking cigarette

[edit on 24-9-2004 by TexasConspiracyNut]