Now big tobacco is looking to Congress to pass a global bailout which will prevent other states from holding the cigarette companies accountable for the harm they have caused and reveal more of the truth hidden in the secret documents. Yet when a cancer victim had the audacity to sue, tobacco moguls laughed it off. The suit ultimately was dropped. Fast-forward four decades. And avoid damaging testimony while Washington considers a proposed national settlement the industry likes.
More trials loom.
No wonder the industry wants the administration and Congress to rubber-stamp a national settlement that would halt most pending lawsuits, supersede state settlements and limit the companies' future liability. Although running scared from some courtrooms, Big Tobacco's persistence and deviousness are alive and thriving. And proposed penalties for failure to cut teen smoking, though innovative, remain wimpy. Then there's the tax write-off. As now proposed, the industry can deduct the cost of the settlement, sticking the taxpayers with roughly one-third of the tab.