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smokersrightsok
Oklahoma Smoker's Rights Group weblog.
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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 :::
The Carol Arnold show on Radio KOMA Oklahoma City has contacted me about debating with an Oklahoma State Senator or Representative on the show about a certain new tax proposal that the State would love to foist off on us taxpayers of Oklahoma. Naturally I am vehemently opposed to any new taxes almost regardless of the reason for their proposal.
The show is supposed to air either Thursday or Friday morning and I'm betting that it will be on Friday morning due to the fact that the lawmakers are not in session on Fridays here in Oklahoma.
Quite frankly I fail to see what part of NO! it is that they don't understand. The reason I say that is that several years ago we voted in a constitutional amendment that says that no new taxes may be levied without a vote of the people and so far I have not heard any talk about presenting this one to the people for a vote.
That's just one of my arguments against the proposed new tax at the retail sales level.
They haven't made it official yet and the show's program director said she would be callling me back to confirm time and date so we will see what happens.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 12:31 AM
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 :::
CIGARETTES DON’T PAY TAXES – OKLAHOMA SMOKERS DO!!
In 2001, Oklahoma smokers comprised only 28.7% (1) of the adult population in the state. Here is what they already pay because they choose to buy a legal product:
Smokers Pay Excise Taxes (2) $ 59,280,703
Smokers Pay Sales Taxes (2) $ 49,395,080
Smokers Pay Tobacco Settlement Payments (3) $ 74,062,843
$182,738,626
Smokers’ Economic/Tax Profile 2001
Income (1)
Oklahoma smokers’ median household income $29,530
Oklahoma nonsmokers’ median household income $35,733
Working families pay more (1)
43.6% of Oklahoma smokers had household incomes LESS THAN $25,000.
7.4% of Oklahoma smokers had household incomes EQUAL TO or GREATER THAN $75,000.
The impact of smoker payments on the incomes of working families was more than THREE TIMES the impact on higher income smokers. Those who can afford it least pay a disproportionate percentage of their hard-earned income in smoker payments.
Smoker excise tax/sales tax/tobacco settlement payments liability in 2002 (4)
Total avg. paid per Oklahoma smoker in excise and sales taxes $148
Cost per Oklahoma smoker for settlement payments to Oklahoma $101
Total annual payments to Oklahoma per smoker $249
Total annual payments to Oklahoma per nonsmoker $ 0
Oklahoma Smoker Facts (5)
Total smokers’ payments to Oklahoma in FY2002 were:
Nearly thee times as large as FY2001 state excise taxes on alcoholic beverages ($62 million).
Larger than FY2001 corporate net income tax revenues ($167.2 million).
Smokers taxed to death
Anyone who works for their wages by the hour knows how hard you have to work to earn a few dollars and cents. The State of Oklahoma earns15.2 million a month from smokers' excise and sales tax revenues, with the tobacco settlement money thrown in just for fun.
Shocked? That's chicken feed compared with the $3,352,320 every HOUR all government taxing authorities take from smokers nationwide.
Why is Oklahoma back with its hand out again, asking for even more? It is now to the point that some of our political leaders are acting no better than street thugs who sell illegal drugs. "They are hooked so now let's exploit them," is the prevailing attitude.
Between 1999 and 2001, Congress and the states have collected $88 billion (that's billion with a "B") from taxes and the Master Settlement Agreement. There is no doubt that state and federal governments now have a virtual monopoly on tobacco industry revenue. On average, government makes 15 times what tobacco companies do on a pack of cigarettes. Even the Mafia never had it this good.
No one should have to endure this kind of tax burden, and many smokers have said no and gone elsewhere. For instance, the state of Washington in 2001 estimated it lost almost $63 million to smokers who bought cigarettes on the Internet, from Indian smoke shops or brought them in from other states. The state still made $244.5 million.
What other group of consumers would tolerate a loaf of bread, an automobile or a toy taxed at the rate of tobacco? They wouldn't. There would be a tax revolt.
There have been several very good things proposed that tobacco tax increases would go toward that would make things better for a large number of people-smokers and non-smokers alike. The question that should be asked is why smokers alone should shoulder the burden? Fifty-eight percent of adult smokers are at low or moderate income, earning $35,000 a year or less. Why are the least able to pay called on the most to pay the bills of others?
Many states think that raising excise taxes will cut the rate of underage smokers. The problem is that underage smokers make up only about 2 percent of the market. When you do this you punish 98 people to influence two. Even this is questionable when recent studies state that the biggest influence on children smoking is parents, not government action.
Millions have been spent recently on prevention programs to keep kids from smoking with virtually no change in smoking rates. When $3,352,320 an hour off the backs of smokers is still not enough to satisfy the tax man, it is time to take a hard look at who we are really dealing with here. Government greed and attempts at population control through taxation is out of control in a major way. It is just plain financial rape.
Newspapers who printed a version of this letter:
Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Charlotte NC Observer, Grand Island Ne Independent, Huntington WV Herald-Dispatch
::: posted by Creditwrench at 8:46 PM
Sunday, November 09, 2003 :::
The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment
By Robert W. Tracinski
CNSNews.com Commentary
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation - from New York City to San Antonio - has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of "second-hand" smoke.
Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved - the cancer of unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make
their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the "right" decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect "public places," they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and offices - places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don't like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid "second-hand" smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbors. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbors, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behavior.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favorite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited intrusion of government into our lives.
The tobacco bans are just part of one prong of this assault. Traditionally, the political Right has attempted to override the individual's judgment on spiritual matters: outlawing certain sexual practices, trying to ban sex and violence in entertainment, discouraging divorce.
While the political Left is nominally opposed to this trend - denouncing attempts to "legislate morality" and crusading for the toleration of "alternative lifestyles," - they seek to override the individual's judgment on material matters: imposing controls on business and profit-making, regulating advertising and campaign finance, and now legislating healthy behavior.
But the difference is only one of emphasis; the underlying premise is still anti-freedom and anti-individual-judgment. The tobacco bans bulldoze all the barriers to intrusive regulation, establishing the precedent that the rights of the individual can be violated whenever the local city council decides that the "public good" demands it.
Ayn Rand described the effect of this two-pronged assault on liberty: "The conservatives see man as a body freely roaming the earth, building sand piles or factories--with an electronic computer inside his skull, controlled from Washington.
The liberals see man as a soul free-wheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread," or, today, when he crosses the street to buy a cigarette.
It doesn't take a new statistical study to show that such an attack on freedom is inimical to human life. No crusade to purge our air of any whiff of tobacco smoke can take precedence over a much more important human requirement: the need for the unbreached protection of individual rights.
Robert Tracinski is a senior editor at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 5:03 PM
Thursday, October 16, 2003 :::
SMOKING CRUSADES AROUND THE GLOBE
www.reuters.com
Pupils Angered Over Smoking Ban
Thu October 16, 2003 10:03 AM ET
DOMONT, France (Reuters) - French high school students are up in arms over a drive by teachers to ban some of their most cherished items, ranging from cigarettes to G-strings.
France's center-right government has declared war on the quintessentially French habit of smoking, angering many teenagers who fear a slip into a "no fun"-state as the popular thong has also become a thorn in the eye of authorities.
"We're not allowed to smoke anywhere on the school grounds any more. They treat us like babies," said Melodie Gambero, a 17-year-old student in Domont, north of Paris, who went on strike with fellow students last week against the new rules.
French law allows smoking at schools in designated areas, but the government, in its drive to crush the habit, is encouraging schools to become smoke-free zones.
"About half of all the students here smoke," said David Perochon, 19, adding a few hundred of the school's 1,200 students had participated in the one-day strike, which had not succeeded in changing the headmistress's mind.
The controversial smoking rules are being introduced in many schools as teachers are also trying to ban girls from showing off thongs and bellies above their low-cut trousers, provoking angry protests from fashion-conscious adolescents.
Hitting the same nerve, a French advertising association this month took the unusual step of ordering an underwear maker to withdraw a billboard campaign for its thong range, depicting three scantily clad pole dancers, following public protests.
© Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
==============================================================================
www.reuters.com/newsArticle
French tobacco shops call one-day strike over tax
Thu October 16, 2003 12:37 PM ET
PARIS, Oct 16 (Reuters) - French tobacco shops vowed on Thursday to halt cigarette sales across the country for a day next Monday to protest against planned tax hikes which they fear will hit revenues.
A representative of the estimated 34,000 outlets which sell tobacco under a state-controlled distribution system dismissed a state aid offer of 130 million euros and demanded President Jacques Chirac intervene "before it's too late".
Rene Le Pape, head of the Confederation of Tobacco Outlets of France, told a news conference up to 85 percent of vendors were expected to joint the "strike" on Monday, when a hike of some 20 percent in tobacco tax is due to take effect.
The price of a top brand packet of 20 cigarettes has jumped by about 20 percent in a year and is set to soar with a double wave of tax rises of 20 percent each, next week and in January, to around five euros a pack from closer to three a year ago.
"We believe mobilisation is strong," Le Pape said. Where the town or village tobacco outlet is housed in a cafe, as is often the case, cigarette stocks will be draped in black veils, he added.
The government is hiking taxes to help plug a huge deficit in state heathcare finances, but also says the tax rise is in line with Chirac's drive to reduce cancer rates.
Tobacco makers fear price hikes will simply prompt more smokers to buy on the black market or cross the border to stock up on cheaper cigarettes from abroad.
© Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 12:29 PM
SMOKING CRUSADES AROUND THE GLOBE
R
Pupils Angered Over Smoking Ban
Thu October 16, 2003 10:03 AM ET
DOMONT, France (Reuters) - French high school students are up in arms over a drive by teachers to ban some of their most cherished items, ranging from cigarettes to G-strings.
France's center-right government has declared war on the quintessentially French habit of smoking, angering many teenagers who fear a slip into a "no fun"-state as the popular thong has also become a thorn in the eye of authorities.
"We're not allowed to smoke anywhere on the school grounds any more. They treat us like babies," said Melodie Gambero, a 17-year-old student in Domont, north of Paris, who went on strike with fellow students last week against the new rules.
French law allows smoking at schools in designated areas, but the government, in its drive to crush the habit, is encouraging schools to become smoke-free zones.
"About half of all the students here smoke," said David Perochon, 19, adding a few hundred of the school's 1,200 students had participated in the one-day strike, which had not succeeded in changing the headmistress's mind.
The controversial smoking rules are being introduced in many schools as teachers are also trying to ban girls from showing off thongs and bellies above their low-cut trousers, provoking angry protests from fashion-conscious adolescents.
Hitting the same nerve, a French advertising association this month took the unusual step of ordering an underwear maker to withdraw a billboard campaign for its thong range, depicting three scantily clad pole dancers, following public protests.
© Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
==============================================================================
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3629441
French tobacco shops call one-day strike over tax
Thu October 16, 2003 12:37 PM ET
PARIS, Oct 16 (Reuters) - French tobacco shops vowed on Thursday to halt cigarette sales across the country for a day next Monday to protest against planned tax hikes which they fear will hit revenues.
A representative of the estimated 34,000 outlets which sell tobacco under a state-controlled distribution system dismissed a state aid offer of 130 million euros and demanded President Jacques Chirac intervene "before it's too late".
Rene Le Pape, head of the Confederation of Tobacco Outlets of France, told a news conference up to 85 percent of vendors were expected to joint the "strike" on Monday, when a hike of some 20 percent in tobacco tax is due to take effect.
The price of a top brand packet of 20 cigarettes has jumped by about 20 percent in a year and is set to soar with a double wave of tax rises of 20 percent each, next week and in January, to around five euros a pack from closer to three a year ago.
"We believe mobilisation is strong," Le Pape said. Where the town or village tobacco outlet is housed in a cafe, as is often the case, cigarette stocks will be draped in black veils, he added.
The government is hiking taxes to help plug a huge deficit in state heathcare finances, but also says the tax rise is in line with Chirac's drive to reduce cancer rates.
Tobacco makers fear price hikes will simply prompt more smokers to buy on the black market or cross the border to stock up on cheaper cigarettes from abroad.
© Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 12:23 PM
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 :::
Smoker's Rights of Oklahoma's
monthly meetings
are now being held at
Al's BBQ
44 S.W. 44th St
Oklahoma City, Ok.
Meetings start at 7:00 P.M. but most of us are there by around 6:30 so we can enjoy a great supper from Al's BBQ menus.
Click here for a complete set of street maps to Al's BBQ Restaurant.
Our Smoker's Rights Picnic will be held in the North pavillon at Will Roger's park at 36th & North Portland in Oklahoma. The festivities will start at 1:00 P.M. and will last until 4:00 P.M. Won't you join us there?
And here is the map to our Smoker's Rights Picnic.
Where has the tobacco money gone?
State and federal governments have an unprecedented amount of money available to them to reduce youth smoking, through payments from the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) and other similar settlements. These settlements give states up to $246 billion from tobacco companies over a 25-year period that can be used to support antismoking efforts. Future annual payments, based upon inflation and cigarette sales, will continue into perpetuity.
Although the MSA repeatedly mentions "implementation of tobacco-related public health measures," each state decides how its MSA funds are spent. Tobacco companies do not have any input into how the states spend their settlement funds. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company believes that states should take advantage of having unprecedented funds available to combat youth smoking, and that a significant portion of the states' payments should be spent on preventing tobacco use among minors.
Now that four years have passed since the MSA was signed, where has the money gone so far? When the MSA was signed, the states held press conferences proclaiming that they would spend the money on smoking education, cessation and research. They talked about protecting youth and improving public health. However, it seems to have become a classic "bait and switch" operation. The states have squandered billions of dollars on pet projects such as golf courses and horse-breeding farms, pork-barrel projects such as roads and bridges and state-budget deficit reductions - items completely unrelated to the stated purpose of the settlement funds.
When the MSA was signed, the Attorneys General and plaintiffs lawyers held press conferences and talked about using the money for public health and protecting kids. Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said, "Washington state's proceeds from the tobacco industry settlement should be spent on public health issues or the integrity of the historic agreement will be violated."
"This agreement provides significant benefits to Montana and to Montanans. It will settle the state's damage claims against big tobacco. It will provide useful tools to educate the public - particularly young people - about the dangers of tobacco use, and to meet other health-related needs," said Montana Attorney General Joe Mazurek.
In fact, states have spent a large portion of MSA funds on projects totally unrelated to youth smoking prevention and tobacco control. Among the projects for which MSA funds have already been spent:
Dump trucks, golf carts, a golf course irrigation system and a new county jail in New York
Broadband cable networks in Virginia
Psychiatric care for prisoners in New Jersey
Boot camps for juvenile delinquents, alternative schools, and metal detectors and surveillance cameras for schools in Alabama
Upgrading public television stations with DVD technology in Nevada
Harbor renovation and museum expansion in Alaska
Water and sewer improvements in South Carolina
Pasture and weather monitoring for a thoroughbred association in Kentucky
College scholarships in Michigan
New schools in Ohio
City parks and the purchase of undeveloped land in California
A senior citizen prescription drug program and property tax rebates in Illinois
Medicaid dental services in Maine
Water Resources Trust Fund and flood-control projects in North Dakota
Operating expenses for the Carolina Horse Park, truck-driver training, pine-straw farming research and equipment upgrades at a knitting plant in North Carolina
A People's Trust Fund in South Dakota will generate interest income that can be spent on whatever the legislature wishes
Four years of MSA money was used to help balance the budget in Tennessee
Rural economic development in Georgia
Tax rebates in several states
Municipal bonds, backed by future MSA payments, were sold in Wisconsin and half of the money was spent to offset a revenue shortfall
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) analyzed state plans for spending MSA funds during fiscal years 2000 through 2003. Of the total $33.1 billion in MSA funds that states will receive during this period, more than half of the money was earmarked for projects totally unrelated to smoking. Click here to view NCSL's summary of allocations of tobacco revenues by category for fiscal years 2000 to 2003.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that approximately 20 to 25 percent of the MSA payments go toward smoking prevention programs. By the end of 2001, states had received more than $13.4 billion in MSA payments. However, only seven states (Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio and Vermont) had met or exceeded the CDC's minimum funding recommendations for tobacco control programs.
In its analysis of MSA payment expenditures evaluated since the MSA was signed through July 2002, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) found:
Only five states funded tobacco prevention programs at levels that meet the CDC's minimum recommendation.
Nineteen states (including the five above) have committed even 50 percent of the minimum funding level recommended by CDC.
Sixteen states committed modest amounts (between 35 and 50 percent) of MSA funds to tobacco prevention programs.
Twelve states committed minimal amounts (less than 25 percent) of MSA funds to tobacco prevention programs.
Three states and the District of Columbia committed no MSA funds to tobacco prevention programs. According to their analysis, the CTFK says, "We have found that most states have not kept their promises - only a handful of states have funded tobacco prevention programs at the minimum level recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the majority of states have failed to fund prevention at even half the CDC minimum."
A June 2001 General Accounting Office (GAO) report found that states allocated about seven percent of the nearly $13.5 billion in MSA payments made from December 1999 through April 2001 for new or expanded tobacco control programs. The GAO also found that 36 states spent zero or less than 10 percent of MSA monies on tobacco control.
What can you do?
The states' greed penalizes adults who choose to smoke. It's not tobacco companies that are paying the freight for government tobacco profits; the settlement payments and cigarette taxes come out of the price that smokers pay for a pack of cigarettes. And the government makes more money off cigarettes per minute than the average family makes in a year.
Tobacco settlement payments have resulted in unprecedented increases in the price of a pack of cigarettes. In 2001, government collections of settlement payments and tax revenues accounted for nearly half of the price of a pack of cigarettes. From 1999-2001, the government collected over $88 billion in settlement payments and cigarette taxes; yet many states have enacted or are proposing even higher cigarette excise taxes. They expect the 23 percent of the U.S. adult population that smokes to pay even more for cigarettes to cover state budget deficits, too. Click here to view more information about tobacco taxes and revenues.
State officials should take the opinions of adult smokers into account when reviewing funding and budget issues or voting on proposed legislation. Sometimes it's hard to believe that one voice can make a difference, but it can. And when many smokers speak out, the message is even stronger.
Find out what is being done with MSA funds in your state. Contact the Attorney General's office in your state and your state's elected officials to find out where the money is going.
Several states have made progress toward assuring that MSA dollars are spent as intended. For example, Oklahoma voters voted to amend their state constitution to require that their state's MSA monies be placed into a trust fund where only the interest on the money can be spent, and then only on health care. Ask elected officials in your state to do the same.
Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper and ask elected officials to spend MSA funds on youth-smoking prevention. Click here to view MSA payments and expenditures by state.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company - Tobacco Issues: Where Has the MSA Money Gone?
::: posted by Creditwrench at 2:42 AM
Sunday, August 17, 2003 :::
Tobacco Company Wins Low-Tar Cigarette Case
Asher Hawkins
The Legal Intelligencer
08-19-2003
A tobacco company is not liable for the death of a man who contracted fatal lung cancer even though he smoked the company's low-tar cigarette brand, a 12-person Philadelphia jury decided unanimously on Friday.
In the case of Eiser v. Brown & Williamson, et al., a jury in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas handed down a verdict for the defendants, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. and its parent company, British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd., in the wrongful-death suit.
William Eiser died of lung cancer in December 1999 at the age of 54. He had owned a delicatessen in South Philadelphia. Eiser had smoked Carlton cigarettes for 28 years, switching to the brand because he was aware of the health risks of smoking cigarettes and saw advertisements labeling Carltons as low in tar. Carltons were originally produced by the American Tobacco Co., which merged with B&W in 1995, and are currently produced by B&W.
Eiser, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998, filed suit against B&W, British American Tobacco and several tobacco industry associations in March 1999. He was deposed by video before his death. His action was carried forward by his wife, Lois Eiser, the administratrix of his estate.
Jury selection in the trial began on July 24, and the trial commenced on July 28, with Judge Gary F. DiVito presiding. The trial concluded Aug. 12. Only two parties, B&W and British American Tobacco, remained as defendants when the sides rested.
"In order to prove their case, they had to show fraud on the part of B&W based on its advertising of Carltons," said Bruce Sheffler, partner at Chadbourne & Parke in New York, who represented B&W in the case. "But the advertisement that Carltons were 'lowest in tar' was truthful."
Sheffler said that there were no settlement offers made prior to trial.
George J. Badey III of Sheller, Ludwig & Badey in Philadelphia, counsel for the plaintiffs, said that his client had been aware of the dangers associated with smoking tobacco, but had been "trapped in the 'low-tar lie.'"
B&W's "lowest tar" advertising claims for Carltons were substantiated by a Federal Trade Commission test rating Carltons low in tar and nicotine. Badey said that, according to evidence offered at trial, several features of the Carltons allowed them to receive low FTC tar and nicotine ratings while still delivering normal doses of those byproducts to the average smoker. He said that an expert testified that additives manufactured into Carltons caused the brand's nicotine to freebase into vapor form, and that the vaporized nicotine escaped the notice of the FTC test. He also said that those additives, in part, contributed to increased tar levels in Carlton cigarettes.
"We were quite disturbed with many of the court's rulings in the case," Badey said. "We firmly believe numerous reversible errors occurred, and that, at a minimum, a new trial will be awarded."
Badey filed post-trial motions Monday outlining his client's grievances with a number of the court's rulings in the case.
He said that the court allowed the jury to consider the highest count relating to the defendants' allegedly misleading advertising of Carltons, fraud, but not two lesser related counts, negligent misrepresentation and 402B misrepresentation. Badey reasoned that since the highest fraud count was offered for consideration, the dismissal for consideration of the lesser two counts was puzzling.
In addition, Badey said, several witnesses central to his case were precluded by the court from testifying. That list included two medical experts, one of whom had contributed to past surgeon general's reports, who were to testify about the history of the relationship between smoking and health; and the former brand manager for Carlton cigarettes, who was to offer evidence of the brand's marketing strategies.
Also precluded were depositions from American Tobacco's former chief operating officer and former vice-president for scientific research, who were to testify that their former employer had failed to test ingredients and additives of Carlton cigarettes, Badey said.
And finally, Badey said, the court would not allow testimony from famed tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, B&W's former vice-president of research and development, whose publicizing of B&W's medical research secrets was the subject of the 2000 film "The Insider."
Wigand, who was to appear as a rebuttal witness, was to offer testimony that Badey said would have impeached the testimony of previous defense witnesses.
But Badey took particular exception to the granting of a pretrial defense motion requesting that Lois Eiser's complete medical records, including her obstetric charts, be produced for the defense's perusal. That motion was granted by Judge Allan L. Tereshko. The defense argued that her medical records might have shown a warning from one of her physicians about smoking, thereby proving that William Eiser knew the risks related to tobacco use. Badey said that since William Eiser's knowledge of the risks of smoking was not at issue, the motion was egregious.
Tereshko ultimately modified his order to include Lois Eiser's medical records from only the age of 18 and up.
Badey is hopeful that the Eisers' case has not ended with the trial jury's verdict.
"While the tobacco companies prevailed at this trial," Badey said, "we are hopeful that a Common Pleas Court en banc panel -- or ultimately the Superior Court or Supreme Court -- will see fit to grant the appropriate relief so that the defendants will be held responsible for their actions."
• About law.com
::: posted by Creditwrench at 5:14 PM
Sunday, July 13, 2003 :::
Our Smoker's Rights Meeting will be held tomorrow evening, Monday, July 14th at 7:00 P.M. at Denny's Restaurant which is located near 74th and South Pennsylvania on the north service road.
This should prove to be an interesting meeting indeed so let us hope that you will all be able to attend.
One of the topics to be discussed will be where to hold our September picnic since our usual host is now bedridden with back problems.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 9:51 PM
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