Consensus Builds
Against Granting Immunity
to the Tobacco Industry

WASHINGTON POST:
The president said yesterday that the Reynolds documents underscore the need for legislation this year to reduce teen smoking. That's the right purpose. Limiting the future liability of the tobacco companies when the extent of that liability is only now coming into view would seem to us to have nothing to do with it, and even to push in the opposite direction.
-- "The Reynolds Papers," The Washington Post, January 16, 1998

USA TODAY:
Why did Big Tobacco agree to pay $368 billion over 25 years to settle state Medicaid suits? And why is it now paying tens of millions to lobbyists to get the pact through Congress? Maybe because the industry feared the evidence that might be found in its own secret files....
Despite RJR's public, sworn denials to the contrary, the maker of Camel, Winston and Salem cigarettes directed marketing efforts at adolescents....
Such duplicity raises serious doubts about giving the industry immunity from future lawsuits, as the deal proposes. But that's just one reason this deal is starting to look sour....
The president ... proposes fining companies up to $1.50 a pack if teen smoking doesn't drop significantly.
But why give the industry immunity from lawsuits in order to do that? Congress doesn't need tobacco's permission to hike tobacco taxes by $1 to $2 a pack, enact extreme fines for any sales to minors, or to regulate nicotine as an addictive product. It needs only to give up its own addiction to tobacco's big political contributions.
-- "Kids are getting lost in tobacco deal shuffle," USA Today, January 16, 1998

THE NEW YORK TIMES:
The latest trove of internal documents from the tobacco industry provides the strongest evidence yet that the industry was not only targeting very young smokers, it was doing so with the approval of high corporate officials. Even in a business renowned for its lack of social conscience, the cynicism is breathtaking. Congress will need to look skeptically at proposals to grant immunity to the industry for its reckless behavior as part of an overall tobacco settlement. The case may be getting stronger for a straightforward crackdown ...
-- "Hooked on Young Smokers," The New York Times, January 16, 1998

DR. C. EVERETT KOOP:
I endorse the principles and goals of Save Lives, Not Tobacco: The Coalition for Accountability, and commend the Coalition's vigorous opposition to granting special privileges and protections to the tobacco industry.
-- Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General, open letter, December 17, 1997

DR. DAVID KESSLER:
Who would be in favor of giving this industry any protections? There can't be any deal, there can't be any trade after you've seen documents like these [the Reynolds documents].
-- Dr. David A. Kessler, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, quoted in "Tobacco Firms Set to Pay Texas $14.5 Billion," Saundra Torry and Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, January 16, 1998

For more information, contact Robert Weissman, Essential Action, Tel: 202-387-8030, Fax: 202-234-5176; E-mail: action@essential.org