MOSCOW, 28 November - RAPSI. A US federal court ordered Philip Morris and several other major tobacco companies on Tuesday to issue specific and highly graphic corrective statements on five topics about which the companies had lied in recent decades. The topics include the negative impact of smoking on health, the addictiveness of smoking, the lack of benefit in switching to light cigarettes, the companies’ manipulation of cigarette design to maximize nicotine delivery, and the health toll taken by secondhand smoke.

The present case originated in 1999, when the US government sued Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Lorillard, Liggett, and other tobacco giants under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. After years of discovery, trial began in 2004 and culminated in a 2006 judgment finding that the defendants had, “knowingly and intentionally engaged in a scheme to defraud smokers and potential smokers, for purposes of financial gain, by making false and fraudulent statements, representations, and promises.” The defendants were found guilty of violating the RICO Act, and of having conspired together to do so.

In turn, the court ordered the defendants in 2006 to publish the corrective statements presently at issue, as a means of remedying some of the damage done by false statements historically made by the defendants in connection with the five topics. On appeal, a higher court upheld the judgment, and affirmed that the corrective statements would serve as appropriate means of counteracting anticipated future RICO violations.

The parties were asked to submit proposals for the text of these statements, which would then be advertised by various far-reaching means.
The court announced Tuesday which of these statements specifically it would require the defendants to advertise.

Statements will include graphic and shocking statistics and facts in order to drive the point home, such as, “[m]ore people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS,  suicide,  drugs,  car  crashes,  and alcohol, combined,” and “[w]hen you smoke, the nicotine actually changes the brain - that's why quitting is so hard.”