New York Times
Thursday, 9/23/99
[continued from Index page back]
[Provided by Tobacco Daily News Summaries]
An editorial in the NEW YORK TIMES supports the Justice
Department's lawsuit against the tobacco industry, citing
Congressional failure to enact comprehensive tobacco
legislation.
The TIMES says the suit could force the companies
to accept Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate
tobacco as well as changes in the industry's marketing
practices.
"The industry has long understood, through its own
research, that smoking can cause disease and death and that
nicotine is addictive. Yet it carried out a relentless national
campaign of falsehoods designed to cast doubt on those very
questions. The conspiracy of lies has been documented in
thousands of incriminating documents unearthed in litigation
brought by the state attorneys general. . . . Congress should
give the Justice Department the $20 million it has requested in
the fiscal year 2000 budget to pursue this case. The industry
will likely spend much more than that fighting the suit.
Billions of dollars ride on the outcome. But it is the
nonmonetary controls that could help reduce smoking's annual
death toll of 400,000 Americans."
[Full Text:
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/23thu1.html
