Editorials Condemn Settlement of Tobacco Law Suit

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ASHCROFT ONLY INTERESTED IN PACIFYING BIG TOBACCO, Atlanta Constitution [06/22/01] It's like waving a white flag before yelling, "Charge!" Determined to scuttle a federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco without publicly acknowledging as much, Attorney General John Ashcroft has signaled that the Justice Department would like to settle, out of fear that it might lose at trial.

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   To anyone familiar with the hard-ball world of settlement negotiations, Ashcroft's ploy is utterly transparent. No litigator worth his salt, to say nothing of his retainer fee, would ever poor-mouth his own case before even beginning negotiations --- unless he planned to win nothing at all for his client. The only possible conclusion is that Ashcroft leaked the fact that he had formed a settlement negotiating team to send a crystal-clear message to the tobacco companies: We are eager to let you off the hook.
   Why are Ashcroft and the Bush administration so eager? Well, Ashcroft personally has opposed the suit since he was a senator, although as attorney general he pledged to pursue it in good faith. Perhaps as important, Big Tobacco was extremely generous to his boss, George W. Bush, and to other Republicans in the last election.
   The industry donated a total of $8.4 million in direct and indirect contributions in the 2000 elections, with 80 percent of it going to Republican candidates. Bush partisans recently made a big show of thanking Philip Morris for its $250,000 donation to the GOP.
   What we are seeing here is a repeat of the major paybacks the Bush administration already has delivered to Big Coal and Big Oil, in the form of gutting protections for health and the environment. To paraphrase an old ad for Camel cigarettes, these folks would walk a mile for a campaign check. One wonders whether there is any noxious, toxic practice the Bush administration will refuse to abet, however large the contribution.
   Ashcroft denies that he is trying to sabotage the suit, but his denials are implausible given earlier administration actions. When Justice lawyers said they needed $57 million to prosecute the case, Ashcroft requested only $1.8 million. Elsewhere in the administration's budget, prevention funds for the federal Office of Smoking and Health were cut by 5 percent, rather than increased as they should have been. Meanwhile, the team negotiating an international treaty on tobacco was directed to back way off proposed restrictions on smuggling, sales to teens and other provisions.
   Although a group of state attorneys general delivered a serious blow to Big Tobacco with a landmark, $246 billion settlement in 1998, the federal suit is important because it is the only avenue for redress of decades of egregious, fraudulent practices. Don't forget that this is an industry that for decades deliberately suppressed medical evidence that its products sicken and kill people while publicly denying any such thing; that consciously, cynically sought to poison our children through its marketing campaigns; and that has fought every single effort in every single country to limit and control the harmful effects of tobacco. And there is very strong evidence that the companies conspired and colluded in the process.
   The industry to this day refuses to acknowledge, apologize for or forswear these practices. Smoking still kills 400,000 Americans every year. Young kids still can obtain cigarettes about as readily as they can a candy bar.
   And still enablers like Ashcroft allow these companies to indulge their nasty habit of buying their way out of justice. This can't go on forever. As many an ill smoker can tell you, bad habits always catch up to you eventually.

TO BIG TOBACCO FROM ASHCROFT WITH LOVE,
Boston Globe [06/22/01]
   Attorney General Ashcroft has asked his Justice Department to see if it can settle out of court with the nation's cigarette makers. Under the circumstances, that is waving the white flag.
   Under former President Clinton, the Justice Department sued big tobacco because smoking costs the federal system $20 billion a year in health care costs. Because of the suit, big tobacco threw $8 million into the 2000 elections, giving four out of every five dollars to Republican candidates. As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush made clear his lack of interest in the lawsuit by saying, "We've filed plenty of lawsuits already."
   Bush won, then made Ashcroft the attorney general. Nine years ago as governor of Missouri, Ashcroft had something of a conscience about big tobacco. He signed a bill that restricted smoking in public places and banned the sale of tobacco to minors. Missouri had been one of only two states left that did not ban the sale of tobacco to people under the age of 18.
   "Cigarette smoking remains the greatest preventable cause of death in Missouri and the nation," Ashcroft said then. "Fifteen percent of Missouri's eighth-graders are regular smokers."
   As he moved up the national leadership ladder, Ashcroft became more reluctant to bite the tobacco leaf that fed his party. Ashcroft was a principal deal killer in the failed 1998 attempt by the Senate to raise cigarette prices. Despite the fact that higher cigarette taxes discourage smoking, Ashcroft railed against them for three hours on the Senate floor.
   Despite the fact that cigarette makers prey on the self-esteem of poor people and the working class to get them addicted to cigarettes, Ashcroft argued that cigarette taxes were unfair to the poor.
   "Worst of all, the lion's share of this tax hike would come from households with incomes of $30,000 or less," Ashcroft said then. "This massive tax increase on middle- and low-income Americans would likely end up hurting children, by taking money that could be spent on education, food, clothing, health care, and other needs of daily life."
   This was from the same champion of the poor who in 1995 opposed a rise in the minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $5.15.
   To Ashcroft, it is better that low-income people have low cigarette taxes so that they can better afford the nicotine to ease their mind about their low incomes.
   It was now irrelevant to him that the cigarette addictions that often start around eighth grade hurt children for the rest of their lives, draining money for education, food, clothing, health care, and other needs of daily life. Cigarette taxes do not kill 400,000 people a year. Cigarettes do.
   Given that, it would have been a miracle had Ashcroft aggressively continued the Justice Department's suit. Last year, US District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed part of the suit, saying "it is simply inconceivable" that after decades where Congress ignored and helped subsidize big tobacco that the government could now nail it for health care costs.
   But in an important pause, Kessler said the government could still go after big tobacco on racketeering charges for fraud. The government said cigarette companies made "countless false and deceptive statements" about their products. There is now ample evidence of tobacco executives concealing the dangers of smoking and misleading the public about those dangers.
   There was enough evidence for Ashcroft to continue to give the suit a shot. Instead, he shot it in the foot in a way that surprised even big tobacco.
   Justice officials said publicly that they were worried about ultimately losing the suit. By seeing such a weak hand at the outset, big tobacco is already boasting it will not settle for anything at all. "We are not willing to settle for any amount of money," said R. J. Reynolds spokesman Seth Moskowitz.
   Just because Ashcroft's sinking of the suit is no surprise does not mean it is not important. In his successful bid to defeat cigarette taxes as a senator, Ashcroft said, "This is a defining moment for the Republican Party."
   This, too, is a defining moment. Big tobacco paid to put the Republican Party in the White House. The White House has all but dropped the suit against big tobacco. Smoking remains the greatest preventable cause of death in the nation. Rather than preventing death, the Justice Department just played prevent defense for the merchants of death.

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