Newsclips 1997 – 2000

Tobacco critic grandson of R.J. Reynolds founder speaks at university

156 words
27 March 1997
10:36 pm
Associated Press Newswires

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) – The key to preventing underage cigarette smoking lies in stopping campaign contributions from tobacco companies to their political allies, says a grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

“The reason we have the lowest cigarette tax in the industrialized world … is because of the millions of dollars that flow into the hands of our elected leaders from tobacco companies,” Patrick Reynolds, an anti-smoking crusader, said Thursday at George Mason University.

“The more an elected official receives from the tobacco companies, the more likely he is to vote with the tobacco companies’ point of view,” said Reynolds, who delivered the keynote address before about 60 people at the school’s annual student-sponsored Health and Fitness Challenge.

Reynolds heads the non-profit Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth. He is a frequent critic of tobacco company advertising.

Rush

AREA/STATE

BLAME IS CLEAR-CUT, SAYS TOBACCO FOE LEAF FIRMS’ AID TO POLITICIANS BLASTED

Paul Bradley Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
527 words
28 March 1997
Richmond Times-Dispatch
City
A-13

The key to stamping out underage smoking lies in stanching the flow of campaign contributions from tobacco companies to their political allies.

So said Patrick Reynolds, a grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and now a leading anti-smoking crusader, during a speech yesterday at George Mason University.

“The reason we have the lowest cigarette tax in the industrialized world . . . is because of the millions of dollars that flow into the hands of our elected leaders from tobacco companies,” Reynolds said. “The more an elected official receives from the tobacco companies, the more likely he is to vote with the tobacco companies’ point of view.”

Reynolds delivered the keynote address before about 60 people at GMU’s annual student-sponsored Health and Fitness Challenge. While his family’s name has long been associated with the tobacco giant, Reynolds heads the non-profit Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth and is a frequent critic of tobacco company advertising and marketing methods.

Yesterday, he aimed some of his sternest criticism at Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore III. The Times-Dispatch reported yesterday that Gilmore had flown to New York aboard a Philip Morris Co. jet last week to attend a fund-raising event sponsored for him by the tobacco and food giant, during which he raised $50,000 in donations for his expected campaign for governor.

“How a man who runs for public office can take money from the tobacco companies, and claim to represent the people, just befuddles me,” said Reynolds, who admitted he is a partisan Democrat.

Gilmore supporters said the Republican has vowed to enforce anti-smoking laws and defended the fund-raising event as looking out for Virginia’s economic future. Tobacco is the state’s largest cash crop.

But Reynolds said, “The great majority of the people in Virginia do not work for the tobacco companies. He is not representing the people of Virginia when he flies to New York or opposes the FDA tobacco regulations. You can only assume that the tobacco contributions had something to do with it.”

Reynolds’ talk came a day after it was reported that the Federal Trade Commission had voted to investigate whether R.J. Reynolds Co. was unlawfully targeting young people through its “Joe Camel” advertising campaign for Camel cigarettes. And it followed last week’s settlement by the Liggett Group of smoking-related lawsuits filed by 22 states.

Reynolds applauded the FTC’s move and said he believes all tobacco advertising should be banned.

“Cigarettes are the only product that when used as intended causes massive disease and addiction,” he said. “All of the other products, when used as intended, whether its alcohol or cars, are safer.”

Reynolds, who never worked in the tobacco business, said he believes his grandfather, were he alive today, would support efforts to stamp out smoking. “I think my grandfather is somewhere up in heaven, saying, `Patrick, I didn’t know smoking would kill millions of people. You are doing a great thing.’ “

(lko)

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LOCAL

TOBACCO HEIR ASSAILS INDUSTRY THAT MADE HIS FAMILY RICH

DAVE ZUCHOWSKI
476 words
1 April 1997
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
SOONER
A-3

After his parents’ divorce, Patrick Reynolds didn’t see his father for six years.

When he finally saw him, the man was lying on his back and dying of emphysema caused by a lifetime of smoking the very cigarettes that had made the Reynolds family rich.

Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, was only 9 years old, but that image stuck with him for a lifetime.

“My only memories of my father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., are of a man always short of breath, increasingly sick and frail, and counting the time he had left to live.”

He recalled that story last night as he spoke to small audience about the benefits of a tobacco-free society at the Natali Performance Center at California University of Pennsylvania.

The talk was part of the college’s Noss Lecture Series.

During the hourlong speech, Reynolds spoke on how tobacco companies market cigarettes to teens, and he addressed the new federal rules on selling tobacco to minors.

“Sixty to 80 percent of the time, children can purchase tobacco over the counter,” he said. “Many of the ads are directed toward children.

“For instance, the image of the camel with sunglasses playing pool with bikini-clad girls.”

He said he embarked on his anti-smoking crusade after his father and oldest brother died of diseases caused by smoking.

During last night’s address, Reynolds said America had failed to regulate the tobacco industry largely because millions of the dollars it contributed to political campaigns.

In 1986, Reynolds said he learned first-hand that money meant access when a friend of his, a political donor, invited him to visit Washington. There, they and 130 other political contributors received the “red carpet” treatment, Reynolds said.

Eventually, he brought his anti-smoking message to the American Lung Society. At the time, laws banning smoking in public places were sweeping the nation, and Reynolds was besieged by news media to speak on the subject.

Since then, he has appeared on such shows as Oprah, Larry King Live, ABC Nightline and American Journal. He has also been profiled by Time and Newsweek.

Last night, Reynolds said he advocated placing a much higher tax on cigarettes.

Most industrial countries, for example, tax cigarettes at a rate of $2 per pack. In America the tax is an average of 58 cents per pack, Reynolds said.

Yet, in America, the country spends $22 billion in medical costs in treating cigarette-related illnesses. That, he said, averages $2 per pack.

“The tobacco industry claims that smoking is a matter of personal choice,” Reynolds said. “This is not true, because cigarettes are just as addictive as heroin.

“There is no freedom in slavery to nicotine addiction.”

Dave Zuchowski is a free-lance writer.

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Daybook

425 words
7 April 1997
11:59 pm
Associated Press Newswires

— Tuesday, April 8 —

EVENT: Gov. Lincoln Almond makes economic development announcement

TIME: 9 a.m.

LOCATION: Economic Development Corp., 1 W. Exchange St., Providence

CONTACT: Eric Cote, 277-2080

EVENT: Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco tycoon R.J. Reynolds, speaks against smoking.

TIME: 9 a.m.

LOCATION: Bishop McVinney Auditorium, Providence

CONTACT: Brenda Farrell, 598-1063

EVENT: News conference to announce annual statistics on calls to Rhode Island Rape Crisis Center and Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

TIME: 10 a.m.

LOCATION: parking lot at the old University of Rhode Island CCE site near Statehouse, Providence

CONTACT: Karen Jeffreys, 467-9940

EVENT: African Peace Tour speakers, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, at three colleges

TIME: noon at Community College of Rhode Island, 1 Hilton St., Providence;

3:30 p.m. at University of Rhode Island, Chafee Room 277, South Kingstown;

7 p.m. at Brown University, Barus & Holley Building, 184 Hope St., Providence

CONTACT: CCRI, Nancy Abood, 825-2181

EVENT: local and national release of “Mean Streets: Pedestrian Safety and Reform of the Nation’s Transportation Law” by Sierra Club

TIME: 2 p.m.

LOCATION: corner North Main Street and Doyle Avenue, Providence.

CONTACT: 521-4734

— Wednesday, April 9 —

EVENT: Fishers’ Forum on how to meet needs of fishing families

TIME: 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

LOCATION: URI Coastal Institute, on Narragansett Bay, Narragansett

CONTACT: Edward Sanderson, 277-2678

EVENT: Chef Paul Prudhomme will prepare Cajun food during Distinguished Visiting Chef demonstration

TIME: 9 to 11 a.m.

LOCATION: Johnson & Wales University, 265 Harborside Blvd., Providence

CONTACT: Linda Beaulieu, 598-2919

EVENT: Press briefing of education spending software sponsored by Education Commisioner Peter McWalters, in advance of its presentation to General Assembly hearing

TIME: 10 a.m.

LOCATION: Department of Education, Shepard Building, Room 501

CONTACT: RSVP to Marisa Quinn, 277-4600, x2195

EVENT: Wellness Fair

TIME: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

LOCATION: Johnon & Wales University, Plantations Auditorium, 8 Abbott Park Place, Providence

CONTACT: Marian Gagnon, 598-1157

EVENT: Secretary of State Jim Langevin holds news conference on defunct state rules and regulations

TIME: 2 p.m.

LOCATION: Senate Lounge, Statehouse

CONTACT: Peter Kerwin, 277-2357

EVENT: Pawtucket Mayor Robert Metivier to testify before House Finance Committee on amendment for equal education for all children

TIME: 2 p.m.

LOCATION: Statehouse

CONTACT: Ken McGill, 728-0500 x356

EVENT: Former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson speaks

TIME: 8 p.m.

LOCATION: Brown University, Salomen Center for Teaching, Room 101

CONTACT: Linda Mahdesian, 863-2476

Rush

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R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir pleased with anti-smoking successes

By PAUL TOLME
Associated Press Writer
619 words
9 April 1997
07:57 am
Associated Press Newswires

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Patrick Reynolds, a tobacco heir turned anti-smoking crusader, is cheering a proposal to raise the federal cigarette tax.

“Non-smokers are paying the health care costs of smoking in the form of higher insurance premiums,” Reynolds said Tuesday after speaking to students at Johnson & Wales University. “It’s time for smokers to pay their way.”

The 43-cent per-pack increase proposed this week by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would raise money for children’s health insurance.

The cigarette tax was just one of the topics on Reynolds’ mind during his visit to Johnson & Wales, where the grandson of tobacco baron R.J. Reynolds spoke to 50 students.

He is cheered by indications the federal government may sue R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the company that enriched his family. The Federal Trade Commission is to decide within several months whether to sue the company for its use of the successful Joe Camel cartoon ads.

“It’s a great development,” he said. “Joe Camel clearly appeals to children and teen-agers.”

R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s No. 2 cigarette maker, has steadfastly denied accusations the Joe Camel ads target children.

Criticizing cigarette makers is nothing new for Reynolds, 48, of Beverly Hills, Calif. A former smoker who tried to quit 12 times, he sold his R.J. Reynolds stock in 1979 and began his campaign in 1986.

He lost two family members to emphysema: his father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., in 1964, and his older brother, R.J. Reynolds III, in 1994.

“I’m proud that I’m using the tobacco-based inheritance against youth smoking,” he said after his 45-minute presentation.

No immediate family members have worked in the tobacco company for more than 50 years, but he said relatives initially were concerned about the value of their stock when he announced his intention to lobby for tougher anti-smoking laws.

During his presentation, he told stories of friends and family members who have died of cancer, and beamed spoof cigarette ads onto a screen behind him. One poked fun at the KOOL brand, showing a goofily dressed man beside the word FOOL. Another mimicked the suave, sunglasses-wearing Joe Camel, instead showing a hairless Joe Chemo in a hospital bed.

“That’s my favorite,” he said with a chuckle.

In addition to the various new labeling requirements for cigarette companies, Reynolds hopes more personal lawsuits against the tobacco companies will succeed.

People, most often children, have been lured into smoking because of deceptive ads, he said. Tobacco company arguments that smoking is a personal choice doesn’t apply when children are involved, he said.

“I think both the smokers and the tobacco companies have to be accountable,” he said.

Several students thanked him for his work.

Steven Nickerson, 21, a Johnson & Wales junior and a nonsmoker, said he admired Reynolds’ decision to sell tobacco stock. Even so, he doesn’t feel smokers or their family members should sue the cigarette companies.

“I wouldn’t sue,” he said. “I have a lot of family members who smoke, but I think it’s up to them.”

Reynolds has been increasingly sought out by the national media as anti-smoking lawsuits have progressed and the federal government has tightened its grip around the industry. His family may not support everything he does, but Reynolds said he is bringing honor to the name.

“I think my grandfather is up in heaven, and my father, too,” he said. “And they’re saying `We’re proud of you, Patrick.”‘

Urgent

AP Photo

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NEWS

CAMPAIGN AGAINST CANCER

37 words
9 April 1997
The Toronto Star
Final
A2

The Toronto Star)

AP PHOTO: PATRICK REYNOLDS, GRANDSON OF THE LATE TOBACCO MAGNATE R.J. REYNOLDS, URGES UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN PROVIDENCE, R.I. YESTERDAY NOT TO SMOKE AND TO SUPPORT FEDERAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE TEENAGE SMOKING.

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Top US cigarette makers in secret settlement talks …

652 words
16 April 1997
Agence France-Presse

Top US cigarette makers in secret settlement talks

(ADDS details, background)

NEW YORK, April 16 (AFP) – Top US cigarette makers are in secret talks on a wide-ranging settlement to cover the tobacco industry’s liability in pending and future lawsuits, officials said Wednesday.

“There have been intense negotiations over the past three weeks,” a spokesman for the Mississippi attorney general said.

Those negotiations have concentrated on advertising restrictions as well as government regulation over the tobacco industry, the spokesman, Trey Bobinger, told AFX news agency.

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, said the talks “represent an extraordinary turning point in the four-decade-long controversy over cigarettes’ toll” on the health of smokers.

Officials in several states confirmed that settlement talks were in progress and the White House said it was “monitoring” those negotiations.

Most refused to elaborate on details of the talks as reported by the Journal. The newspaper said a settlement could include payment to tobacco-lawsuit plaintiffs of 300 billion dollars over 25 years.

Cigarette makers would also agree to tight regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and advertising controls under which they would cease using people — including that world-renowned icon, the Marlboro Man — in ads.

In exchange, Philip Morris Cos., RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. and other cigarette makers are seeking shelter from a rising tide of lawsuits filed by individuals and state governments over damage to smokers’ health.

The overall settlement under discussion would require an act of Congress, the report said.

The tobacco industry has close and long-standing ties to the Republican Party, which now controls Congress, so any deal with the tobacco industry’s imprimatur would likely win easy approval from legislators.

The plan would also need approval from President Bill Clinton.

White House spokesman Michael McCurry acknowledged that negotiations between tobacco industry leaders and the 22 states that have filed lawsuits against the industry were taking place, but gave no details.

“There’s been contact on and off,” McCurry said. “I don’t know whether we’re close to a settlement or not.”

Suggesting a measure of White House support for the deal, however, McCurry reiterated Clinton’s long-held aims of stamping out smoking by young people and obtaining FDA regulation of tobacco products.

Both Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco have previously shown interest in a possible overall settlement to the lawsuits.

In a statement, the attorney general for the midwest state of Minnesota — one of the plaintiffs — said the tobacco industry had so far not gone far enough toward redressing the “tremendous harm” it has inflicted on smokers.

“This is a desperate industry that is on the ropes in court, and it hopes throwing smokers’ money at the problem will make it go away,” Attorney General Hubert Humphrey said.

“I have insisted from the beginning that any resolution of the tobacco lawsuit require the industry to change the way it does business, pay for the tremendous harm its illegal conduct has caused, and disclose the truth.

“Everything the tobacco industry has discussed to date falls short of the mark,” the statement said.

Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds and current director of the California-based Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, said “it would be a very good thing” if the tobacco industry agreed to government regulation.

But he was doubtful that 300 billion dollars would be enough money to compensate victims of smoking.

“Three hundred billion dollars is a drop in the ocean compared to what they (cigarette makers) might have to pay if the attorneys general will see these suits through in court,” Reynolds said.

“We have a moment of tremendous opportunity, and if we settle now we may look back well into the next century, when the tobacco companies are doing business as usual, and see this as a lost opportunity.”

bur/cb/pfm

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(new series)

625 words
17 April 1997
Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON, April 17 (AFP) – Reports that US cigarette makers are holding secret talks on a broad settlement to cover the tobacco industry’s liability in pending and future lawsuits send tobacco stock soaring on Wall Street.

Shares of RJR, parent of R.J. Reynolds, rose 3.25 dollars — more than 10 percent — to close at 33.50 dollars, while Philip Morris, the top US cigarette maker, gained 4.12 1/2 dollars to close at 43.12 1/2.

Investors acted on the belief the pending agreement would shield the tobacco industry from massive lawsuits by state governments and individuals.

The secret negotiations, begun three weeks ago, could include payment to tobacco-lawsuit plaintiffs of 300 billion dollars over 25 years, advertising restrictions and government regulation over the tobacco industry.

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, said the talks “represent an extraordinary turning point in the four-decade-long controversy over cigarettes’ toll” on the health of smokers.

Officials in several states confirmed that settlement talks were in progress and the White House said it was “monitoring” those negotiations.

Under the exploratory deal, cigarette makers would agree to tight regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and advertising controls under which they would cease using people — including that world-renowned icon, the Marlboro Man — in ads.

Twenty-two states have filed suit against the tobacco companies. One small company, Liggett, settled with the states in mid-March.

The overall settlement under discussion would require an act of Congress, the newspaper report said.

The plan would also need approval from President Bill Clinton.

“There’s been contact on and off,” McCurry said. “I don’t know whether we’re close to a settlement or not.”

“This is a desperate industry that is on the ropes in court, and it hopes throwing smokers’ money at the problem will make it go away,” Attorney General Hubert Humphrey said.

Some anti-tobacco activists noted that 300 billion dollars over 25 years was a drop in the bucket for an industry with revenues of 45 billion a year, and insignificant compared to the estimated 50 billion to 100 billion the country spends annually in smoking-related injuries.

Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds and current director of the California-based Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, said “300 billion dollars is a drop in the ocean compared to what they (cigarette makers) might have to pay if the attorneys general will see these suits through in court.

bur/fgf/job

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Metro

Eateries say smoking proposal harmful to their health

Scott Huddleston Express-News Staff Writer
680 words
30 April 1997
San Antonio Express-News
Alamo
1B

A proposed ordinance that could force many local restaurants to either ban smoking or spend thousands of dollars to accommodate smokers has raised concerns about possible damage to the city’s tourism industry.

That’s nonsense, counter non-smokers’ rights groups, which say arguments against the proposal are without merit.

“The tobacco industry likes to promote some flawed reasoning that people are going to go out of business if these kinds of laws are adopted,” said Elva Yanez, policy manager for the Berkeley, Calif.- based Americans for Non-smokers’ Rights.

“That’s sort of bogus rationale,” Yanez said.

Ordinances like the one proposed have been implemented in other U.S. cities but usually not without a fight from local restaurants, Yanez said.

Those against the proposal promised a big turnout when City Council votes Thursday on the issue.

Hit hardest would be local independent restaurateurs who can’t afford to install new walls and ventilation systems to sequester smokers from nonsmokers, said San Antonio Restaurant Association President Douglas Workman.

“It gives the large chains that have the money to spend a decided advantage,” said Workman, who expected local smoking-rights advocates and representatives of the hotel and retail industries to also voice opposition to the proposal when it comes before the council.

Under the ordinance sponsored by City Councilmen Robert Marbut Jr. and Bob Ross, food establishments would have until Oct. 1 to limit smoking only to areas with ventilation systems that clean the air every 15 minutes, or in separately enclosed areas with separate heating and cooling systems.

The other option would be to ban smoking altogether, which Workman said could be damaging for a local restaurant industry that generates an estimated $550 million annually.

“That’s a huge chunk of change to be playing with,” he said. “This doesn’t help level the playing field, either. A lot of the smaller restaurants have single-room areas.”

For those operators, costs of at least $5,000, and possibly many times that, would be incurred in construction costs – not to mention losses from downtime during renovation – to meet the minimum requirements of the ordinance, he said.

“You’re talking about a year’s worth of additional profits,” he said.

The Tower of the Americas Restaurant, which Workman manages, sits more than 600 feet high, is a historic landmark and has a 200-foot- wide ceiling. It would be cost-prohibitive to install a special smoking area as provided under the proposed ordinance, he said.

The proposed law also could hurt the city’s ability to attract visitors, particularly conventioneers from foreign nations where smoking is more socially accepted, Workman said.

Smoking ordinances such as the current one in San Antonio that require separate sections, but allow smokers and non-smokers to share air space, do little to control unwanted secondhand smoke, which studies have linked to up to 3,000 U.S. deaths annually from lung cancer, Yanez said.

“It’s like trying to swim in a non-chlorinated section of a pool,” she said. “We like local (anti-smoking laws). This is where the best enforcement comes from, partly because the tobacco industry doesn’t usually give campaign contributions to local politicians.”

Nearly 200 cities, including Wichita Falls, Carrollton, Plano and West Lake Hills in Texas, prohibit smoking in restaurants, Yanez said.

“In the cities in California where smoke-free workplace regulations have taken effect, there’s been a real change in the culture,” she said. “Kids see less role-modeling of smoking as socially acceptable.”

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and nationally known opponent of the tobacco industry, said he supports the proposed San Antonio ordinance, which he said is in line with anti-smoking laws being adopted by a growing number of U.S. cities.

“If the city wanted to do the restaurants a favor, it would ban smoking altogether,” said Reynolds, who turned against the tobacco industry after his father and brother died of emphysema and cancer.

Fast Forward

THE WEB FOR THE REST OF US
You’re not very interested in computers, though you know how to use them. You don’t work in the PC, media or communications industries. You don’t really like video games. You have not been tattooed, pierced or abducted by aliens. Is there anything at all on the World Wide Web for someone like you?

7,437 words
30 May 1997
The Washington Post
FINAL
N34

, The Washington Post Co

Unlike just about every other list of World Wide Web sites being published these days, the gathering that follows is conspicuously lacking The Hottest This and The Coolest That. In fact, we’re proud to say that most of the sites we’ve chosen are, well, lukewarm: sturdy electronic information resources that deliver admirably useful material on topics that are of some potential use. These sites are probably not going to win much attention from the propeller-heads and the digerati, but that’s just the point. This is a selection of sites that a typical civilian home computer owner of recent vintage just might find worth the time, trouble and expense of logging onto.

A few caveats: The list is arbitrary and maddeningly incomplete. We list Web sites devoted to some topics of very broad interest (family, cars, money, TV) and some that appeal to much smaller slivers of the populations (pregnancy, indoor herb gardening, wine). We’ve asked each contributor to plumb the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of sites devoted to their assigned topics and distill them to two or three or four that offer the greatest potential utility to a civilian computist. In most categories, we also asked for one good “meta-site,” a Web page that consists mostly of links to related sites. We’ve purposely ignored pages devoted to computing itself, and to the online reportage of what’s long been referred to as “news.” As a result, we’ve left out some of the Web’s most popular and well-regarded sites and elevated some curious obscurities. So be it. What you have here are a few hand-holds and toe-holds on the blind, slippery and ever-exploding mountain of information known as the Internet. Use it wisely. But most of all, use it.

…

Quitting Smoking

QuitNet

Unlike quitter sites that provide boilerplate tips and advice, this one offers three interactive questionnaires that analyze your smoking habits and offer personalized recommendations. It also offers the expected library, links and news. Forums let quitters share experiences, with help from Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program counselors.

Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth

http://tobaccofree.com

Much of the upfront info at this Web site — run by a nonprofit group founded by Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and a former smoker himself — is in-your-face activism. Go to the “Quitting Tips” link for Reynolds’s insightful soliloquy on how he quit — and how others might follow.

Meta-site: tobacco-related resources

Los Angeles Times Magazine; Times Magazine Desk

Ashes to Ashes
Suppose America Just Said No to Tobacco — What Then? Here’s a Hypothetical Look at the Probable Impact on Everyone and Everything From Smokers and Farmers to Tax Coffers and the Tobacco Companies Themselves.

Janet Wiscombe
Janet Wiscombe, a Long Beach-based writer and former smoker, is a frequent contributor to The Times
4,224 words
10 August 1997
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
8

**** Start of Correction **** August 17, 1997 Home Edition Page 8 Section: Los Angeles Times Magazine; Times Magazine Desk

FOR THE RECORD

Because of an editing error, David Kessler was misidentified as a former U.S. surgeon general in “Ashes to Ashes” (Aug. 10). He is a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. **** End of Correction ****

Linda Nuckolls, a likable middle-aged woman who looks her age, unapologetically lights a generic cigarette. From her perch on a bar stool at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, she contemplates the awful scenario: a nation without tobacco.

The smile fades. A look of horror pierces the smoky blue cloud. “Ugly,” she surmises. “It would be real ugly. It would be war between the smokers and the ‘You’re Bad and I’m Good’ people. There would be a huge underworld. There would be fighting in the streets.”

The most massive legal settlement in the nation’s history has concluded, for now. Big Tobacco has been punished, though some say not enough. As Congress debates the $368.5-billion payout and physicians and attorneys general inhale the prestige, edgy tobaccophiles ponder their fate and slink back to their endangered hiding places for a smoke.

But wait. What if there weren’t any tobacco at all? Poof. Gone. Finis. What would a world without tobacco look like?

About 400 miles up the coast, in San Francisco, Stanton Glantz is not smoking. He dwells in the smoke-free chambers of California politics and health. He is one of the nation’s most outspoken anti-smoking crusaders and the state’s recently appointed tobacco czar. It’s his job to advise the Department of Health Services how to spend its $100 million annual budget for anti-tobacco ads, education and research.

“Smoking will eventually become a private, socially unsanctioned behavior, involving only a few sleazy people,” he declares.

Others, even those who have been allies in the raging tobacco wars, visualize very different consequences.

Walker Merryman, tobacco lobbyist: “A million jobs and billions of dollars would be lost.”

Kenneth Warner, medical economist: “We can live handsomely without tobacco.”

Lester Breslow, public-health professor: “There would be a considerable, measurable increase in longevity.”

Peter Berger, sociologist: “The anti-smoking thing is a Protestant business.”

William McCarthy, psychologist: “People would eat more fruit.”

Mark Twain, writer: “If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go.”

To visualize a nation in which tobacco is banned, a concept no one is seriously advancing–including former U.S. Surgeon Generals David Kessler and C. Everett Koop–one must begin in the rural South, where tobacco is the gilded leaf, nature’s most prodigious gift.

North Carolina produces 52% of all domestically grown tobacco. Keith Beavers raises cattle and corn, soybeans and sweet potatoes on his 1,000-acre spread in Mount Olive. But tobacco is the cash cow, the crop that delivers the farm’s most stable profits. Here in Duplin County, the ubiquitous weed has built the libraries, the parks, the operas, the museums, the schools, the churches. For five generations, members of the Beavers family have planted and harvested tobacco.

“Tobacco is my lifeblood,” Beavers says. “Always has been. Always will be.” If tobacco were suddenly outlawed, he predicts many farmers in the South would be wiped out. But not him. “It would be a matter of making a few adjustments,” he says. “I’d just grow it for export.”

In California, where about 18% of the adult population smokes, it’s easy to visualize a tobacco-free society (in Davis, you can be arrested for smoking in outdoor restaurants). But in the Southeast, hundreds of communities haven’t gotten around to banning smoking in elevators. No surprise, then, that Beavers finds the concept of a nation without tobacco preposterous and unfathomable.

But the elder of his two daughters, Jeanette Creech, does not. She broke with tradition and left the family tobacco fields for a smoke-free office. Now 30, she works for the North Carolina Farm Credit Assn., which provides financing to farmers. Creech senses that the region’s thrall with tobacco may be at an end. “I’d say something serious is going to happen by the time I’m 50,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen in five years or 20 years, but I definitely see change.”

Adds Larry Wooten, a spokesman for the North Carolina Farm Bureau, “A country without tobacco is not a pretty thought. It’s the lawyers who would gain. It’s the farmers and retail merchants who would be devastated.”

As politicians and lawyers ponder payoffs of multibillion-dollar settlements, Don Richardson is talking to tobacco farmers about diversifying into crops like cabbage and tomatoes. The director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Tennessee, Richardson works with agronomists and food scientists to help farmers make a better living. Small tobacco farmers, many of whom have already been gobbled up by larger growers, are learning new ways of growing vegetables and fruits, new methods of pest control and new harvest technology. There are plenty of ways for farmers to make a living besides growing tobacco, Richardson insists. “It’s already happening.”

Despite incendiary political wars and conclusive evidence that smoking kills, the tobacco business still generates astonishing profits. Philip Morris, maker of about half of all cigarettes sold in the United States, earned $6.3 billion in profits last year, the third most profitable business in the country after Exxon and General Electric. (The figure includes non-tobacco Philip Morris products such as Miracle Whip, Velveeta cheese, Kool-Aid and Miller beer.) PM’s tobacco division last year took in $12.5 billion in the United States; if its sales were broken out, the Marlboro brand alone would rank as about the 100th-biggest corporation in the country.

In the United States, about 25% of the adult population smokes, nearly half as many as in the 1950s. That’s still 50 million people, more than voted for President Clinton in the last election. And the number of smokers is increasing dramatically in developing countries in South America, Asia and Eastern Europe. While China is the largest tobacco grower, producing 40% of the world’s supply, the top three multinational companies–Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and British American Tobacco–account for a full third of the 5.5 trillion cigarettes sold annually worldwide. Regardless of what happens in Washington, the universal desire for the prized American leaf persists from the cafes of Copenhagen to the temples of Angkor Wat.

Nevertheless, the Tobacco Institute, the industry’s key lobbyist, estimates that California would lose 17,000 jobs directly, 12,000 indirectly, if tobacco were banned; nationally there would be 662,000 fewer jobs and $15 billion less in paychecks. Kenneth Warner, an economist at the University of Michigan who is considered the country’s most astute public health researcher, has devoted a considerable chunk of his career to analyzing how the absence of tobacco would affect the nation’s economy. His conclusion: “I’d bet my bottom dollar that if tobacco consumption declines, it will actually increase employment in at least 40 of the 50 states.” If spending was reallocated from tobacco purchases to other items, most states would gain jobs because tobacco dollars would remain within the local state economy.

The economic-hardship issue is genuine for some states in the South, Warner says, but has been grotesquely exaggerated by the tobacco industry. The industry, he argues, has been largely responsible for the drop in employment in tobacco-related fields because of mechanization and the buying of tobacco overseas. “Health, not money, motivates the call for a tobacco-free society,” Warner says, adding that cigarette smoking causes more premature deaths than those from AIDS, cocaine, heroin and alcohol abuse, fire, automobile accidents, homicide and suicide combined.

Ultimately, the economic repercussions of a tobacco-free society are neither as dire as the tobacco industry implies nor as “profitable” as some members of the anti-tobacco community believe. If there were a ban, lost jobs would be made up elsewhere in the economy. “The tobacco industry implies that if there were a prohibition, tobacco money would disappear,” Warner says. “What everyone fails to mention is that the money would be spent on other things.”

It’s the kind of conclusion that angers and confuses those dependent on tobacco money. The tobacco-withdrawal industry–those who make nicotine patches and gum, for example–would eventually be sunk. Other possible losers would be magazines like Rolling Stone and Details, which rely heavily on cigarette ads for income, and retail stores that sell tobacco products. Without cigarettes, chewing tobacco, cigars and pipe tobacco, the neighborhood 7-Eleven would be a markedly different place. To say that convenience stores aren’t dependent on tobacco is like saying smoking doesn’t tar the teeth or blacken the lungs. For sheer volume of tobacco sales, the mini-mart is king. Cigarettes account for one-quarter of merchandise sales at the nation’s 95,000 convenience stores, the National Assn. of Convenience Stores estimates. But last year, for the first time, income from cigarette sales in convenience stores declined, partly because small, low-cost tobacco shops like Cigarettes Cheaper! are growing like, well, weeds. Since its first store opened in California in October 1994, the chain has sprouted into a $250-million-a-year bonanza, with 393 branches in eight states.

Convenience stores are by no means frozen in their tracks waiting for the hatchet to fall. Millions of Americans may have quit smoking, but their addiction to fast food appears insatiable. “Americans shop for lunch and dinner,” points out Lindsay Hutter of the convenience store association. “They don’t shop for food anymore. We are not walking away from the tobacco customer. But we have to reach out to new consumer bases.”

The beautiful blond in the long, vampy black satin dress puffs on a cigarette and inhales with slow, rapturous sensuality. A dapper gentleman, brandy snifter in one hand, cigar in the other, holds court at an oak-paneled bar, reeking confidence and charm.

The scenes are increasingly common. Entire Web sites, magazines, newsletters and videos devoted to the pleasures and erotic delights of smoking are flourishing. As the mainstream smokes less, smoking is entering a nether realm of cultural seduction.

Social scientists couldn’t be less surprised. Withhold tobacco and people would lust for cigarettes like never before. Smokeasies would thrive.

“The more tobacco is a taboo, the more it is eroticized,” says Richard Klein, a professor of Romance studies at Cornell University and author of “Cigarettes Are Sublime.” He argues that the more you interdict cigarettes, the more people will enjoy the danger of transgressing–particularly young people (smoking has increased among high school students for the past five years). Before it is possible to visualize a smoke-free society or even help smokers quit, Klein says, we should pay attention to why people smoke in the first place. For all their lethal properties, cigarettes also mitigate anxiety, cut appetite, promote camaraderie and provide consolation. “The most precious quality is the beauty they bring,” says Klein, who wrote his ode to cigarettes as a way of quitting, which he did. “Fire, cinder and smoke have always struck people as powerfully beautiful.”

Adds Peter Berger, a sociologist at Boston University: “In France there was an attempt to regulate smoking and the French people said, ‘Go to hell.’ France is an individualist culture. We think we are, but we aren’t. This is a conformist culture. The anti-smoking thing is related to the American puritan anti-pleasure ethos.”

For many, particularly health advocates, it’s enough to say that without tobacco everyone would be happier and healthier. End of story. But humans are complex creatures, and smoking is a complex social behavior. In his book, Klein raises the question: If tobacco were banished, would anything be lost? Smoking is a pleasure that is democratic, popular and universal, he says. “There is nowhere in the world where people do not smoke if they are allowed to.” A nation without tobacco might indeed become a more repressed, intolerant and regimented place, Klein says. No society has succeeded in getting along without smoking tobacco, he adds, which suggests that the practice will outlive the current wave of intolerance. “Without tobacco, people will seek substitutes. Maybe we’ll get back to hemp.”

Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Assn. of America, a tobacco industry trade group, says smoking is one of the great pleasures of living. A cigar after a fine meal creates a bond, a fellowship between men and women. Without tobacco, people would be more uptight–and selfish. The popularity of cigars is, in part, an antidote to the culture’s competitiveness and aggression, its obsession with youth and health, with living right, eating right, exercising right, he says. “In this country, the first crime is getting old. The second is to die. The anti-tobacco people are puritans searching for the fountain of youth.”

From his crystalline, tobacco-free office at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Monica, health psychologist William McCarthy is surrounded by an exclusive world of fitness, where people shell out $7,000 for a two-week health camp. Apart from citing the obvious physical benefits, McCarthy can come up with plenty of examples of how society would benefit without tobacco. Among them: cleaner walls and ceilings, fewer holes in clothes, fewer fires, lower insurance rates, less smoker guilt, “a better olfactory environment.”

“People who smoke smell,” he says flatly.

McCarthy is a health nut who will probably live to be 120. He predicts the day will come when the government will play a larger role in public health, urging better diets and more exercise, and “the huge societal importance of understanding the dangers of too much salt and fat.” He knows there are those who fear governmental regulations on tobacco could be just the beginning. Next could come a crackdown on caffeine, alcohol, even potato chips. “There’s some truth to the fear,” he says. It’s the kind of statement that makes tobacco lobbyist Walker Merryman go ballistic. “These are the people I call society’s shower adjusters. If you didn’t lock your bathroom door, they would be in there setting the temperature of your bath water because they know what’s best for you. The connotations are frightening.”

Entire careers in medicine and health care are devoted to the impact of tobacco–from the instructor who teaches the smoke-cessation class to the doctor who treats emphysema, the bureaucrat who doles out grants to the researcher who studies the relationship between teenagers and Joe Camel.

An estimated 420,000 American smokers die prematurely every year from smoking. The World Health Organization reports the global figure is 3 million. Dorothy Rice, an economist at UC San Francisco and a pioneer in the study of the economic impact of smoking, says the direct cost of smoking in California–for physician services, medications, hospital and nursing home expenditures–is $3.6 billion a year. Add the indirect costs, largely from lost productivity in the workplace due to smoking-related illnesses, and the total is $10 billion. Nationally, Rice says, smokers cost the country $50 billion a year in direct costs.

Yet others argue that smokers are an economic boon. Since they die prematurely, they aren’t around long enough to collect retirement benefits or linger in nursing homes. Stanford University tobacco researcher John Shoven, now dean of humanities and sciences, estimates that male smokers lose about $40,000 and female smokers $20,000 in future Social Security benefits, and he disputes research that claims smokers are such an enormous drain on the economy. If people were healthier and lived longer, major adjustments would have to be made to Social Security, he says. “People would simply have to work longer.”

Ruth Roemer, a UCLA professor who specializes in laws relating to public health, studies the impact of smoking on health worldwide. In a report she conducted for the World Health Organization on international substance abuse and tobacco control legislation, Roemer argues for an international treaty to control tobacco–“the largest single cause of preventable, premature death and disease.” By the year 2025, she says, 10 million people will die each year from smoking–particularly in developing countries where tobacco companies are concentrating their attention. “A fierce tobacco epidemic is taking place all over the world,” Roemer says. “The problem is staggering.”

If poor countries were freed from addressing smoking-related illnesses, she adds, they could address other urgent personal and environmental health issues ranging from childhood disease to sanitation and pollution. Further, if families were not spending money on tobacco, they would have more money for food.

Lester Breslow, a professor and dean emeritus at the UCLA School of Public Health and leading anti-smoking advocate, predicts that without tobacco there would be a shift in the kinds of diseases doctors treat and a subsequent shift in the medical specialties doctors pursue. If people live longer and healthier lives, Breslow says, there’d probably be more need, say, for gerontologists. The medical establishment would have far fewer patients. More attention could be paid to maintaining health throughout a person’s life, into and through old age.

“It would bring the population closer to whatever the human life span really is,” says the 82-year-old physician. “A mouse lives about two years. An elephant, 80. If there’s no accident or disease, the human life span is probably between 85 and 100.”

Dr. Michael Steinberg, an oncologist at the Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center, isn’t planning any career moves. “Cancer is a disease of aging, as well as carcinogens,” he says. In the past 40 years, he points out, the availability of pap smears has significantly decreased the number of advanced cervical cancer cases. On the other hand, more women are now being treated for breast cancer because they are living longer with the disease. What is certain, Steinberg says, is that in a tobacco-free society there would be much less illness and much better health. It wouldn’t happen overnight. When smokers quit, health risks associated with smoking gradually decline. After seven years, the risks drop dramatically but don’t completely disappear until many years later.

Smokers often say half-jokingly that without tobacco, they might be healthier physically but basket cases emotionally. Enoch Ludlow, spokesman for FORCES (Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking), says Americans already are stressed to the max. “People don’t hang out and talk anymore. They drive like maniacs,” Ludlow says. “Without tobacco, things would be worse than they already are. The decline in civility is directly related to the decline in smoking.”

Indeed, the medicinal value of nicotine has been well known to physicians and religious leaders for centuries, says Murray Jarvik, a psychiatrist at the UCLA School of Medicine and inventor of the nicotine patch. Nicotine, he says, is probably used as a way of self-medicating. He cites a University of Colorado School of Medicine study that found that people with mental illnesses were much more likely to smoke than the general population, and that from 70% to 90% of schizophrenics smoke. Without tobacco, Jarvik predicts, mentally ill and depressed people might worsen and seek something else to modulate their mood: “Maybe there would be more antidepressant drug use.”

Adds the Pritikin center’s William McCarthy, “Without tobacco, suicide rates would go up.”

Jarvik notes that one of the main virtues of nicotine is that it makes people feel good, a fact nonsmokers and members of the public-health community tend to discount. The notion that a drug might be used for pleasure is anathema to many in our society, Jarvik says. “If an average person finds a drug that will make him happier, brighter, thinner and richer, it would be hard to resist even if his doctor would not prescribe it,” he says. “Nicotine might be just such a drug.”

There is no sector of society more hooked on tobacco than the government. Tobacco is America’s most profitable cash crop, one of its most popular exports, a source of huge tax revenues and the American politician’s most generous benefactor.

At the state level, tax revenues on tobacco are manna from heaven. Americans pay an average 34 cents in state tax every time they buy a pack of cigarettes, the product that constitutes 93% of tobacco sales. Washington state imposes the highest tax–82.5 cents a pack–Virginia the least at 2.5 cents a pack, but it allows cities and towns to levy their own taxes. Californians pay 37 cents a pack. When levies on other tobacco products such as cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco and snuff are added, smokers have contributed $646 million so far this year to California’s coffers. (Taxes on alcohol reaped $264 million.) Without tobacco tax revenues, the state would have a lot less money to spend on state services ranging from housing prisoners to educating children, says Sean Walsh, Gov. Pete Wilson’s spokesman.

Walsh is reluctant to speculate how California, which grows no tobacco, would fare economically without it. “The question is complex, to put it mildly,” he says. Susanne Hildebrand-Zanki is less equivocal. “California would be vastly better off,” she maintains. “The net benefits would far outweigh what we’d give up in taxes.” Hildebrand-Zanki is head of the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program at the University of California system, which decides which researchers at private and public California institutions get funding to study the health and economic tolls of tobacco. The state’s budget for tobacco research programs has fluctuated wildly since Gov. Pete Wilson began diverting tobacco tax money to other state programs. Hildebrand-Zanki’s budget, for example, has plummeted from $25 million to $4 million. In any event, she says, “from the very beginning, we realized that if the program was successful, we would be out of a job.”

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco tycoon R.J. Reynolds, broke rank with his family and testified in 1986 against the tobacco industry before a congressional committee. He now devotes most of his energies to his Beverly Hills-based Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth. Political reform would be much more likely, Reynolds says, without the “shameful, filthy alliance Big Tobacco has with politicians.” Though he doesn’t advocate a tobacco ban, he believes a lot of smokers might actually like to see cigarettes snuffed out; it would force them to quit. Referring to the toll of tobacco-related deaths worldwide, he says: “It’s the greatest crime of the 20th century, by far.”

In the United States, tobacco has created unfiltered chasms between people. Even if it were banished, no one close to the bruising debate suggests it would vanish. With cigarettes on the verge of becoming a regulated drug, they could eventually become so nontoxic and respectable they’d just disappear, or so hot they’d be smuggled in from as far as Brazil and Zimbabwe. Smoking would become all the more alluring, says the Tobacco Institute’s Merryman, who compares the anti-smoking zealots of today with “the pursed-lipped moralists” from the turn of the last century, the architects of Prohibition. Then, as now, there was a free-floating social intolerance, a suspicion fostered by religious leaders that pleasure is immoral and the world a scary place. “If there wasn’t any tobacco, there would be no end to the social engineering,” Merryman says. “It would do great damage to the entire notion of what freedom means. Where do you draw the line?”

While President Clinton and Congress consider landmark tobacco legislation in the coming months, Denny Manning will be selling a full line of tobacco products at Cigarettes Cheaper! in Long Beach, a job that pays $6 an hour.

Manning is 50. He says smoking is the only vice he’s got left. He’s a loquacious fellow who makes the customers stopping by the smoke-friendly island feel a little less dysfunctional. A big, ugly ashtray beside the cash register overflows with butts; a 6’5″ Marlboro Man lights a cigarette from a display sign near the doorway.

Manning doesn’t pay much attention to national tobacco talk. He doesn’t know whom to believe anymore. He does wish people on both sides of the tobacco war would lighten, if not light, up. From his spot behind the counter, he takes a long drag from a Marlboro and greets a regular customer as if he were a brother from the trenches. Then he issues this warning from behind a haze of smoke: “Drive careful, young man. There’s maniacs out there.”

Tobacco Quotes

By The Associated Press
473 words
17 September 1997
04:44 pm
Associated Press Newswires

Quotes concerning President Clinton’s announcement on the tobacco deal.

—

“During the last 90 days, since we’ve been waiting for action from the White House, 267,000 kids have started smoking in this country, and 90,000 of those kids are going to die very painful, very horrible death from it. … There’s an urgency here. And I don’t think Congress ought to go home this year, and I don’t think we ought to give up our efforts this year to get something done.” – Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore, lead negotiator of the original tobacco deal.

—

“The tobacco bailout deal is dead. Now we have a chance to get it right and force this rogue industry to stop marketing to kids, expose their secrets and lies, and ensure a strong national health policy on tobacco.” – Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, who is scheduled to go to trial against tobacco companies early next year.

—

“It’s late and it’s paltry.” – Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, of Clinton’s announcement.

—

“His failure to (be more specific) eliminated what little chance we had of getting an agreement enacted this year, and makes it far more difficult for us to do so at all.” – Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va., chairman of the House Commerce Committee.

—

“I don’t feel compelled that we have to pass this in two months. I don’t feel compelled that we have to pass this in 12 months.” – Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the GOP point man on tobacco in the Senate.

—

“The American Lung Association thanks President Clinton for taking a big step forward to protect children by not endorsing a global tobacco settlement that proved woefully inadequate in addressing the nation’s tobacco-related health problems.” – John Garrison, chief executive officer, American Lung Association.

—

“President Clinton is making it clear that when it comes to protecting our children from addiction and from disease, we cannot settle for half a loaf.” – Vice President Al Gore.

—

“If we take responsibility, if we pass this legislation, if we do what we should here, if the tobacco industry will work with us, if other members of Congress in both parties will work with us, we will have gone a very long way toward creating the state of health for our children that will make America an even greater nation in the new century.” – President Clinton.

—

“That’s great. That’s terrific. That shows a great deal of courage. He’s right. Congress doesn’t need to negotiate with the tobacco industry in order to pass these regulations. Congress doesn’t need the tobacco industry’s permission to regulate it.” – Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds. Patrick Reynolds created the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth in 1989.

Tobacco Quotes

By The Associated Press
384 words
17 September 1997
01:35 pm
Associated Press Newswires

Quotes concerning President Clinton’s announcement on the tobacco deal

—

“It’s late and it’s paltry.” – Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, of Clinton’s announcement.

—

“President Clinton is making it clear that when it comes to protecting our children from addiction and from disease, we cannot settle for half a loaf.” – Vice President Al Gore.

—

Rush

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Quotes concerning President Clinton’s announcement on the tobacco deal

475 words
17 September 1997
The Associated Press

(. .)

Quotes concerning President Clinton’s announcement on the tobacco deal.

– – –

“It’s late and it’s paltry.” – Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, of Clinton’s announcement.

– – –

“President Clinton is making it clear that when it comes to protecting our children from addiction and from disease, we cannot settle for half a loaf.” – Vice President Al Gore.

– – –

“That’s great. That’s terrific. That shows a great deal of courage. He’s right. Congress doesn’t need to negotiate with the tobacco industry in order to pass these regulations. Congress doesn’t need the tobacco industry’s permission to regulate it.” – Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds. Patrick Reynolds created the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth in 1989.

Denver & The West

METRO NEWS

878 words
17 September 1997
Denver Post
Final
B-02

Tobacco heir to speak

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company, is scheduled to speak in Denver on the “Battle for a Tobaccofree Earth” on Monday at the Tivoli Turnhalle on the Auraria campus downtown.

Reynolds has been pushing nationwide for a smoke-free society since 1986. He has testified in Congress in favor of banning all cigarette advertising and lobbied for restriction of smoking on domestic airplane flights.

His father, oldest brother and other relatives reportedly died from cigarette-induced emphysema and lung cancer, and Reynolds has been campaigning ever since. LAKEWOOD Sting nets 11 men

Tobacco Quotes

By The Associated Press
459 words
18 September 1997
02:16 am
Associated Press Newswires

Quotes concerning President Clinton’s announcement on the tobacco deal

—

“Today will go down in history as the day President Bill Clinton made the Marlboro Man blink and the health of the nation’s children prevailed over the profits of the tobacco industry. The proposed tobacco settlement was grossly inadequate to protect children and reach other vital public health goals.” – Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

—

“It’s late and it’s paltry.” – Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, of Clinton’s announcement.

—

“This isn’t about what’s best for Big Tobacco – it’s what’s best for young kids. It’s about protecting young people from getting hooked and trapped and killed by tobacco. So we don’t need to rush into this. Let’s wait for the smoke to clear, take the time and do this right.” – Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

—

“I think the American people are expecting the Congress to deliver on this. We are not going to sit by and let the hemorrhaging of the taxpayers’ money continue.” – Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

—

“This is not just about money. It’s about reducing addiction and illness in the American people. Today, whether the tobacco companies know it or not, the obituary for their proposal is practically written.” – Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.

Rush

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NEWS
EVENING. People. QUOTES OF THE DAY.

EVENING. People. QUOTES OF THE DAY.

578 words
18 September 1997
Chicago Tribune
EVENING UPDATE; C
2

`This is a setback for those of us who want to deter crime. And it’s another reason for someone to say “Oh forget it, don’t call a cop.” ‘ — Teresa Fraga, president of the Pilsen Neighbors community group, on the memo a Monroe District police commander wrote stereotyping Latinos.

LOUIS SLUGGER MARK McGWIRE, WHO HAS HIT 53 HOME RUNS THIS SEASON, SAYING HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE FUSS OVER HIS FEAT: `So how much more can you talk about hitting a home run?’

`We had our 15 seconds of fame.’

— John Crocco, a football player for Alden-Hebron High School, on the school’s having to forfeit the rest of its season because of injuries of three players. In order to have enough players to field a team earlier in the season, two girls played, drawing national attention.

`Some kid, somewhere, somehow is going to (eat the lollipop). But do we deny this benefit to cancer patients for that reason?’

— Nurse Suzanna Brown, on the raspberry-flavored lollipop loaded with narcotic pain-killer for treatment of cancer patients that was recommended for FDA approval Wednesday.

`I could have put it on the night stand and just sniffed it.’

— Jennifer Schmermund, who says she was taking just small amounts of fertility drugs when she became pregnant. She gave birth to fraternal quadruplets Wednesday in New Orleans.

`I’m sorry to see that buildings cannot be named for people who have given a lifetime of service to the university. . . . Now it has to go to people with money.’

— David Dyche, grandson of William Dyche, on the renaming of Northwestern’s Dyche Stadium to Ryan Field after Patrick Ryan gave millions for renovations.

`I’ll still pay. It’s worth it.’

— Jeff Adams, a 17-year-old Chicago-area student, who says higher cigarette prices won’t prevent him from smoking.

`That’s great. That’s terrific. That shows a great deal of courage. He’s right. Congress doesn’t need to negotiate with the tobacco industry in order to pass these regulations. Congress doesn’t need the tobacco industry’s permission to regulate it.’

— Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, on President Clinton’s move Thursday to reject the tobacco settlement as written. Patrick Reynolds created the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth in 1989.

PHOTOS 4; Caption: PHOTO: `I sold women’s shoes. These women with size 10 feet would come in and insist they were 8 narrows. And you can’t argue with a woman about her feet.’ –Actor George Clooney, telling Entertainment Weekly what his hardest job was before he became famous. PHOTO: `Patience has limits.’ Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, asked whether he expected riots as a result of the compromise reached between the Israeli government and Israeli settlers in the Ras al-Amoud neighborhood of 11,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be the capital of an independent state. Above, police drag away left-wing Israeli demonstrators from a rooftop near the settler compound. AP photo. PHOTOS: “When I read certain passages from the book, it can still, after all this time, bring up this devotion in me. Michele and I had wanted to do something together, and this was like a gift. . . .’ — Jessica Lange (left), on working with Michelle Pfeiffer (right) on the film version of the novel “A Thousand Acres,” which opens Friday.

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Smoked out

711 words
22 September 1997
Bangor Daily News Bangor, ME
ALL

The deal state attorneys general crafted with Big Tobacco this summer was a good start, but the plan President Clinton unveiled last week is better. Better because it’s tougher.

The $368 billion settlement the attorneys general worked out had from the start a slightly suspect aroma — its primary focus was on ending lawsuits rather than reducing teen smoking, the tobacco industry got to keep too many of its secrets, it hampered the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate nicotine, it prohibited courts from awarding punitive damages and from punishing past misconduct, the payments were spread out over such a long time, 25 years, that the only real impact would have been slightly higher cigarette prices.

Then there’s the $50 billion break the industry and its friends in Congress weaseled into the recent tax bill, proof enough that good faith was not part of the bargaining process. Why Big Tobacco settled so quickly became increasingly apparent as the deal was scrutinized.

The president’s proposal packs a lot more punch. Penalties for missing goals of reducing teen smoking are stiffer. The industry’s veil of secrecy is somewhat lifted and its liability shield lowered. The FDA will face no special hurdles. And the $50 billion giveaway goes in the dumper.

There’s one more component that many may find distasteful but that is necessary — provisions to help tobacco farmers break their own nasty habit.

It would be too easy to tell the nation’s 124,000 growers to pound sand, to say they are the problem and putting them out of business is the solution.

But it’s not that simple. About two-thirds of the nation’s tobacco is grown in North Carolina and Kentucky by small farmers just getting by. A problem that took centuries to develop should not be solved by devastating hundreds of rural communities overnight. Tobacco is a high-yield, relatively failure-proof product but a switch to soybeans or another worthwhile crop may be feasible if the farmers get the assistance they need.

Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore, lead negotiator of the original deal, likes where the president is heading, but is skeptical about Congress’s willingness to get there anytime soon, given its long history of playing footsie with Big Tobacco.

Moore’s skepticism is justified. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, whose fingerprints were all over the $50 billion tax break, called Clinton’s proposal “late and paltry.” Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, the GOP’s true blue Marlboro man, says there’s no rush to consider the plan. Despite the fact that more than 250,000 kids started smoking since the original deal was struck three months ago, Nickles says there’s nothing urgent here. Too little, too late or too much, too soon. Take your pick.

As leading Republican senators went into their stonewalling mode, their counterparts in the House surely discussed the ramifications of the president’s plan on their way to a fund-raiser in New York City Wednesday night. And just how did Messrs. Gingrich, Armey, DeLay, et al. get to the Big Apple, you ask? On corporate jets provided by U.S. Tobacco Co. The only way to fly.

Despite its tendancy toward business as usual, there are signs Congress is inclined get tough on tobacco. Inone of its first acts after August recess, the Senate overwhelmingly backed an amendment, co-sponsored by Maine’s Sen. Susdan Collins, that excised the $50 billion shenanigan from the tax bill. Last week, at the president’s urging, the House affirmed its support by voice vote for the same amendment.

The best part of the president’s plan, though, is that it puts Big Tobacco in its place — not as an equal partner in negotiations but as an industry with a substantial impact upon public health that should be controlled as are other such industries and that should pay for that impact.

At least that’s what Patrick Reynolds says: “Congress doesn’t need to negotiate with the tobacco industry in order to pass these regulations. Congress doesn’t need the tobacco industry’s permission to regulate it.” Reynolds, head of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, by the way, is the grandson of R.J. Reynolds.

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Denver & The West

U.S. will end cigarette use, students told Reynolds Co. heir explains how tobacco firms sway Congress

Ann Schrader Denver Post Medical Writer
361 words
23 September 1997
Denver Post
Rockies
B-03

The grandson of the man who founded the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company said Monday that America is moving toward snuffing out public use and acceptance of cigarettes.

“There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” Patrick Reynolds told students on the Auraria campus. “In the 21st century, we are going to have a smoke-free society. It’s coming.”

Reynolds, who saw his father, oldest brother and other relatives die of cigarette-related diseases, founded the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, a nonprofit, charitable organization.

As a speaker and an anti-tobacco advocate, Reynolds lobbied for a 25-cent per-pack cigarette tax increase in California in 1988 and a new law banning cigarette sales to people under 21.

His lecture was part of the “Towering Issues of Today” series and was sponsored by several Auraria campus groups.

The Reynolds family hasn’t worked in the tobacco business actively for about 50 years, Reynolds said.

But he frequently gets questioned about what his family thinks of his advocacy.

“Some of them don’t like it much,” he said.

Reynolds noted that the tobacco industry holds great sway with Congress, contributing $16 million in the last budget cycle and $2.5 million so far this year to senators and representatives.

“Eighty to 90 percent goes to Republicans,” Reynolds said. “They have an alliance with the Republicans and nobody is talking about it … I’m here to tell you, it’s a partisan issue.”

Reynolds criticized what he said was congressional foot-dragging on the enactment of limits to cigarette advertising, laws barring the purchase of cigarettes by minors and new taxes on tobacco products.

“The tobacco industry just sits back and waits for children to become addicted,” Reynolds contended.

When the tobacco companies saw smoking drop in the United States, they began an aggressive ad campaign in the Third World, he said. Now, 9 percent of the world population smokes.

“The tobacco companies are deliberately killing 500 million people,” Reynolds said.

dnvr000020011006dt9n00j5k

NORTHWEST LIVING

DAD, SON MAKE PEACE: BREATHE AND LET BREATHE

MARGIE BOULE – of The Oregonian staff
1,161 words
28 September 1997
Portland Oregonian
SUNRISE
L01

If life had gone according to plan, today B.J. Hall would be a tobacco farmer in Kentucky.

Instead, he was just installed as the president of the board of the American Lung Association of Oregon.

B.J.’s father, J.C. Hall, still grows tobacco in Kentucky. In fact, he’s one of the top 10 producers in the state. It’s J.C.’s farm that B.J. assumed he would one day run, when B.J. envisioned his future long ago.

Instead B.J. runs an organization whose business is to persuade people not to smoke.

But this is not the story of the kind of family feud that has torn apart the R.J. Reynolds family. Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the tobacco magnate, saw his father, brother and other relatives die of emphysema and lung cancer. So he founded The Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth. He travels the world trying to persuade people not to buy tobacco products. He is not the favorite son.

It’s different in B.J. Hall’s family. Maybe it’s because B.J.’s relatives understand why he’s so worried about every breath people take. Maybe it’s because they know about B.J.’s own struggle for breath. Maybe it’s because B.J. wanted to be a tobacco farmer so long ago and, if he tries, he can still see the world in terms of pounds-produced-per-acre.

B.J. and his dad have made their peace. “We’ll discuss politics, and we’ll discuss religion,” B.J. says. “But we won’t discuss tobacco.”

B.J. Hall was born in the house his family has lived in for six generations, near Louisville. “In the county deed book, No. 1, Volume 1, is the original transaction when we bought the farm,” B.J. says.

B.J. says his father was a “progressive farmer. He moved from dairy farming to grass right after the war.” There was a big demand for lawns in the ’50s. “Then he moved to beef. From beef to hogs. And since then, he’s been a tobacco farmer. He told me his decisions were based strictly on economics.”

B.J. was the biggest, fastest, strongest kid in grade school. That, and his future as a farmer, all changed on April 9, 1954.

“Dad was dairy farming. My job was to take my dog, Rags, and herd the cattle into the barn. If cattle were heading in the wrong direction, I’d jump up and head them off. That day I couldn’t jump up. I had to crawl to a fence post to pull myself up.” His fever was 105 degrees. He had polio.

He awoke in the hospital, in an iron lung. “After I was an adult, my parents told me I hadn’t been expected to live.” But he did. After a long hospital stay, B.J. was fitted with leg braces and sent home. Right away his parents put him to work.

“One of my first memories is when my father lifted me over the fence and put me in the pigpen. He handed me an aluminum scoop. I had just regained some use of my arms. He told me to scoop the corncobs out of the pigpen. Every day I’d scoop a little more until finally it wasn’t a big chore anymore.” So his parents gave him new chores. “They would always find challenges that were a reach for me.”

B.J. recovered well. He gives credit to God and to his parents. “They didn’t believe there was a thing in the world I couldn’t do.” Except farm.

“When your father’s the biggest and perceived to be the best farmer around, it’s natural for the oldest son to want to follow in his father’s footsteps.” B.J. didn’t want to go to college — he wanted to stay home and help run the farm.

“But my parents saw my limitations as a result of having been completely paralyzed. They insisted I go to college. You did not argue with my father. So I majored in agriculture.” He majored in accounting, too, and then became a CPA who specialized in health care. He wrote the first book about auditing hospital accounts. He became a hospital administrator in Ohio.

And then one day he discovered his 13-year-old daughter was smoking. “I brought her in to a cancer ward. Of course, it was easy to find people dying of lung cancer. I also got her information from the lung association so she could put the statistics together with her real-life experience.”

B.J.’s effort failed; his daughter is grown and still smokes. “Every year it’s her New Year’s resolution: She’s going to quit. She was in the Marine Corps. She’s very disciplined.” But she can’t quit. B.J. thinks it’s because tobacco companies have worked for decades to make cigarettes as addictive as possible.

“I don’t find the growing of tobacco, a crop that’s served this nation well — it helped pay our debts for the Revolutionary War — to be offensive. What I find offensive is the big tobacco companies that, through genetic breeding, have created a plant that is far more addictive than 100 years ago. And then they add horrible chemicals that increase the addictive functions and irritate the lungs.

“They’ve taken a product that helped rural farmers survive and turned it into a dangerous, life-threatening product.”

B.J. Hall smoked one cigarette in his life. “Every good Southern boy has smoked at least once,” he says. “I took a drag off a cigarette and coughed and gagged.” He never smoked again, except for an annual cigar on his grandfather’s birthday. He had to quit even that a few years ago when he was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome after moving to Oregon.

Now B.J. has only about 35 percent of normal lung capacity. The son of the tobacco farmer can empathize with the smokers who struggle for breath.

That’s why he joined the board of the American Lung Association. He’s working hard to persuade smokers — especially his daughter — to quit. But don’t ask him to persuade his father to quit growing tobacco.

“Dad grows tobacco because it produces more income per acre than any other crop he could grow. I respect that economic decision. I participate with the lung association to discourage people from smoking because it is hazardous to their health. And Dad respects that decision.

“If he didn’t produce tobacco, someone else would.”

All B.J. has to do is persuade the world not to buy it.

Reach Margie Boule at 221-8450, 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, Ore. 97201, or Marboule@aol.com.

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Up in smoke: kicking butt

The wages of sin: the tobacco companies will now pay for smoking and anti-smoking ads.

(includes related article on anti-smoking legislation)

Eleftheria Parpis
2,678 words
13 October 1997
ADWEEK Eastern Edition
33
Vol. 38, No. 41, ISSN: 0199-2864

ADWEEK L.P.

Smoking may be stealing front-page headlines, but anti-smoking campaigns are as old as the first cigarette. Consider the colorful history of its detractors when smoke got in their eyes.

In the early 1600s, King James I of England denounced the vice, describing it as “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

Not to be outdone, a former school teacher named Lucy Page Gaston founded one of the earliest anti-smoking groups in tobacco history some 300 years later.

Of course, much like many of today’s advocates, Gaston’s crusade for a “clean life” was geared to the young. The earnest reformer launched the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League and later ran for president on an anti-smoking platform, even attacking her opponent, Warren Harding, as having a distrustful “cigarette face.”

While her outrageous tactics ultimately compromised her views and led to her forced resignation from the group in 1919, Gaston’s efforts marked the historic beginning of a century long public relations war between the tobacco industry and anti-tobacco groups.

Sound familiar? Long ago, Gaston warned boys that the free trading cards adorned with images of actors, actresses and sports stars that came with cigarettes were not worth the health risks. Today, anti-tobacco groups fight against savvy merchandising programs such as Marlboro Miles and Camel Cash.

While cigarette makers have used glamour, style and sex appeal to peddle their products, heath-advocacy groups such as the American Cancer Society have worked diligently to educate people about the hazards of smoking. It’s been a Herculean effort. Last year, cigarette companies spent $675 million on advertising, according to Competitive Media Reporting. By contrast, anti-smoking campaigns, constricted by diminutive budgets and dependence on donated media time, have been drowned out by the walloping advertising budgets of tobacco companies. Until now.

As part of the nation’s landmark $368.5 billion settlement reached by the tobacco industry (Brown & Williamson, R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and Lorillard) and 40 state attorneys general in June, cigarette manufacturers will settle lawsuits by awarding punitive damages, submit to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration and drastically alter their marketing programs in exchange for immunity from future class actions. In addition, they will have to spend $500 million yearly to combat their own ads by financing anti-tobacco advertising. President Clinton has proposed an additional $1.50 per pack price hike, as well.

If other states follow Florida’s lead, the spending for anti-smoking messages in the next few years may surpass the ad budget of the tobacco industry. For instance, as part of a Florida settlement negotiated in late August, the tobacco companies agreed to pay the state $200 million to be used for an anti-smoking campaign that will include advertising, educational programs and stricter policing of tobacco sales to minors over a two-year period. The settlement was also extended to Mississippi.

In the past, most anti-smoking advertising was done pro bono and provided by the American Cancer Society or the American Lung Association. But in 1969, broadcasters were forced to donate equal time to tobacco-control groups. When legislation banned cigarette ads on TV and radio two years later, anti-smoking spots were relegated to off-peak hours. The time slot rendered even the most meaningful messages impotent.

That was then; this is now.

In recent years, viewers have seen a slow, steady rise in prime-time anti-smoking ads. The reason? Pro bono ads were transformed into paid media accounts funded by state cigarette tax revenues. A public health hazard proved to be a boon to the ad industry.

In 1989, California passed legislation to run paid-for anti-smoking ad campaigns funded by cigarette tax revenues. Massachusetts passed similar legislation in 1992, as did Arizona in 1994. Oregon followed suit this year.

Legislation follows on the heels of exhaustive activism. Much like their past counterparts, anti-smoking crusaders perceive their work as a fight to the finish. “We are in a war,” insists Colleen Stevens, chief of California’s tobacco control media campaign. “The media is the air cover and the other programs our ground troops.”

The prospect of a national commitment in the battle against tobacco offers tremendous encouragement to health groups nationwide. “We are pleased [with recent developments],” adds Stevens. “The more players that are out there, the better. This is a national tragedy.”

National health groups estimate there are approximately 45 million smokers in the United States and that some 3,000 teenagers pick up the habit every day.

“The tobacco industry spends $6 billion to make smoking part of the culture, to make people think it is normal,” says Stevens. “There’s nothing normal about it. One-third to one-half of the people who smoke die from smoking-related illnesses.”

Since research has shown that most adult smokers pick up the habit in their teenage years, anti-smoking efforts have focused serious attention on reducing and preventing teen smoking. As part of the $368.5 billion settlement, tobacco companies will have to pay up to $2 billion a year in additional penalties if underage smoking doesn’t fall by 30 percent in five years and 60 percent in 10 years.

Ironically, the talents of the advertising community, which helped the tobacco companies to expand its $10 billion industry for decadesf40, are now being sought by the government to undo its successes. Agencies that handle state-funded anti-smoking accounts–such as Asher/Gould in Los Angeles, Houston Herstek Favat in Boston and The Riester Corp. in Phoenix–are charged with the task of un-selling one of the most heavily marketed products of the 20th century.

“It is a very challenging account,” admits Bruce Dundore, executive vice president and creative director of Asher/Gould. Since 1994, his agency has worked on the California Department of Health Services’ (CDHS) tobacco-control account, which currently spends an estimated $22 million on media.

“It’s tough to get people not to buy stuff, especially when it’s a product equated with pleasure,” Gould admits. Still, Asher/Gould hasn’t been timid in its criticism of the tobacco industry. One of the agency’s early spots for the CDHS featured footage of the heads of major tobacco companies testifying before Congress that they did not believe nicotine was addictive.

“Now the tobacco industry tells us secondhand smoke isn’t dangerous. Do they think we’re stupid?” asks the voiceover. Another controversial spot showed a man fishing, reeling in one after another. Close-ups show the fish lying on the deck, struggling to breathe. “The tobacco industry knows the more nicotine their cigarettes have, the more hooked you’ll be,” the ad notes. “But you know whet they say. There’s plenty more fish in the sea. They profit; you lose. The tobacco industry.”

Asher/Gould’s most recent efforts have continued to strip tobacco companies of their innocence with a sharper emphasis on teens. The agency has been particularly successful in using the industry’s advertising icons to hammer home its own anti-smoking messages.

In one spot, for example, the cowboys of Marlboro country are cast as tobacco marketers and their cattle is a herd of children. “This is how the guys who make cigarettes want you to see them, and this is how they see you,” says the voiceover, while the ranchers steer the kids into a pen. “Once they get you where they want you, they’ve got you for life. If you knew what they thought,” the spot warns, “you’d think twice.”

So compelling are some anti-smoking spots that Boston’s Houston Herstek Favat has built a creative reputation on its award-winning commercials for the $12 million Massachusetts Department of Health account.

Some of the agency’s most powerful spots show the harsh medical realities of the effects of smoking. In one memorable ad, a man sings “Happy Birthday” to the tobacco industry through the shrill, electronic tones of his voice box. “Celebrating 121 years of fine tobacco products,” says the spot. “It’s time we made smoking history.”

A powerful Houston Herstek campaign called “The Truth” features testimonials from ax-employees and former supporters of the tobacco industry. In one spot, former tobacco lobbyist Victor Crawford speaks out on the industry’s recruitment of young smokers. “I was a lobbyist, and I know how tobacco companies work … I lied, and I’m sorry,” he says. The spot ends with a frame stating that Crawford later died from throat cancer. “It was sort of a deathbed confession,” says Pete Favat, creative director and partner at the agency.

In a recent ad in the series, the brother of one of the Marlboro man models tells of his sibling’s death from lung cancer Another Houston Herstek spot features a powerful endorsement for the anti-smoking movement. Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, talks about the hidden chemicals found in cigarettes. “Why am I telling you this?” he asks. “I want my family to be on the right side for a change.”

“We don’t want the ads to be lofty messages from the government,” says Favat. “We w,anted the messages to come from kids and people involved in the industries.” Teen ads have focused on anti-social aspects of smoking, such as one graphic ad that shows how ugly a smoker can be on a date when he coughs up a lung.

In Arizona, The Riester Corp. has adopted the vernacular of teenagers to reach them in a $20 million campaign that calls smoking a “tumor-causing, teeth-staining, smelly, puking habit.” The campaign, according to David Robb, vice president and creative director of The Riester Corp., attempts to take the “cool” out of cigarette smoking.

“They can listen to what the tobacco industry is telling them, but I am giving them another brand–not smoking,” says Robb. “We are giving them the ammunition to say, `I’m OK if I don’t smoke.’”

The ad campaign, which the Center for Disease Control recently distributed to 15 more states, is augmented with the “Ash-Kicker,” a 43-foot traveling exhibition that gives children the unusual experience of walking through a model of a smoker’s diseased body.

“It’s a horror show. Kids love it,” says Robb. The agency has also borrowed a popular marketing technique from cigarette companies–merchandising. It sells T-shirts, caps and other items branded with the ad slogan.

Despite their best efforts, there is little evidence to suggest that the anti-smoking campaigns have been overly effective, especially among teens. Stevens admits that, while cigarette consumption in California has dropped from 28 percent to 18 percent since the tobacco-control program began, the rate of smoking among teenagers has not declined. It has, however, stabilized in California, much as it has in Massachusetts.

Not surprisingly, the lackluster results have left some taxpayers skeptical of the power of the advertising. “Anti-smoking ads are a great way to win awards,” says Boston-based freelance copywriter John Welsh. “It’s like any other advertising. It’s not a science. Some ads work; some don’t. If you have a cousin who dies of lung cancer, that’s more powerful than any commercial.”

While cigarette companies have had ample opportunity to market the chic lifestyle of a smoker, anti-smoking advertising is still in its infancy. For those agencies armed with creativity, savvy research and, most importantly, tax dollars to support their campaigns, the anti-smoking battle has just begun.

“It’s great to sell products, but with this account, maybe I can save a kid from smoking. We’re known as such shills in this business,” Favat muses. “Hopefully, we will look back on cigarette advertisements as something of the past. We need to strip down an American icon.”

“God is on your side with an account like this,” adds Robb. “You are dealing with a behavioral issue here.” He sees his anti-smoking work in terms of David and Goliath. “We’re the little guys against the big corporate giants. It’s a challenge. Can it be done? Well, you want to be the one who does it. You want to go out and slay the dragon.”

UP IN SMOKE: KICKING BUTT

2,098 words
13 October 1997
ADWEEK Southwest
33
ISSN: 0746-892X

ADWEEK L.P. Information Access Company.

The wages of sin: The tobacco companies will now pay for smoking and anti-smoking ads.

Eleftheria Parpis

Smoking may be stealing front-page headlines, but anti-smoking campaigns are as old as the first cigarette. Consider the colorful history of its detractors when smoke got in their eyes.

In the early 1600s, King James I of England denounced the vice, describing it as ‘a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.’

Not to be outdone, a former school teacher named Lucy Page Gaston founded one of the earliest anti-smoking groups in tobacco history some 300 years later.

Of course, much like many of today’s advocates, Gaston’s crusade for a ‘clean life’ was geared to the young. The earnest reformer launched the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League and later ran for president on an anti-smoking platform, even attacking her opponent, Warren Harding, as having a distrustful ‘cigarette face.’

While her outrageous tactics ultimately compromised her views and led to her forced resignation from the group in 1919, Gaston’s efforts marked the historic beginning of a century-long public relations war between the tobacco industry and anti-tobacco groups.

In the past, most anti-smoking advertising was done pro bono and provided by the American Cancer Society or the’ American Lung Association. But in 1969, broadcasters were forced to donate equal time to tobacco-control groups. When legislation banned cigarette ads on TV and radio two years later, anti-smoking spots were relegated to off-peak hours. The time slot rendered even the most meaningful messages impotent.

That was then; this is now.

Legislation follows on the heels of exhaustive activism. Much like their past counterparts, anti-smoking crusaders perceive their work as a fight to the finish. ‘We are in a war,’ insists Colleen Stevens, chief of California’s tobacco control media campaign. ‘The media is the air cover and the other programs our ground troops.’

The prospect of a national commitment in the battle against tobacco offers tremendous encouragement to health groups nationwide. ‘We are pleased [with recent developments],’ adds Stevens. ‘The more players that are out there, the better. This is a national tragedy.’

National health groups estimate there are approximately 45 million smokers in the United States and that some 3,000 teenagers pick up the habit every day.

‘The tobacco industry spends $6 billion to make smoking part of the culture, to make people think it is normal,’ says Stevens. ‘There’s nothing normal about it. One-third to one-half of the people who smoke die from smoking-related illnesses.’

Ironically, the talents of the advertising community, which helped the tobacco companies to expand its $10 billion industry for decadesf40, are now being sought by the government to undo its successes. Agencies that handle state-funded anti-smoking accounts – such as Asher/Gould in Los Angeles, Houston Herstek Favat in Boston and The Riester Corp. in Phoenix – are charged with the task of un-selling one of the most heavily marketed products of the 20th century.

‘It is a very challenging account,’ admits Bruce Dundore, executive vice president and creative director of Asher/Gould. Since 1994, his agency has worked on the California Department of Health Services’ (CDHS) tobacco-control account, which currently spends an estimated $22 million on media.

‘It’s tough to get people not to buy stuff, especially when it’s a product equated with pleasure,’ Gould admits. Still, Asher/Gould hasn’t been timid in its criticism of the tobacco industry. One of the agency’s early spots for the CDHS featured footage of the heads of major tobacco companies testifying before Congress that they did not believe nicotine was addictive.

‘Now the tobacco industry tells us secondhand smoke isn’t dangerous. Do they think we’re stupid?’ asks the voiceover. Another controversial spot showed a man fishing, reeling in one after another. Close-ups show the fish lying on the deck, struggling to breathe. ‘The tobacco industry knows the more nicotine their cigarettes have, the more hooked you’ll be,’ the ad notes. ‘But you know what they say. There’s plenty more fish in the sea. They profit; you lose. The tobacco industry.’

In one spot, for example, the cowboys of Marlboro country are cast as tobacco marketers and their cattle is a herd of children. ‘This is how the guys who make cigarettes want you to see them, and this is how they see you,’ says the voiceover, while the ranchers steer the kids into a pen. ‘Once they get you where they want you, they’ve got you for life. If you knew what they thought,’ the spot warns, ‘you’d think twice.’

Some of the agency’s most powerful spots show the harsh medical realities of the effects of smoking. In one memorable ad, a man sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to the tobacco industry through the shrill, electronic tones of his voice box. ‘Celebrating 121 years of fine tobacco products,’ says the spot. ‘It’s time we made smoking history.’

A powerful Houston Herstek campaign called ‘The Truth’ features testimonials from ex-employees and former supporters of the tobacco industry. In one spot, former tobacco lobbyist Victor Crawford speaks out on the industry’s recruitment of young smokers. ‘I was a lobbyist, and I know how tobacco companies work … I lied, and I’m sorry,’ he says. The spot ends with a frame stating that Crawford later died from throat cancer. ‘It was sort of a deathbed confession,’ says Pete Favat, creative director and partner at the agency.

In a recent ad in the series, the brother of one of the Marlboro man models tells of his sibling’s death from lung cancer. Another Houston Herstek spot features a powerful endorsement for the anti-smoking movement. Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, talks about the hidden chemicals found in cigarettes. ‘Why am I telling you this?’ he asks. ‘I want my family to be on the right side for a change.’

‘We don’t want the ads to be lofty messages from the government,’ says Favat. ‘We wanted the messages to come from kids and people involved in the industries.’ Teen ads have focused on anti-social aspects of smoking, such as one graphic ad that shows how ugly a smoker can be on a date when he coughs up a lung.

In Arizona, The Riester Corp. has adopted the vernacular of teenagers to reach them in a $20 million campaign that calls smoking a ‘tumor-causing, teeth-staining, smelly, puking habit.’ The campaign, according to David Robb, vice president and creative director of The Riester Corp., attempts to take the ‘cool’ out of cigarette smoking.

‘They can listen to what the tobacco industry is telling them, but I am giving them another brand – not smoking,’ says Robb. ‘We are giving them the ammunition to say, ‘I’m OK if I don’t smoke.’

The ad campaign, which the Center for Disease Control recently distributed to 15 more states, is augmented with the ‘Ash-Kicker,’ a 43-foot traveling exhibition that gives children the unusual experience of walking through a model of a smoker’s diseased body.

‘It’s a horror show. Kids love it,’ says Robb. The agency has also borrowed a popular marketing technique from cigarette companies – merchandising. It sells T-shirts, caps and other items branded with the ad slogan.

Not surprisingly, the lackluster results have left some taxpayers skeptical of the power of the advertising. ‘Antismoking ads are a great way to win awards,’ says Boston-based freelance copywriter John Welsh. ‘It’s like any other advertising. It’s not a science. Some ads work; some don’t. If you have a cousin who dies of lung cancer, that’s more powerful than any commercial.’

‘It’s great to sell products, but with this account, maybe I can save a kid from smoking. We’re known as such shills in this business,’ Favat muses. ‘Hopefully, we will look back on cigarette advertisements as something of the past. We need to strip down an American icon.’

‘God is on your side with an account like this,’ adds Robb. ‘You are dealing with a behavioral issue here.’ He sees his anti-smoking work in terms of David and Goliath. ‘We’re the little guys against the big corporate giants. It’s a challenge. Can it be done? Well, you want to be the one who does it. You want to go out and slay the dragon.’

aswe000020011005dtad000fj

Le Mirador to Become First Smoke-Free 5-Star Hotel in Europe

1,033 words
15 October 1997
12:18 pm
PR Newswire

1997, PR Newswire)

VEVEY, Switzerland, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Le Mirador Hotel and Spa in Switzerland announced today that it will become the first smoke-free 5-Star hotel in Europe. On November 1, smoking will be banned in all three of its restaurants, as well as its lobby, bar, salon, hallways, elevators, restrooms, limos, spa, pool and other public areas. It will become the first member of The Leading Hotels of the World and Preferred Hotels & Resorts Worldwide to adopt this policy. Le Mirador makes this bold move at a time when smoke-free bars, lounges and restaurants are virtually nonexistent in Europe.

Located on Mont-Pelerin, 1200 feet above Lake Geneva, Le Mirador features a panoramic view of the lake, the Alps and the Swiss Riviera. It is about 20 minutes from Lausanne; about 50 minutes from Geneva.

Le Mirador’s American owner Joseph M. Segel said, “Everyone tells us that breaking with European hotel tradition and catering primarily to non-smokers is a very bold thing to do, but we don’t mind being a pioneer. Recent surveys show that a majority of travelers would prefer staying at a hotel where they won’t be exposed to tobacco smoke, so we feel that this is an idea whose time has come. And with the air in this part of Switzerland so clean and pure, it’s an exciting mission to make the air inside Le Mirador as refreshing as it is outside. We intend to become an international oasis for non-smokers.

“While in all cases precedence will be given to the interests of non-smokers, smokers will not be left completely out in the cold,” Segel said. “We will have a separately-ventilated smokers’ lounge and a small number of smoking-optional rooms, each equipped with an independent ventilation system to prevent tobacco smoke from getting into any other part of the hotel. Our new policy, very simply, will be to make sure that no guests will be bothered by tobacco smoke anywhere at Le Mirador.”

Segel is no stranger to innovation. He was the founder of The Franklin Mint and QVC Network. Just a few months ago he shook up the cosmetic industry by having the Spa at Le Mirador conduct an international competition, utilizing double-blind testing by an independent American testing laboratory to cut through conflicting claims and find out which skincare products really work best.

As an additional service for guests who are smokers and are having difficulty quitting, on November 1 Le Mirador’s Spa will begin offering week- long smoking cessation programs. After February 1, weekend programs will also be offered. Le Mirador’s smoking cessation programs will be medically supervised and will be individually personalized with a blend of motivation, stress management, mild exercise, healthy cuisine, herbal supplements, and the latest nicotine substitution products.

The decision to go smoke-free comes at a time when 9.5 million Americans are expected to visit Europe this year, according to the European Travel Commission. Surveys of American travelers have indicated that their most anticipated activity is restaurant dining. And according to a new nationwide ICR survey released today, an overwhelming majority (82.6%) of Americans traveling to Europe prefer dining in a smoke-free environment.

There is strong medical support for protecting people from secondhand smoke. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the annual number of deaths attributable to exposure to airborne tobacco smoke in the U.S. alone is 53,000. And a new report from researchers at the Harvard School or Public Health found that secondhand cigarette smoke is “far more dangerous than previously thought.” The results of the 10-year Harvard study found that regular exposure to secondhand smoke almost doubled the risk of heart disease, dwarfing the number of deaths from lung cancer.

Health Advocates Applaud Le Mirador’s Initiative

Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, one of the best known experts on fitness and preventive medicine, whose books have sold more than 30 million copies, commented, “My first and greatest commandment of good health has always been — don’t smoke! We must also try to stay away from airborne tobacco smoke, which is toxic and very unhealthy to breathe. My wife and I have personally enjoyed the refreshing air of Mont Pelerin and the beautiful facilities at Le Mirador, and we are gratified to hear that Le Mirador is taking the lead in introducing the smoke-free concept to Europe. We can now look forward to enjoying it all the more when we return.”

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and The President of The Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, enthusiastically endorses Le Mirador’s move to go smoke-free. “Several of my closest relatives, including my father and brother, have died from smoking-related diseases,” Reynolds said, “so I have chosen to devote my life to spreading the word that both smoking and smoke are unhealthy. Hotels have been particularly slow to get that message. Le Mirador is one of the most beautiful and relaxing resorts I have ever stayed at, and I am delighted to learn that it’s going to lead the way for European hotels. By becoming the first smoke-free 5-star resort in Europe, Le Mirador deserves to rise to the top of every health- conscious traveler’s list of places to visit. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to break with tradition. I say ‘Bravo’ to Le Mirador’s owners for having the courage to do this.”

Michael H. Samuelson, noted health-issues spokesperson and President of The National Center for Health Promotion, whose programs on smoking cessation have been used by over 2 million people, said, “Having just returned from Europe, it’s clear to me that Le Mirador is taking a leadership position in the, area of passive smoke and guest relations, a position that many others are eventually likely to follow.”

/NOTE TO EDITORS: Color slides available upon request/

/CONTACT: Susan Bang or Emily Collins of Lou Hammond & Assoc., 212-308-8880, or susanb@lhammond.com , for Le Mirador/ 12:02 EDT

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Le Mirador to Become First Smoke-Free 5-Star Hotel in Europe

1,033 words
16 October 1997
04:46 pm
PR Newswire

1997, PR Newswire)

VEVEY, Switzerland, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire/ — Le Mirador Hotel and Spa in Switzerland announced today that it will become the first smoke-free 5-Star hotel in Europe. On November 1, smoking will be banned in all three of its restaurants, as well as its lobby, bar, salon, hallways, elevators, restrooms, limos, spa, pool and other public areas. It will become the first member of The Leading Hotels of the World and Preferred Hotels & Resorts Worldwide to adopt this policy. Le Mirador makes this bold move at a time when smoke-free bars, lounges and restaurants are virtually nonexistent in Europe.

Health Advocates Applaud Le Mirador’s Initiative

/NOTE TO EDITORS: Color slides available upon request/

/CONTACT: Susan Bang or Emily Collins of Lou Hammond & Assoc., 212-308-8880, or susanb@lhammond.com , for Le Mirador/ 16:31 EDT

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Reynolds heir is outspoken anti-smoking advocate

335 words
30 October 1997
04:12 pm
Associated Press Newswires

POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) – Patrick Reynolds has come full circule.

He’s a grandson of tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. But in 1979, he sold all his stock in the company. Six years later he quit smoking after 15 years and now is an outspoken anti-smoking advocate.

He had to face the ire of disapproving relatives.

He had a heated discussion with his two brothers and a stepbrother. They worried the price of their stock might drop and concerned about the adverse publicity and the family name being discredited.

“The stock rose in price, and I brought credit to the Reynolds’ name,” the founder of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth told an audience at Idaho State University Wednesday night. Reynolds was keynote speaker at the Ninth Annual Idaho Conference on Health Care.

He wrote “The Gilded Leaf,” an autobiography.

The Beverly Hills resident has appeared on national news programs such as “Nightline” and “Crossfire” to advocate campaign financing reform, an increase in the cigarette tax and keeping tobacco away from young people.

Reynolds said 3,000 American teen-agers are getting addicted to tobacco each day. About 500 million people or 9 percent of the world’s population will die from cigarettes.

“I’ll do this work the rest of my life,” he said.

Reynolds said a settlement reached by state attorneys general against tobacco companies is good, but he doesn’t see much hope of it getting through Congress. That’s because of the tremendous amount of money the tobacco industry pours into campaign coffers, especially those of the Republican Party, he said.

Reynolds rarely saw his father after his parents divorced when he was 3, but he is passionate about his belief that tobacco killed his father, his grandfather and his eldest brother. They all died of cancer.

R.J., who chewed tobacco all his life, died of pancreatic cancer in 1918. His father, a lifetime smoker, died of emphysema when Reynolds was 15.

Rush

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Reynolds heir is outspoken anti-smoking advocate

335 words
31 October 1997
02:19 am
Associated Press Newswires

POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) – Patrick Reynolds has come full circule.

He had to face the ire of disapproving relatives.

He had a heated discussion with his two brothers and a stepbrother. They worried the price of their stock might drop and concerned about the adverse publicity and the family name being discredited.

He wrote “The Gilded Leaf,” an autobiography.

Reynolds said 3,000 American teen-agers are getting addicted to tobacco each day. About 500 million people or 9 percent of the world’s population will die from cigarettes.

“I’ll do this work the rest of my life,” he said.

R.J., who chewed tobacco all his life, died of pancreatic cancer in 1918. His father, a lifetime smoker, died of emphysema when Reynolds was 15.

Rush

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NORTHWEST
Sunday Northwest Around The Region

OREGON EUGENE POLICE FIRE TEAR GAS AT 300 HALLOWEEN PARTIERS

From correspondent and wire reports
667 words
2 November 1997
Portland Oregonian
SUNRISE
B04

Oregon

Eugene police fire tear gas at 300 Halloween partiers EUGENE — Police fired tear gas at a crowd of about 300 Halloween revelers after they tore down light poles and threw bottles and rocks at officers who tried to break up a party.

The melee started about 10:30 p.m. when police received calls that an off-campus party in the University of Oregon sorority row area was out of control.

When officers arrived to break up the party, a crowd gathered outside started to lob bottles and rocks at them, police said.

When the crowd of partiers began to move north on Alder Street, breaking bottles and tearing down light poles, officers fired tear gas into the fray.

Police did not have information Saturday as to whether any arrests were made.

Holy Rosary Medical Center lays off 3 top administrators

ONTARIO — To help cover an expected $400,000 cut in Medicare reimbursements, Holy Rosary Medical Center has laid off three top administrators and eliminated two other positions that are vacant.

The layoffs included the director of human resources, the vice president of support services and the vice president of corporate development.

One person will be hired as the director of human resources for the Catholic Health Initiatives’ four area hospitals in Nampa, Idaho, and Pendleton, Baker City and Ontario. Responsibilities for the other positions will be spread among remaining staff, said Bruce Jensen, Holy Rosary chief executive officer.

The Medicare cut, which stems from the most recent budget passed by Congress, takes effect this month.

Silt overwhelms water plant; Salem switches to reserves

SALEM — Heavy silt in the North Santiam River has closed Salem’s municipal water supply, forcing the city to switch to reserves.

The shutdown occurred Thursday when silt overwhelmed the Geren Island water treatment plant’s filtration system.

Thursday’s heavy rains also swept a commercial generator into the river early Friday, spilling 30 gallons of diesel fuel near the treatment plant, just downriver of the plant’s water intake valve.

But city officials said the spill posed no danger to drinking water because the fuel didn’t get into the plant’s filters.

The 125-kilowatt generator had been used since June to pump water from a construction site where workers are building a new water intake structure. Heavy rains Thursday night caused the river to rise quickly, and water breached a temporary dam near the construction site, washing away the generator and spilling fuel. Washington

Judge grants request, delays sentencing for bank robber

SPOKANE — Sentencing was postponed for an Idaho man convicted of pipe bombings and bank robberies after he asked a judge Friday for more time to prepare.

Charles H. Barbee, 43, of Sandpoint, Idaho, was scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen. But the judge delayed sentencing until Tuesday so Barbee could meet with counsel about a pre-sentence report.

Nielsen denied a number of other motions filed by a contentious Barbee, including one for a new trial. Idaho

Tobacco giant’s grandson campaigns against smoking

POCATELLO — Patrick Reynolds has come full circle.

He’s a grandson of tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. But in 1979, he sold all his stock in the company. Six years later, he quit smoking after 15 years, and now he is an outspoken anti-smoking advocate.

He had to face the ire of disapproving relatives.

He had a heated discussion with his two brothers and a stepbrother. They worried that the price of their stock might drop and expressed concern about adverse publicity and discredit on the family name.

Reynolds, the founder of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, told an audience Wednesday night at Idaho State University that 3,000 U.S. teen-agers become addicted to tobacco each day. About 500 million people, or 9 percent of the world’s population, will die from cigarettes.

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METRO

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE DRIVES MESSAGE OF ANTI-TOBBACO ACTIVIST HE IS THE GRANDSON OF TOBACCO COMPANY FOUNDER HE SPEAKS AT SCHOOLS HERE TODAY

Robert Steyer Of The Post-Dispatch
551 words
5 December 1997
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
FIVE STAR LIFT
C3

How do you convince children and teen-agers to stop smoking or, better yet, never to start?

For Patrick Reynolds, the sales pitch includes some hard facts, some riveting examples and enough common-sense talk that youngsters and teen-agers aren’t put off by another adult telling them what to do.

“I try to make a very strong impression,” said Reynolds, who kicked the habit in 1985 after years of anti-smoking therapies that ranged from acupuncture to hypnosis.

But Reynolds, who will be in the St. Louis area today, has a more impressive pedigree than just being an ex-smoker. He’s the grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

He notes that his brother died of smoking-related heart and lung disease three years ago. And he remembers his father dying slowly, short of breath, a victim of the lung disease emphysema and a lifetime of smoking.

Even though his father died a lingering, wasting death in 1964, Reynolds tells his audiences that he began smoking that same year when he was 15.

“I let them know that a majority of smokers start before the age of 14,” he said. Most become addicted before they reach 19, he added.

Reynolds will deliver that message at 9:30 a.m. today to Southwest Middle School, at 701 Wren Avenue, in Ballwin, and at noon to the St. Louis University School of Nursing, at 3525 Caroline Mall.

Reynolds tries to reach younger children with satire.

He turns the infamous cigarette-company cartoon character Joe Camel into Joe Chemo, an unhappy camel sitting in a hospital bed with an intravenous chemotherapy tube sticking in his arm.

He transforms the rugged Wild West ads touting Marlboro Country into a picture of Malboro Country, where shivering workers huddle outside their office during a quick cigarette break.

But he’ll also use some graphic case studies. To illustrate the danger of chewing tobacco, Reynolds shows the photograph of a healthy high school track star.

He then recounts the boy’s use of chewing tobacco, which resulted in the surgical removal of his tongue and half his jaw. He concludes the story by showing a picture of the teen-ager after surgery.

“This is a childhood disease,” said Reynolds, 48, president of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, in Beverly Hills, Calif., an organization that promotes the raising of federal and state tobacco product taxes and the limiting of tobacco advertising.

Reynolds finds that teen-agers are a tougher audience, in part, because many of them have begun smoking.

“A lot of teens don’t believe in the future,” Reynolds said. “Alcohol, drugs and smoking are related to their lack of faith in the future.”

So Reynolds preaches optimism amid the downbeat statistics of rising rates of young smokers and the examples drawn from today’s teens as well as from his own life.

“It’s very important for teens to think independently,” Reynolds said. “I tell them, `Don’t express your individuality by using the crutch of a cigarette. It’s a sign of weakness.’ “

PHOTO; Caption: Photo headshot – (Patrick) Reynolds

NATIONAL

CITIES, STATES NOT WAITING, MOVE AGAINST TOBACCO
IT IS UNCLEAR WHEN AND IN WHAT FORM THE CONTROVERSIAL AND COMPLEX TOBACCO AGREEMENT WILL EMERGE FROM WASHINGTON’S LOBBYIST-FILLED BACK ROOMS.

JOSEPH A. KIRBY, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
748 words
29 December 1997
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
SOONER
A-6

Six months ago, the tobacco industry and state attorneys general hammered out a $368.5 billion agreement that would shield cigarette manufacturers from future lawsuits if, among other things, the companies in return agreed to severely restrict their far-reaching marketing and advertising.

But the agreement, hailed by many as a momentous step toward curbing smoking among teen-agers in the United States, has not yet received congressional approval. Moreover, even proponents say it is unclear when and in what form the controversial and incredibly complex agreement will emerge from Washington’s lobbyist-filled (albeit smoke-free) back rooms.

As a result, many cities, municipalities and states aren’t waiting for congressional approval of the deal, opting instead to fashion narrower legislation that emulates portions of the proposed national settlement.

This month, for example, New York’s City Council, which already has banned smoking in virtually all public places, approved legislation that would bar outdoor cigarette advertising within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, arcades and daycare centers – in essence, much of the city. Similar moves by Chicago, Milwaukee and Tucson prodded New York into action.

In nearby New Jersey, the state legislature, also mimicking several other governmental bodies nationwide, approved a state cigarette tax that greatly increases the price of a pack of cigarettes. New Jersey lawmakers’ move effectively will double the Garden State’s cigarette tax to 80 cents, making their cigarettes among the most expensive in the country.

By far the largest antitobacco battlefront is California, where cities such as San Francisco and Oakland recently restricted tobacco billboard advertisements.

And, beginning Jan. 1, the state will implement the controversial final phase of a smoking ban that will reach into bars, dance clubs and casinos.

“Officials are doing this because the announced deal needs to be supported by the president and Congress – and we don’t see that happening any time soon.” New York City Council general counsel Rich Weinberg said of the proposal, which still must be approved by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. “In the meantime, we need to try and protect children.”

As is to be expected, tobacco industry opponents are celebrating these temporary, stop-gap measures, arguing that the laws will serve as a finger in the anti-smoking legislation dam.

“What’s happening across the nation is tremendous,” said Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and now an industry opponent. “The cigarette companies can tie up Congress, but they can’t get to every state capitol or city hall. Their reach isn’t as strong at the local level and that’s why this is happening.”

Tobacco industry officials, though, see the laws as posturing.

Scott Williams of Bozell, Sawyer, Miller, the public relations firm representing the industry in the national settlement, said the local laws are open to First Amendment challenges, since they might illegally restrict commercial advertising. In addition, many of the measures probably will be superseded by the national settlement, an agreement that is far greater in scope than any local law could be.

The national agreement would bar tobacco advertising on billboards and in some magazines, limit the use of cigarette vending machines, eliminate the industry’s sponsorship of concerts and sporting events and ban the sale of clothing bearing the names of cigarette and chewing tobacco manufacturers, according to Williams.

Local officials said their motivation in passing antitobacco initiatives is to protect the health of America’s young people. The National Center for Tobacco Free Kids says more than 1 million American teen-agers are smokers. The nonprofit organization estimates that nearly 3,000 more teens begin the habit on a daily basis and that 90 percent of adult smokers began before age 18.

During the past 12 months, states such as Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas have tackled underage smoking directly, enacting laws that impose stiff penalties for minors who try to purchase or possess cigarettes (as well as chewing tobacco). Loss of driver’s licenses, fines of up to $1,000 and even imprisonment are among the penalties available under these laws.

President Clinton advocated a $1.50 a pack increase to curb smoking by minors. Antitobacco groups said studies show a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices would reduce consumption by 4 percent.

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NEWS

LOCALITIES ENACTING OWN CURBS ON TOBACCO STATES AND CITIES TIRED OF WAITING FOR CONGRESS TO APPROVE SETTLEMENT

Joseph A. Kirby, Tribune Staff Writer.
1,060 words
29 December 1997
Chicago Tribune
NORTH SPORTS FINAL; N
1

The agreement, hailed by some as a momentous step toward curbing smoking among teenagers in the U.S., has not yet received congressional approval. Moreover, even proponents say it is unclear when and in what form the controversial and incredibly complex agreement will emerge from Washington’s lobbyist-filled (albeit smoke-free) back rooms.

As a result, many cities, municipalities and states aren’t waiting for congressional approval of the deal, opting to fashion narrower legislation that emulates portions of the proposed national settlement.

This month, New York’s City Council, which has banned smoking in virtually all public places, approved an ordinance that would bar outdoor cigarette advertising within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, arcades and day-care centers–in essence, much of the city. Similar moves by Chicago, Milwaukee and Tucson prodded New York to act.

In New Jersey, the legislature, also mimicking several other governmental bodies, approved a state cigarette tax that greatly increases the price of a pack. The lawmakers’ move will effectively double the state’s cigarette tax to 80 cents per pack, making New Jersey cigarettes among the most expensive in the country.

By far the largest anti-tobacco battle front is California, where San Francisco and Oakland recently restricted tobacco billboard advertisements.

Beginning Jan. 1, the state also will implement the controversial final phase of a far-reaching smoking ban that will reach into bars, dance clubs and casinos.

“Officials are doing this because the announced deal needs to be supported by the president and Congress–and we don’t see that happening any time soon,” said New York’s City Council general counsel Rich Weinberg of the ordinance, which still must be approved by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. “In the meantime, we need to try and protect children.”

As is to be expected, tobacco industry opponents are celebrating these temporary, stop-gap measures, arguing that the laws will serve as a finger in the anti-smoking legislation dam.

“What’s happening across the nation is tremendous,” said Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and now an industry opponent. “The cigarette companies can tie up Congress, but they can’t get to every state capitol or city hall. Their reach isn’t as strong at the local level, and that’s why this is happening.”

Tobacco industry officials see the laws as posturing.

Scott Williams of Bozell, Sawyer, Miller, the public-relations firm representing the industry in the national settlement, said the local laws are open to 1st Amendment challenges because they might illegally restrict commercial advertising. In addition, many of the measures probably will be superseded by the national settlement, an agreement that is far greater in scope than any local law could be.

The national agreement would bar tobacco advertising on billboards and in some magazines, limit the use of cigarette vending machines, eliminate the industry’s sponsorship of concerts and sporting events, and ban the sale of clothing bearing the names of cigarette and chewing tobacco manufacturers, Williams said.

“I understand that (municipalities) are in a predicament, having to wait for word from Washington,” Williams said, “but I don’t think that their argument holds much water. It doesn’t make any sense not to wait. No jurisdiction could do what’s part of this settlement. What they ought to go is get on board, support it, and lobby Congress and the president to approve it.”

Local officials said their motivation in passing anti-tobacco initiatives is to protect the health of America’s young people. The National Center for Tobacco Free Kids says more than 1 million American teenagers are smokers. The non-profit organization estimates that nearly 3,000 more teens begin the habit on a daily basis and that 90 percent of adult smokers began before age 18.

Over the last 12 months, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas have tackled underage smoking directly, enacting laws that impose stiff penalties for minors who try to purchase or are in possession of tobacco products. Loss of driver’s license, fines of up to $1,000 and even imprisonment are among the available penalties.

President Clinton has advocated a $1.50-a-pack increase to curb smoking by minors. Anti-tobacco groups said that studies show that a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices would reduce consumption by 4 percent.

Many local officials said they were emboldened to pass laws based on the experience of Baltimore, which began a campaign against cigarette and liquor advertising in 1994, well before last summer’s tentative national agreement. The Baltimore law was unsuccessfully challenged by an outdoor sign company, which argued that measure impinged on the firm’s right to free speech.

“Baltimore started this whole movement,” said John Fricke, a policy adviser to Elihu Harris, the mayor of Oakland, which recently approved a ban on outdoor tobacco advertising expected to affect more than 1,400 billboards. “Their success alerted people that it could be done. Soon, cities around the country saw that they didn’t have to wait for the feds.”

Such was the case in New York, where City Council members saw other large cities pass billboard bans and decided to act, Weinberg said. The council’s ordinance would radically recast the city’s streetscape, forcing businesses to remove thousands of ads on store windows and billboards.

In addition, the ordinance would bar promotions by tobacco manufacturers, including T-shirts or hats bearing cigarette brand names, to anyone younger than 18.

Feeling the pressure from groceries and still unsure of the measure’s legality, council members did concede some points: The law would exempt mobile billboards such as on taxis. The proposal also would ban tobacco company ads and signs on storefront windows but allow such signage if it faces inward and is not visible from the street.

Giuliani hasn’t announced whether he will sign the measure, but he has said publicly that he supports such initiatives.

Nation-World

Five Utah Bills Seek to Separate Kids and Tobacco
Proposed Legislation Targets Store Owners, Advertisers, Users; Utah Bills Seek to Separate Kids, Tobacco

SHIA KAPOS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
979 words
30 December 1997
The Salt Lake Tribune
A1

It has been six months since state attorneys general settled their much-ballyhooed lawsuit against tobacco companies for $368.5 billion.

But the agreement — which Utah Atty. Gen. Jan Graham hailed as “the public-health victory of our lifetime” — has yet to receive congressional approval.

Cities and states across the nation, however, are not holding their breath, opting for their own legislation to crack down on tobacco use.

In Utah, there are five tobacco bills proposed in the 1998 Legislature, which convenes next month.

The bills vary in implementation, but they share a common goal: to keep kids from smoking tobacco.

“If we can get people to stop smoking, it’s the best public-health thing we could do,” said Robert Montgomery, R-North Ogden. “Ninety percent of adults started smoking before they were 19. We all know evidence is out there that smoking has no benefits.”

His bill targets stores that sell tobacco to underage smokers, those younger than 19.

A store now pays a one-time fee of $20 to sell tobacco. Montgomery’s law would change that, requiring a store to renew its tobacco-sales license once a year or every few years. “We’re still working on the specifics,” said Montgomery, a retired physician.

His bill also would put more responsibility on store owners — rather than just the cashiers — to keep youths from buying cigarettes. A store would be fined $300 for its first offense, $750 for the second, $1,000 for the third, and $2,000 for the fourth.

On the third offense, a store would lose its license to sell cigarettes for 30 days. And on the fourth, a store would lose its license for two years.

“Currently, there is 30 {percent} to 40 percent noncompliance with the law,” Montgomery said, adding he hopes his proposal will get businesses’ attention.

The Legislature will consider four other measures for regulating tobacco:

— Targeting the providers. While Montgomery’s bill focuses on stores that put cigarettes in the hands of teens, Rep. Carl Saunders, R-Ogden, is looking at teens’ friends and family.

His bill would penalize those who furnish cigarettes to young people. “That includes family,” said Saunders.

Saunders acknowledged it would be difficult to monitor, especially if young people were sneaking cigarettes from their parents. But he said it is possible for kids to confess how they acquire their cigarettes.

— Possessing tobacco. Rep. Richard Siddoway, R-Bountiful is proposing an automatic $50 fine or tobacco-cessation class for anyone younger than 19 caught with tobacco. Currently, possession of tobacco is a class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 3 months in jail and up to a $750 fine.

“It’s so severe that nobody enforces it,” Siddoway said. “This bill would bring {the penalty} down, but it would make it a $50 minimum mandatory fine.”

The proposal drew criticism from the Salt Lake County deputy district attorney. “It would take the teeth out of the current law,” said Sim Gill. “If there aren’t any fines being levied, it’s not that the law is inappropriate. It’s because people in a position to levy those laws aren’t doing it.”

— Regulating sales. Rep. Wayne Harper’s bill would allow tobacco sales only under the same criteria as liquor sales. Sales would be dictated by their location — as in how close it is to a school or church. It is easy to buy cigarettes when the 7-Eleven is just steps away from a school, said the West Jordan Republican.

“Kids have the ability during lunch or before or after school, to steal or illicitly buy tobacco products,” Harper said, adding the goal is to “diminish the access by youth to tobacco products.

— Sales of products. Keeping tobacco products out of sight of young people also is the goal of Saunders’ second tobacco-related bill. This bill would require stores to keep tobacco products out of the aisles and behind lock and key. “It’s too easy for kids to get cigarettes. I want to make it as hard as possible to get them,” he said.

Utah isn’t the only one looking at curbing cigarette smoking.

New York’s City Council has approved legislation that would bar outdoor cigarette advertising within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, arcades and day-care centers.

In New Jersey, the Legislature approved a state cigarette tax that greatly increases the price of a pack of cigarettes.

And, beginning Thursday, California will implement the final phase of a smoking ban that will reach into bars, dance clubs and casinos.

Tobacco opponents are celebrating these stop-gap measures, arguing the laws will serve as a finger in the anti-smoking legislation dam.

Tobacco industry officials, though, see the laws as posturing.

Scott Williams of Bozell, Sawyer, Miller, the public-relations firm representing the industry in the national settlement, said the local laws are open to First Amendment challenges, since they might illegally restrict advertising. In addition, some measures could be superseded by the far-reaching national settlement.

Tribune wire services contributed to this report.

http://www.le.state.ut.us/ http://www.house.gov/commerce/welcome.html

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News

Tobacco fight moving to local level
National proposal awaits approval

Joseph A. Kirby Chicago Tribune
780 words
15 January 1998
Denver Post
Rockies
A-18

NEW YORK – Six months ago, the tobacco industry and state attorneys general hammered out a $368.5 billion agreement that would shield cigarette manufacturers from future lawsuits if, among other things, the companies in return agreed to severely restrict their far-reaching marketing and advertising.

But the agreement, hailed by many as a momentous step toward curbing smoking among teenagers in the United States, has not yet received congressional approval.

Moreover, even proponents say it is unclear when and in what form the controversial and incredibly complex agreement will emerge from Washington’s lobbyist-filled (albeit smoke-free) back rooms.

For example, New York’s City Council, which already has banned smoking in virtually all public places, approved legislation that would bar outdoor cigarette advertising within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, arcades and day-care centers – in essence, much of the city. Similar moves by Chicago, Milwaukee and Tucson prodded New York into action.

In New Jersey, the state legislature, also mimicking several other governmental bodies nationwide, approved a state cigarette tax that greatly increases the price of a pack of cigarettes. New Jersey’s action effectively will double the Garden State’s cigarette tax to 80 cents, making their cigarettes among the most expensive in the country.

By far the largest anti-tobacco battlefront is California, where cities such as San Francisco and Oakland recently restricted tobacco billboard advertisements.

On Jan. 1, the state implemented the controversial final phase of a smoking ban that will reach into bars, dance clubs and casinos.

As is to be expected, tobacco industry opponents are celebrating these temporary, stopgap measures, arguing that the laws will serve as a finger in the anti-smoking legislation dam.

Tobacco industry officials, though, see the laws as posturing.

“I understand that (municipalities) are in a predicament, having to wait for word from Washington,” Williams said. “But I don’t think that their argument holds much water. It doesn’t make any sense not to wait. No jurisdiction could do what’s part of this settlement. What they ought to go is get on board, support it and lobby Congress and the president to approve it.”

Local officials said their motivation in passing anti-tobacco initiatives is to protect the health of America’s young people. The National Center for Tobacco Free Kids says more than 1 million American teenagers are smokers. The nonprofit organization estimates that nearly 3,000 more teens begin the habit on a daily basis.

Even President Clinton advocated a $1.50-a-pack increase to curb smoking by minors. Studies indicate that a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices would reduce consumption by 4 percent.

dnvr000020010916du1f0014v

Financial

Marketing Experts Advise Ads Against Youth Smoking
Alcohol Industry Efforts Could Serve as Guide

Beth Berselli
Washington Post Staff Writer
946 words
16 January 1998
The Washington Post
FINAL
G01

, The Washington Post Co

Tobacco companies’ marketing techniques are again in the spotlight, after revelations Wednesday that RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second-largest cigarette company, specifically targeted youth smokers in its advertisements.

Advertising and image-building experts agree that in this arena the industry has a public relations problem, with the perception that the tobacco companies are placing their self-interest over public health.

Experts say that tobacco companies can combat these views by emphasizing a message against youth smoking in their advertising, paralleling what the beer industry has done in recent years.

Joe Gleason, managing director of Manning, Selvage & Lee, a Washington public relations firm, said the companies should follow the lead of the alcohol industry and sponsor advertising with a message that essentially is, “If you’re under 21, we don’t want your business.” Those kind of ads speak to a level of “corporate responsibility,” said Gleason, who specializes in crisis management.

“There’s no magic wand” for the tobacco companies, Gleason said. “It’s a long road to rehabilitation in the public’s eye . . . but this would at least be a step in the right direction.”

Thomas Lom, executive vice president at Saatchi & Saatchi, a New York advertising firm, also supports the idea of an anti-smoking campaign aimed at youth, particularly one featuring youngsters’ role models. “Joe Camel made smoking cool; what you’ve got to do is get Michael Jordan to say it isn’t cool,” he said.

Lom speaks from experience. In the 1980s he helped Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, handle a public relations nightmare when product tampering led to the deaths of a half-dozen people.

There’s one catch, though, Lom said. The industry must voluntarily sponsor such ads, rather than waiting for the government to mandate this. “Everything they’ve done has been forced upon them . . . they do it kicking and screaming, fighting every step of the way,” he said.

For example, RJR decided to retire its longtime winning advertising icon, Joe Camel, last July — only after the Federal Trade Commission slapped the company with an unfair-advertising complaint.

Experts said the industry’s credibility would improve if companies began running anti-smoking ads before final approval of the $368.5 billion settlement reached by the tobacco companies and 40 state attorneys general last June. The settlement, now awaiting congressional approval, requires $500 million to be spent annually on “counter-advertising” that explains the dangers of smoking. The advertising, however, would be run by outside organizations and not by the tobacco companies.

Since the 1960s the companies have taken some steps to send an anti-youth-smoking message. For example, after the FTC first took on the tobacco industry in the mid-1960s, the industry responded with a voluntary cigarette advertising code. It included bans on advertising in publications targeted to youth, such as comic books and school newspapers, as well as a provision prohibiting ads or statements that “smoking is essential to social prominence, distinction, success or sexual attraction.”

One problem with such an anti-smoking campaign, some advertisers said, is that they lack the sizzle of Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man and aren’t as attractive to the tobacco companies, which are in business to sell cigarettes.

Al Ries, chairman of Ries & Ries, a Roswell, Ga., marketing-strategy firm, pointed out that brand loyalty is formed during one’s youth, and this is particularly true for cigarettes.

In a real sense, he said, a tobacco company’s profits depend on attracting young smokers, who may be drawn in by advertising. The problem is particularly acute for RJR because it’s not the brand leader. “If RJR did not target young people, it would be out of business,” Ries said.

If RJR or another tobacco company was his client, Ries said he would advise them to “split the difference” — that is, run enough youth-focused advertising to keep customers but at the same time run public education ads to satisfy critics.

Some ad agencies have found ways to spice up anti-smoking advertising and have built their creative reputation on their talent for doing so. Arnold Communications, a Boston ad agency, has developed award-winning commercials for the Massachusetts Department of Health on the dangers of smoking. The account is worth $12 million in billings.

One spot shows a man singing “Happy Birthday” to the tobacco industry through the electronic tones of his voice box. “Celebrating 121 years of fine tobacco products,” the commercial says. “It’s time we made smoking history.”

In another recent Arnold ad, the brother of one of the Marlboro Man models describes his sibling’s death from lung cancer.

Another ad features an anti-smoking message from Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R. J. Reynolds. “Why am I telling you this?” he asks. “I want my family to be on the right side for a change.”

Lisa Unsworth, executive vice president at Arnold, said the “edgy” nature of these ads has caught children’s attention — the same way that Joe Camel, the Virginia Slims woman and other tobacco icons have done in the past.

“We’re fighting an age-old rite of passage for kids,” she said. “Smoking is one the things you do when traveling down the path from being a kid to being an adult. We’re fighting a social norm.

“In the five years we’ve done this kind of advertising, we’ve seen significant changes in attitude as it relates to kids’ desire to smoke,” she added.

http://www.washingtonpost.com

HEADLINE: Reynolds heir calls for tobacco tax

Greg Stone
653 words
23 January 1998
the Charleston Gazette
P1C

STAFF WRITER

A little sore popped up in the track star’s mouth. It was still there a week later.

His doctor tested it and called the boy’s mother. She got the news and started crying.

“Son, you’ve got cancer in your tongue,” she told him, sobbing. Doctors had to remove it. In another year, his jaw and half of his nose were gone, but the cancer was still there.

The 19-year-old athlete died of oral cancer brought on by rubbing snuff.

Patrick Reynolds recounted that story to a hushed audience Thursday during the West Virginia Hospital Association’s Legislative Days program at the Charleston Marriott.

Reynolds – equal parts evangelist, touchy-feely philosopher and motivational speaker – is the grandson of R.J. Reynolds, one of America’s founding tobacco magnates.

One brother has nearly disowned the 49-year-old Reynolds for waging his ceaseless media and legislative campaign against the tobacco industry. Other family members are tolerant of his breaking ranks, he said. Some even say he has brought honor to the family name, Reynolds said.

Reynolds sold all his R.J. Reynolds stock in 1979. “I had a cigarette in one hand and a telephone in the other. I told my stockbroker that I’m not going to enjoy a living from what I’m addicted to.”

Eventually, Reynolds quit smoking and became interested in the tobacco tax issue. In 1986, Sen. Robert Packwood asked him to testify before a Senate subcommittee.

The more educated Reynolds became, the more fervently he became involved in the tobacco control crusade. Reynolds worked to help pass a 25-cent increase on cigarettes in California and took part in a similar effort in Alaska.

Reynolds urged people attending Thursday’s program to call Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin.

“I talked with Earl Ray today,” Reynolds said. “He’s a nice man. He’s a smoker. Tell him, ‘Earl Ray, thanks for getting the cigarette tax on the agenda.’”

West Virginia has a tax of 17 cents on cigarettes but no tax on smokeless tobacco, which Reynolds called “amazing.” The Mountain State ranks at the top of the nation in terms of both kinds of tobacco consumption.

Reynolds’ grandfather died of cancer of the pancreas, which may have a link to long-term smoking. His father and oldest brother both died of smoking-related illnesses.

Tobacco companies and other big corporations have assumed too much power in America, Reynolds said.

“People talk about government intruding in our lives, but what about the big corporations in our lives?” he asked. “Today, corporations practically have control of our legislatures.”

Such tobacco company power has led to the increased targeting of young people, he said. Many teen-agers fall victim to smoking, he said, because they see little future in America.

Today’s global economy, partly spurred by the North American Free Trade Agreement, has cost America jobs.

Kids should be urged to think positively about their futures, he said. “The future’s looking great. We’ve got to get our bodies in shape for the 21st century.”

Reynolds urged those attending Thursday’s session to use “I feel” statements. Expressing emotions in such a way allows us to connect with each other and gets attention, he said.

Cinny Kittle, director for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free West Virginia, said the American Cancer Society is lobbying this legislative session for a tax increase bill.

Such a bill would increase the cigarette tax to 67 cents a pack and set the smokeless tobacco tax at 50 percent of the wholesale price.

“Last year, there was some support for it,” Kittle said. “We hope people were educated about the issue last year and will do something about it this year.”

The idea of increased taxes is to discourage tobacco consumption while generating more revenue for worthwhile government programs.

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Reynolds heir fights smoking – Increase in cigarette tax urged

THERESE S. COX
524 words
23 January 1998
Charleston Daily Mail
P5C

His grandfather chewed tobacco and died of pancreas cancer.

A tobacco-caused cancer also killed his father.

And emphysema, brought on by smoking, took the life of his brother, R.J. Reynolds III.

Patrick Reynolds is fighting back.

President of the California-based Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, Reynolds, 49, described his stop-smoking battle Thursday to members of the West Virginia Hospital Association at their annual legislative briefing.

“A smoke-free society is definitely on its way,” Reynolds said to an audience of about 200.

The grandson of the tobacco magnate, Reynolds helped pass the 25-cent per pack cigarette tax increase in California in 1988. He was involved in getting the six-hour smoking ban on U.S. domestic flights. And he has testified in Congress in favor of banning all cigarette advertising.

His West Virginia mission?

“To convince the Legislature it’s time to increase the cigarette tax,” he said.

A number of studies have shown that increases in the cost of cigarettes result in corresponding decreases in sales to youth, he said.

Reynolds encouraged smoke-free advocates to give Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin a call, thanking him in advance for considering putting the proposed 57-cent tobacco tax hike on the legislative agenda.

Currently, West Virginia imposes a 17 cents a pack tax, with no increases since the late 1970s.

Smokeless tobacco is not taxed at all, though the state ranks first in the nation in smokeless tobacco use.

At a morning meeting with Tomblin, Reynolds learned that Tomblin was a nice person, even though he smoked, he said.

Be positive with the message to Tomblin, he told the audience. “It will save our kids from premature death.”

Once a smoker, Reynolds pressed himself into service in 1986, after he asked a U.S. senator why the tobacco tax was so low.

The U.S. levies the second-lowest cigarette taxes in the world, after Spain.

The senator responded by asking Reynolds to appear before a committee discussing the subject that very day.

Though he begged out, the incident aroused his interest.

A couple of years later, he sold his inherited stock in the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company. He declined to reveal what he made.

“My family was pretty upset with me at first,” said Reynolds, a resident of Beverly Hills. “Now they see I brought credit to the family.”

No member of the Reynolds family has worked in management at the tobacco company for a half-century, Reynolds said.

His father, though, never knew of the son’s activities as a champion of a smoke-free society.

R.J. Reynolds died when Patrick was only 15. His parents had divorced 12 years earlier.

The first R.J., described by his grandson as a robber baron, had several illegitimate children and peddled moonshine.

Patrick’s own father also was a playboy and once the chairman of the Democratic Party. He married four times.

“They called my mother the redheaded gold digger actress from California,” he said. “She was not accepted in the Reynolds family.”

News; Domestic

Smokers’ Rights

Catherine Crier
2,812 words
5 February 1998
08:00 pm
Fox News: The Crier Report

Federal Clearing House.

CRIER: Welcome to THE CRIER REPORT. I’m Catherine Crier. Blowing smoke is not a rarity in Washington, but it’s getting scarce in other places like the local bar. Should smoking be banned when patrons want to light up? We’ll take a look at the stand off over smokers’ rights in California.

Have you taken a look at your pay stub lately? Not much left after the taxes come out. So what are you getting for all of that money? I’ll have a report.

Back in 1978, the world was shocked by allegations that legendary film star Joan Crawford abused her children. Now 20 years after the release of “Mommie Dearest,” Christina Crawford reveals even more about her troubled past. It’s all straight ahead on this edition of THE CRIER REPORT.

It’s been called the worse of civilization’s evil empires, a curse on American history, and morally equivalent to being sprayed with machine gun fire. What is this insidious blight on society? Well, all of these omenous words have been used to describe smoking and the tobacco industry. National, state and local government officials are struggling to try and regulate the tobacco industry, while public places where smokers can smoke have been shrinking.

Is the anti-smoking movement going too far? Joining me from Los Angeles is Patrick Reynolds of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth and grandson of R.J. Reynolds. And Reason Magazine Senior Editor Jacob Sullum, author of the upcoming book, “For your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health.” Welcome, gentlemen.

REYNOLDS: Thank you.

SULLUM: Hi.

CRIER: Patrick, let me start with you. If someone wants to kill themselves with cigarettes, what business is it of yours?

REYNOLDS: Well, you know, it’s really about the fact that 90 percent of all smokers get addicted before their 19th birthday. So it’s only children who become addicted. It’s as addicting as heroin. And I think that that’s something that we can do. I mean, this right wing spin that we don’t need big government in our lives. What about the big corporations in our lives? Haven’t they acquired too much power over our elected officials?

And the tobacco industry is a great example. The Congress has done nothing in 30 years to limit tobacco advertising. They’ve done nothing in 30 years to substantially raise the federal cigarette tax. And our children can easily buy cigarettes over the counter a majority of the time.

CRIER: That still doesn’t answer my question. Let’s try and focus. And that is if anyone – and I don’t know that many are for kids smoking.

But if anyone wants to smoke, let’s say over 18, why are you trying to curb that right?

REYNOLDS: Well, secondhand smoke clearly is a danger to non-smokers. It causes lung cancer and heart disease. And far from being the work of fanatics, these are reasonable laws to protect the health of non-smokers.

You know, when the automobile came out, a lot of people were against the automobile. But this is the wave of the future, and this is what’s coming.

CRIER: OK. Jacob, this seems to be the crux of the debate now days is not so much the individual’s right to smoke in private, but when you’re talking about secondhand smoke, you’re talking about public tax dollars going to care for ailing smokers. Doesn’t that increase the public’s right to limit one’s behavior?

SULLUM: Well, I think these are all the kinds of arguments that you hear when people in the anti-smoking movement are trying to explain why they’re not just trying to protect adults from their own risky choices. And I think that these are basically a smoke screen, if you’ll excuse the expression.

For example, we’re not talking about children, OK. The vast majority of smokers are adults. It’s true that most smokers do start as teenagers. But the fact that smoking can be characterized as an addiction and that it’s difficult to stop does not mean that it’s impossible to stop. Eighteen-year-olds do not get lung cancer, OK. People get lung cancer from smoking for decades and well into adulthood, and they continue to make that decision.

CRIER: OK. We’re really not here tonight to go through the old debates because what’s going on in California right now is they had a ban on smoking in bars and casinos, night clubs, this sort of thing. And now one portion of the Assembly has come along – the Assembly, in fact, has come along and said now we’re going to lift the ban at least until 2001.

And what we’re thinking about doing is not imposing it until then. Now the State Senate has to decide. This is a movement that’s going on around the country.

SULLUM: Right.

CRIER: What’s the matter with prohibiting smoke in public places like clubs and bars?

SULLUM: Well, in fact you say public places. But in fact these are privately owned establishments. There are a lot of people who would like to smoke while they’re drinking in a bar. There are a lot of bartenders who would like to allow them to do so. There are a lot of people who are willing to work in those establishments. But the government is saying no, you may not do that. Now this is purely a voluntary situation. If people don’t like smoke, they don’t have to go into the bar whether it’s because it irritates them or because they’re concerned about the possible health impact of it. This is all purely voluntary. There’s really no justification for government intervention in this case.

CRIER: OK. But doesn’t this sound like the same sort of arguments that we hear with the drug laws? I mean, why not legalize heroin if it’s sort of that libertarian, everybody do what they please, and we don’t have to worry about it. Because most heroin addicts are over in a corner, crumpled up. They’re not doing anything. And it’s only because they cannot – at least the argument goes, cannot get the stuff that crime occurs.

SULLUM: Well, as you probably know, I favor legalizing heroin.

CRIER: No, actually I didn’t know.

SULLUM: I do favor legalizing heroin, and I do think that this is of a piece with those kinds of issues. What you’re seeing now in this country is that people are starting to see tobacco as more like a drug which it, of course, is. For a long time, it was so well accepted that it wasn’t even seen as a drug. And so if you view it as a drug, you have to say, well, what are the hazards of it, what are the consequences of using it. In some ways, the consequences are more severe than using heroin.

CRIER: But public argument – and actually I want everybody at home to know that we’ve lost contact right now with Los Angeles. So Patrick isn’t being ignored. We’re just trying to set up contact with him again. But the airline stewardesses and the flight attendants came along and said we couldn’t choose whether or not to go in and work at a place. We were in a closed in cabin in an airliner that people were allowed to smoke in. What about something like that? Do they have a legitimate argument?

SULLUM: It actually is not true that they couldn’t choose. They chose to go into that line of work, and in that line of work you get exposed to secondhand smoke. Everybody.

CRIER: But that wasn’t a consequence. That wasn’t a chosen consequence of a profession like that.

SULLUM: It’s part of the profession. I mean, boxers get hit in the face as part of their profession. People who work in bars get exposed to secondhand smoke. It used to be that people who worked on airplanes got exposed to secondhand smoke as part of the job. They knew that going into it.

CRIER: This is your profession, and you’ve got to leave it unless you’re willing to succumb to exposure to second hand smoke.

SULLUM: Yeah, exactly right. I mean, this is what..

CRIER: And you buy that as a legitimate argument?

SULLUM: This is freedom of contract and freedom of association. And we choose the jobs that we go into. Everybody has something about their job that they don’t quite like. We can’t dictate terms to other people.

We can say this is what we’re willing to put up with, and if they go along with it, fine. If not, you can go elsewhere.

CRIER: All right. Well, I bet Patrick has a response. We’re re- establishing contact. We’ll be right back with more. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CRIER: Welcome back. I’m continuing my discussion on the anti- smoking movement and attempts to regulate the industry with Senior Editor of Reason Magazine Jacob Sullum and in Los Angeles, Patrick Reynolds who is with the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth. Patrick, we lost you there for a few minutes, but I’ll bring you up to speed.

We’re talking about whether or not patrons in bars can simply go someplace else, that they don’t have to go in. And if you choose to work in a bar where smoking is allowed, that is simply a choice you’re making and possibly having to suffer the consequences because of capitalism and the right for free enterprise to do what it wants.

REYNOLDS: Well, I think that that argument falls flat when you think about a teenager who wants to go to this one hot club, and the fact that they allow smoking there isn’t going to stop him or her from going there. Moreover, when a person needs a job and they want a job, say, to work as a flight attendant or to work as a waiter or a bartender, they’re not going to not take the job because they allow smoking there.

I mean, this argument falls flat on its face. Second hand smoke kills. Banning it 100 percent is the way of the future. And I want to point out that something very interesting now is going on. The tobacco industry has mounted a multi-million dollar effort to create a public relations campaign against this ban in California.

CRIER: You’re talking about the National Smokers Alliance.

REYNOLDS: Yes. Well, that’s part of it. They’ve also paid millions to Burston-Marsteller, a public relations firm, to try and create shows in which this is called into question – the second hand smoke issue and so on. And I know our guest wasn’t put on by Burston-Marsteller. But the point is that they are really aggressively plowing the legislature with dollars, campaign contributions and that comes into really the key area as I see it.

The tobacco industry today is the largest special interest in the nation. They give more money than any other special interest. Last year in 1997.

CRIER: OK, well, now let me interrupt because we’re going to run out of time. We’re trying to debate the issue here. Yes, they fund the National Smokers Alliance. Yes, of course, we know the tobacco industry pays quite a bit to lobbyists who campaign politicians. And we can track whether or not votes can be correlated with payments to particular politicians.

REYNOLDS: They can. They can. The more money that the tobacco industry gives a politician, the more likely they are to vote with the tobacco companies’ point of view, several times more likely. That’s why Congress has been so inactive in regulating it.

CRIER: Great. Now let me turn back to the issue we’re talking about, particularly ban in public places like bars and night clubs. Jacob, years ago when I was still practicing law and I started looking at reports on second hand smoke, I said to myself pretty soon they’re either going to have to ban these in restaurants or owners are going to have to understand that they may have liability. Once they knew or should have known that these reports are indicating people could get sick, there is a personal liability question just like a bartender who sells a guy too many drinks who goes out and runs somebody down. There can be liability. Shouldn’t this law actually then protect restaurant owners, night club owners?

SULLUM: Well, three responses. First of all, to suggest that casual exposure to second hand smoke of the kind that you might get by going into a bar or restaurant is going to shorten your life span or endanger your life in any way is absurd.

CRIER: This is for the workers much more than – this is workers.

REYNOLDS: That’s wrong. There’s no safe limit of second hand smoke. There’s no safe limit to it, sir.

SULLUM: As you well know, you cannot establish a safe limit for anything by definition. But the point is that the only – the evidence that the EPA reviewed, for example, in its report had to do with people exposed over the long term for decades living with smokers. And they found a trivial increase in risk over a person’s life span for lung cancer.

REYNOLDS: Not such a trivial increase. There was a very substantial increase.

SULLUM: Not true – 19th percent. Nineteen percent increase in very small risk is a trivial increase.

REYNOLDS: Nineteen percent is trivial?

SULLUM: Yes, it is when you’re talking about the risk of lung cancer among non-smokers.

REYNOLDS: Come on, come on.

SULLUM: It’s very small to begin with. And so if 19.

REYNOLDS: I want to know if you work for the tobacco companies, and if they pay you any money.

SULLUM: No, they don’t. But it’s interesting that you would assume anybody who disagrees with you must be getting paid by the tobacco companies.

REYNOLDS: That’s ridiculous.

CRIER: OK. We’re almost out of time. I want to talk about one more thing. The bar and night club owners have objected in that they say – some of them say they’re losing money. Others say, in fact, we’re making more money because we have a smoke-free environment. Jacob, there was an Arizona study that showed after the law passed in Arizona, did an 18-month study and that bars and restaurants were not losing money because of the smoking ban. Why are we hearing this as an argument in California?

SULLUM: Well, I think it’s actually – it’s sort of silly to say let’s do a study. I think it should be up to the individual entrepreneur. I mean, he’s the one who’s in the best position to know whether his customers want this, whether there’s a demand.

REYNOLDS: It’s not silly to do a study. You know, .

SULLUM: For a smoke-free environment or for people to be allowed to smoke.

REYNOLDS: The UC study environment in San Francisco certainly showed that there was no – it’s important to do a study. There’s been no decrease in sales tax revenue either in New York or in California in cities that ban smoking 100 percent. And to say there’s a.

CRIER: OK. And I’ll tell you what, unfortunately I’m going to start talking because we’re out of time. We should have saved more time for this. We’ll revisit it. Patrick, Jacob, thanks very much.

SULLUM: Thank you.

CRIER: Now up next, we all pay a lot in taxes. But are we getting what we pay for? That report when we return. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Content and Programming Fox News Network, Inc. Transcription Federal Clearing House, Inc., which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, Inc.’s and Federal Clearing House, Inc.’s s or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.

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News; Domestic

Smokers v. California

Sean Hannity; Alan Colmes
3,691 words
11 March 1998
09:30 pm
Fox News: Hannity & Colmes

Federal Clearing House.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST, HANNITY & COLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Sean Hannity.

Are smokers on a government hit list? California recently banned indoor smoking in not only restaurants, but bars and casinos as well. Now one bar owner already fined $1,300 for allowing patrons to light up, he’s fired up, and he’s the first to go to court to challenge this law.

Across the country, in New York, a state assemblyman wants to ban smoking in private automobiles when children are present. He contends this situation amounts to child abuse and is similar to punching a child in the face.

Is this a question of smokers’ rights or the right to be free of smoking? And we’re joined from Los Angeles by Michael Warder. He’s the vice president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.

And also joining us from Los Angeles, Patrick Reynolds from the group tobaccofree.org. Sounds like Ross Perot. He’s also the grandson of R.J. Reynolds, the founder of the world’s third largest tobacco manufacturer.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Patrick, welcome back to the program. Patrick, is this not the worst case of government intrusion? If you have a private bar or restaurant owner and he wants to allow smoking, and people want to work there, and people want to freely come in and smoke, we’re not altering their consciousness here. Why would you allow the government or want the government to step in and prevent that?

REYNOLDS: What about the choice of non-smokers to breathe air that isn’t going to give them disease?

WARDER: That would be just fine in a smoke-free restaurant. In a smoke-free restaurant, he could go to that restaurant and patronize it. But the person who, after work, would like to have a beer and smoke a cigarette, he could go to a bar where he’s allowed to do that. What’s the harm in that?

REYNOLDS: I think that, you know, this is really a spin and a con job on the part of the tobacco industry and their spin doctors. This isn’t a freedoms issue. This is a health issue here.

HANNITY: We’ll take a break right there.

REYNOLDS: And what about the rights of the employees to not get sick and spend – they’re going to come back and sue the employer. And the employers are being conned here.

HANNITY: Hang on, Patrick. Also, what do you think? Give us a call. It’s toll-free, 1-888-TELL-FOX, as we continue on HANNITY & COLMES. Thanks for being with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Alan Colmes. Do you have a right to smoke, or do I have a right to clean air? California’s tough new anti-smoking law gets its first legal challenge this week. It’s the first step in what could be a long legal battle over whether the state can ban smoking in restaurants, bars and casinos.

We’re talking to Michael Warder, vice president of the Claremont Institute, and Patrick Reynolds from the group tobaccofree.org. Mr. Warder, passive cigarette smoke has been shown to have a 20 percent increase in hardening of the arteries of those exposed to passive cigarette smoke than those who aren’t.

Now when we talk about whether we should have restaurants that are totally smoke free and some that totally, you know, allow smoke, to give people a choice, what about the rights of those restaurant workers…

REYNOLDS: Yes.

COLMES: … who have to work in a smoke-free environment, Mr. Warder, who may not have that choice if they’re working in a restaurant that has smoke all over the place?

WARDER: Glad you asked about the rights of the workers. About 20 to 25 percent of those workers smoke cigarettes. So right now, they have…

COLMES: What about the 75 percent that don’t?

WARDER: Excuse me, I’m sorry, I was just trying to respond to your question. About 25 percent of the workers do smoke. So I would think that those smokers who work would probably work in taverns and restaurants that allow a smoke – people to come there who frequent it, who do smoke.

And those who have such an abhorrence to smoking, they would work in smoke-free bars and taverns. It seems to me like a very easy, equitable solution…

REYNOLDS: I would completely — I think that’s a lot of nonsense. I mean, if someone goes…

WARDER: … compared to what we have right now, where we have police -excuse me – where we have police coming into bars arresting people. That’s ridiculous. They ought to be arresting people who steal things and murder people.

COLMES: Patrick?

REYNOLDS: It’s time that law enforcement started to enforce some of the laws out there to protect the health of non-smokers, especially to stop merchants from selling to children. That’s where we really need sting operations and enforcement.

A little regulation can go a long way to keep our kids off cigarettes and to keep non-smokers safe from second-hand smoke.

HANNITY: Patrick, this bar owner now is facing a $1,300 fine because he allowed people to smoke in his establishment. Are we now going to go into bars and arrest owners if they allow patrons to smoke? Is that how you want us to our limited police resources, Patrick?

REYNOLDS: Well, Sean, I wouldn’t, you know, arrest them. But I think citing them and fining them, and by the third time…

HANNITY: Thirteen-hundred dollars?

REYNOLDS: … he should lose his license to do business, yes.

HANNITY: Well, you know something, 70 percent of the people in California in a recent poll that I read, they don’t want to go into restaurants where there’s smoking. So certainly there’s an opportunity for people that don’t like smoke-filled restaurants and bars, they can go start their own establishments.

But other people that like cigar smoking or like cigarette smoking, if they want to go to a bar where they all that, they ought to be allowed the freedom to do that. And I can’t believe you’re going to deny them the opportunity to do that.

REYNOLDS: Well, I think that the area – the problem comes when someone goes to apply for a job and they’re hungry and they need a job, and they’re…

HANNITY: They can go work in one of these other bars. You don’t have to work anywhere, Patrick.

(CROSS-TALK)

WARDER: Twenty to 25 percent of those people…

REYNOLDS: Sean, that’s not the way it works. That’s not realistic. And you know, a restaurant owner had to pay $75,000 to cover the cost of a heart attack from a non-smoker who worked in his restaurant. The guy was a vegetarian. He had no history of heart disease in his family. He jogged every day.

(CROSS-TALK)

WARDER: I haven’t heard anybody raise a down side as to the solution that I propose, that there could be some bars that are smoke-free and that some bars that tolerate smoking. And as far as the workers go, there are workers who prefer to be in a smoke-free environment, could work in those bars.

The workers who smoke, and there’s 20 to 25 percent of those workers, they could work in such bars and restaurants. What is the down side? I haven’t heard anybody say what the downside is.

REYNOLDS: Let me tell you what the down side is.

WARDER: Good, go ahead.

REYNOLDS: Say you have a very fashionable club, and you got a hot club where young people want to go to that club. That club happens to allow smoking. You got R.J. Reynolds…

WARDER: That’s right…

REYNOLDS: … paying club owners a lot of money to have camels – cool-looking camels, silhouettes of camels with neat colors around him…

HANNITY: It’s not going to happen anymore, Patrick. You know that that’s true. You know that’s part of this settlement, that they’re not going to target towards young people anymore. So that’s not an issue anymore.

REYNOLDS: My understand is that Reynolds has placing these camel images in bars and nightclubs. And you know, they’re after the young people’s dough.

WARDER: Well, what about all these ridiculous – excuse me, what about all these ridiculous ads we have to tolerate that are generated by the tax dollars that smokers pay, advising all the citizens in America never to smoke? Why do we have to tolerate these stupid ads generated through government purposes (sic)?

REYNOLDS: Why do we have to tolerate tobacco ads that have glamorized smoking for decades after decade after decade. I mean, this is ridiculous. And I’m angry about it, and I’m outraged that tobacco industry has gotten away with spending $4.5 billion a year on advertising its deadly products.

COLMES: All right, let…

WARDER: What I would like to see is out government to simply act as an agent…

COLMES: All right, gentlemen, hold on, we’ve got to get to our viewers.

Hold on just a moment. Let’s go to Alan in New York. Let’s get everybody in here. Alan, you’re on HANNITY & COLMES. Hi.

CALLER: Good evening.

COLMES: Go ahead, sir.

CALLER: First of all, Sean, I love you.

HANNITY: Thanks, Alan.

CALLER: OK, yesterday…

COLMES: What am I, chopped liver?

(LAUGHTER)

Go ahead, Alan.

CALLER: Yesterday on your program, you had Ivan Lafayette (ph), an assemblyman from New York.

HANNITY: Yes.

CALLER: And he’s the gentleman who said that grown-ups smoking…

HANNITY: He’s talking about a radio program I do in New York. Right.

CALLER: Right. The best program on.

HANNITY: Thanks.

CALLER: Anyhow, Ivan Lafayette said that an adult smoking in a car is the equivalent of punching a kid in the face.

HANNITY: We were going to bring that up. You’re – yes…

(CROSS-TALK)

WARDER: That’s just great. Then we can have government intervening in family life even more than it already…

HANNITY: Hang on, Alan, finish your call.

REYNOLDS: What about the corporations that are…

(CROSS-TALK)

HANNITY: Hang on, Alan – let Alan finish his point.

REYNOLDS: Is this a Johnny-One-Note thing or what?

HANNITY: Hang on, gentlemen. Alan, is in New York. Go ahead, Alan, go ahead.

CALLER: Listen to me. Folks, I personally hate smoking. But I support a person’s right to do what they want to themselves. Going back to Mr. Lafayette, my point is this. I suggest he is a phony, like Mr. Reynolds, because if Mr. Lafayette really wants to protect our children, he would introduce a bill that prohibits pregnant women from smoking.

COLMES: Well, that’s one way of going about it. But you were just called a phony, Patrick Reynolds. Maybe you’d like to respond to that. The fact of the matter is, when a child’s in a locked car, and there’s cigarette smoke, we’ve seen the statistics in terms of what passive smoke does to anybody. Especially children, whose lungs may not be fully developed.

WARDER: So you’d have the government intervene?

COLMES: That was directed to Mr. Reynolds, where the caller made a comment about him being a phony. So Patrick, perhaps you want to respond.

REYNOLDS: I do. I watched my father, R.J. Reynolds, die from smoking when I was 15. I saw my brother, R.J. Reynolds III, die from smoking in 1994. I care deeply about this issue. Nothing phony about it. I’ve given over half of my inheritance to fight this deadly thing, smoking cigarettes. And I’ll continue to do this the rest of my life.

HANNITY: Mr. Warder, I want to go to you…

WARDER: Well, I’m very sorry. Really, I’m very sorry about the death of his father. But you know, the sad fact is, we’re all going to die in some shape or form. My father has smoked cigars all his life, and he’s 87. My mom has smoked cigarettes, and she’s 81.

The fact is, why somebody dies, it’s very difficult to attribute to one cause. You would think that if you stopped smoking, you could live forever. And that’s simply not going to happen.

REYNOLDS: You have a 40 percent chance of dying from smoking if you smoke. That’s like having two bullets in a gun with five chambers.

WARDER: But we have to admit that some people smoke and they don’t get cancer. And other people don’t smoke and they do get cancer.

REYNOLDS: Forty percent of the people who smoke die from smoking, OK? And one out three people around the world smoke, and we’re going to see 9 percent of the entire world population die because of cigarettes. That’s reality.

COLMES: All right, we’re going to wrap it up in just a moment when we come back on HANNITY & COLMES. Please stay with us on Fox News.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. Right back to our phones. Scott in Oregon, thank you for calling. Go ahead, sir.

CALLER: Hey, thanks a lot. This is my first time I’m calling. Never watched the show, but I’m really enjoying the debates.

COLMES: Thank you, sir. What’s your point?

CALLER: My comment is I have asthma. And I go into a restaurant or a bar and people are smoking, I feel like it infringes on my right just to breathe clean air. Not only in restaurants and bars, but when you go walk into a building, you usually have to go through a wall of smoke just to get in anyway. And I feel like it takes away from my right to breathe that clean…

COLMES: Excellent point, Scott. Mr. Warder, would you please address that?

WARDER: That’s why I would have two kinds – I would have a smoke-free bar and I would have a bar where smokers are welcome. And that way a person with asthma could go and enjoy the environment he likes to enjoy.

But why should he inflict smoke-free environments on people who would prefer to smoke?

COLMES: Well, you know, all bars are not created equal. What about, as Patrick mentioned, the new hot bar all the kids go to it. But they can’t go to this one…

WARDER: What new hot bar? What are we talking about here? We’re talking about smoke-free…

REYNOLDS: You know where the new hot bar is.

WARDER: … and we’re talking about – well, we’re talking about smoke-free and we could have a hot bar that’s smoke-free. What’s wrong with that? REYNOLDS: You know, OSHA would have ruled on smoking in the workplace. But they’re afraid that the Republican Congress, which gets 80 percent of the tobacco industry’s money, and they are the largest special interest, the tobacco companies, they’re afraid the Republican Congress is going to chop up its budget.

HANNITY: Wait a minute, Patrick. Wait a minute, Patrick. The president of the United States yesterday…

REYNOLDS: They should have ruled on smoking in the workplace a long time ago, and they haven’t ruled. Why not?

HANNITY: Patrick, the president of the United States yesterday met with one of the attorneys that may gain millions. His name’s Stanley Chesley (ph). And this $368 billion deal that’s coming up here, he went to the -the president went to his house for a $500,000 fundraiser.

And Hugh Rodham, Hillary’s brother, he also benefits from this bailout here. So this is baloney. If you’re going to blame the Republicans here. And $368 billion…

(CROSS-TALK)

HANNITY: The president has legislation that will benefit his big donors.

WARDER: There’s just one thing I’m more concerned about than big corporations, and it’s big government.

REYNOLDS: We don’t need to give them immunity. Why does Congress need to negotiate with the tobacco industry? Why should they give them immunity? They could pass the whole settlement into law and not give them any immunity at all?

COLMES: Michael Warder…

WARDER: Yes, and who gets the money, by the way? The lawyers get the money. The government gets the money. What about the…

(CROSS-TALK)

REYNOLDS: (OFF-MIKE) want to assess the money. They’ll give us campaign finance reform.

COLMES: Mr. Warder, what’s going to happen this week? Will this initiative in California, will this law be overturned?

WARDER: I think inevitably it will, because it’s a bad law.

REYNOLDS: It’s a great law. It’s very popular. It will not be overturned. This is the future. And you’re looking at the future even now.

WARDER: It went down to defeat 42-24 in the assembly.

COLMES: And so you think – you would disagree about whether it would be overturned? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

COLMES: Thank you very much. I wish we had more time. Patrick Reynolds, Michael Warder, that’s it for tonight. Thank you for watching. Sean and I will be back tomorrow with more lively debate. We hope you join us. Thanks for watching, and have a great night.

GENERAL NEWS

TOBACCO’S LOBBYING EFFORTS
Campaign contirubtions are fine, but tobacco prefers the pricey Power of persuasion (includes graphic: Lobbying efforts outpace campaign contributions)

MATT STEARNS and CANDACE CARPENTER Medill News Service
1,571 words
26 March 1998
York Daily Record
A; 01

WASHINGTON – Judging by how they spend their money, tobacco companies are more interested in lobbying the lawmakers who now hold office than in helping candidates keep or gain office.

Members of Congress have received millions in campaign contributions from tobacco companies for years, but the money and manpower dedicated to the industrys lobbying efforts outweighs its federal election spending by nearly eight to one.

In the last two years alone, the four leading tobacco companies have sent at least 240 lobbyists to the halls of Congress, including several former party leaders and members of Congress. Among the most prominent lobbyists are former Sens. Howard Baker of Tennessee and George Mitchell of Maine, Haley Barbour, the former Republican National Committee chairman, and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.

Tobacco companies spent at least $72.1 million on lobbying in the two years ending Dec. 31, 1997 a time when Congress was considering broad legislation that could change the face of the industry. That compares with more than $9.5 million in tobacco contributions to federal campaigns during the same time period. Since the start of 1991, the industry has contributed more than $24.6 million to federal campaigns.

Philip Morris Cos. Inc., big tobaccos biggest company with nearly 50 percent of the domestic cigarette market, spent $42.8 million on lobbying in the last two years, more than 11 times as much as the $3.8 million it gave to federal candidates and parties in the same period.

The tobacco industry hopes this full-court press will persuade Congress to pass tobacco legislation based on the $368.5 billion settlement negotiated between the major tobacco companies and 40 state attorneys general last year. Major provisions include Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco products, heavy payments by the industry to public health programs and, in return, limited immunity from class action lawsuits for the tobacco companies.

Several alternatives to the settlement have been introduced in the House and Senate, including some that are tougher on the tobacco industry than the settlement it prefers.

And that explains big tobacco‘s burst of lobbying activity on Capitol Hill.

“Tobacco companies are lobbying more on Capitol Hill these days because of the settlement,” said a Republican congressional aide. “They’ve always had a big presence in Congress. But the sheer size of the settlement is an incentive for them to step up lobbying and campaign contributions.”

While conventional wisdom has big tobacco on the run as public opinion has turned against tobacco companies, some in Washington say the industry’s influence is peaking at just the right time.

“I wouldn’t bet against the industry getting a lot of the things it really wants in the final analysis,” said Celia Wexler, a policy analyst at Common Cause, a public interest lobbying group. “They certainly have the home court advantage.”

Investing in Congress has allowed the tobacco companies to put anti-tobacco legislation in a long-term holding pattern, according to Patrick Reynolds, an anti-tobacco advocate who is the grandson of company founder R.J. Reynolds.

“For 30 years, Congress has done nothing to limit tobacco advertising, nothing to substantially raise the federal cigarette tax, nothing to stop our children from easily buying cigarettes, and nothing to pass a federal workplace smoking law,” he said.

While tobacco lobbying has been stepped up, Wexler said, “lobbying and campaign contributions go hand-in-hand.

“Lobbying works a lot better if you establish relationships. And campaign contributions are a great way to establish relationships,” she said.

Most of the tobacco companies’ current relationship-building has been with Republican candidates and the Republican party.

“In recent years, the tobacco industry tilted donations heavily in favor of Republicans,” said Reynolds. “Republicans get 80 percent of tobacco‘s largesse.”

Since 1991, the Republican National Committee and affiliated Republican campaign committees received about $11.9 million, while another $5 million went directly to candidates.

Philip Morris was the most generous tobacco company, making nearly $8.5 million in campaign and party contributions since 1991. The tobacco industry’s other big campaign spenders included: RJR Nabisco, Inc., which contributed more than $6.1 million (nearly $1.9 million in the last two years); United States Tobacco, Inc., which gave nearly $3.9 million (including $1.4 million in the last two years); The Tobacco Institute, the industry’s trade association, which contributed more than $2 million (about $750,000 in the last two years); and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which gave more than $1.9 million (nearly $1 million in the last two years).

But those figures pale when compared to what each of those groups has spent on lobbying Congress since 1996.

In the last two years, The Tobacco Institute spent $5.4 million on lobbying. U.S. Tobacco and Brown & Williamson each spent $5.1 million. And RJR Nabisco spent more than $3.9 million.

An industry spokeswoman defended the lobbying and campaign contributions.

“Our constitution gives us the right to petition our government,” said Peggy Carter, manager of media relations for RJR Nabisco’s tobacco operation. “If people have a problem with the tobacco industry doing that, they don’t have a problem with the tobacco industry. They have a problem with the system as a whole.”

Anti-tobacco advocates agree that the tobacco industry’s dual strategy big campaign contributions and heavy lobbying activities appears to have worked.

“No corporation gives away millions of dollars without expecting something in return,” Reynolds said. “Since the tobacco industry began tilting most of its dollars to the Republicans, examples of their bestowing favors on the tobacco industry abound.”

The largest single beneficiary of tobacco campaign contributions was Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., R-Va., whose congressional district includes Virginia’s tobacco country and who chairs the House Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over tobacco-related legislation.

He received $101,566 from tobacco interests between 1991 and the first half of 1997, according to Federal Election Commission s.

The Senate’s leading recipient of tobacco money was Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., who received more than $80,000 during the same time period, according to FEC s.

And despite the turning of public opinion against big tobacco, the industry won one big victory and nearly won another in Congress as recently as last year, Wexler said.

The 1997 budget agreement between Congress and the Clinton administration initially called for a 20-cent per pack increase in cigarette taxes. By the time the deal was voted on, industry lobbyists had convinced Congress to reduce the tax increase to 15 cents per pack, Reynolds said.

The tobacco industry also got the House and Senate to approve a provision in the bill that would have allowed the industry to subtract $50 billion raised by the tax from the total industry payment required by any national tobacco settlement, according to a Common Cause study.

“They came close to a $50 billion windfall,” Wexler said. “It got through both houses, but because it was so publicized, Congress had to shamefacedly renege on the deal.”

Even if the deal didn’t go through, the fact that it came so close reflects the continued power of the tobacco industry on Capitol Hill, Wexler said.

But some on Capitol Hill claim that big tobacco‘s power has waned as more information has been made public about the inner workings of the industry.

“Their influence has declined as a result of public opinion and the media turning their fire on them,” said an aide to a Republican senator. “Right now they’re hunkered down, under fire, trying to figure out what to do next.”

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and several other lawmakers have announced in the past year that they no longer will accept campaign contributions from tobacco political action committees.

“Certainly you have fewer people accepting their contributions,” the aide said. “But it’s much more than money. It’s a credibility gap.”

In what appeared to be an attempt to close that gap, the tobacco industry recently opened a new front in its lobbying efforts by taking out full-page ads in major newspapers touting the public health benefits of the proposed national tobacco settlement. Ads also are scheduled to air on radio and television stations around the country.

“Good lobbying involves public opinion,” Wexler said of the advertising campaign. “In the past, the tobacco industry could talk to Congress and not worry about public opinion. But the public is engaged on this issue, and tobacco companies have to take that into consideration.”

Whether all that firepower works will be known when and if legislation based on the proposed national tobacco settlement comes to the floor of the House and Senate.

Tobacco companies want any legislation to provide them with immunity from class action lawsuits and maintain their ability to sell their products to adults, according to industry spokesman Scott Williams, of the public relations firm Bozell Sawyer Miller.

“We’re entering a very critical period,” Williams said. “This is an enormously complex and controversial issue. The devil is in the details, and how you hammer out what’s in the final agreement.”

ykdr000020010919du3q004wy

NATIONAL

TAX REVOLT … IN REVERSE

Leo Rennert McClatchy Newspapers
546 words
1 April 1998
The Grand Rapids Press
A8

NATION Enough, already, with the loopholes, tax breaks, wealthy protesters say

WASHINGTON – A radically new tax protest movement sprang to life Tuesday as wealthy individuals marched on the Capitol to complain they’re not taxed enough and pledged to donate their 1997 capital- gains tax breaks to foster more social and economic justice.

Scions of some of America’s richest families and new-money entrepreneurs told lawmakers they’re sick and tired of getting too many benefits and won’t take special tax windfalls anymore.

In a classic man-bites-dog twist, their campaign offers a sharp counterpoint to more traditional anti-tax crusaders who demand lower tax bills.

The new organization, known as Responsible Wealth, so far has signed up 225 wealthy members – all with more than $125,000 in annual income or more than $500,000 in net assets.

Some intend to send checks to the U.S. Treasury. To date, individual give-back pledges range from $100 to $212,000.

Among the group’s charter members are Chuck Collins, great- grandson of meat packer Oscar Mayer; George Pillsbury, great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Co.; Robin Lloyd, a Chicago Tribune heiress; Patrick Reynolds, of the Reynolds tobacco family; and entreprenueur Michelle McGeoy of Richmond, Calif., who started a software firm in Berkeley.

Their collective ire was aroused by last year’s balanced-budget agreement between the Republican Congress and President Clinton, which provided a reduction in the top capital-gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent, retroactive to last May 7.

Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said more than two-thirds of the 1997 tax cut will end up in the pockets of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, whose incomes average $666,000 and whose average individual windfall will total $7,135.

Of the 80 percent of federal tax filers earning less than $59,000, only one in 17 will get any tax cut at all this year and the average for those families will be $6, he said.

Republicans argued that lower capital gains rates would spur investments and fuel economic growth. They rejected criticism of the bill as “the politics of envy and class warfare.”

But at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by Responsible Wealth, several lawmakers who voted against the legislation, including California Democratic Reps. Robert Matsui and Fortney “Pete” Stark, blasted its effects as putting the country on a perilous path of sharper income divisions.

That also was the message of some of its biggest beneficiaries, who said their consciences rebelled against accepting more government largesse.

The Rev. Charles Demere, a Maryland Episcopal priest and investor who comes from a wealthy Georgia family, said he feels the “same kind of outrage” when he does his taxes as he did when he grew up in a segregated South.

“Why do investors like me keep getting tax breaks, while taxes fall so heavily on working families struggling to make ends meet?” he asked. “Some economists say that a rising tide lifts all boats. But this tide is lifting primarily the yachts. God wants the rowboats lifted as well.”

Demere said he will give his $5,000 tax windfall to the Fund for Tax Fairness.

grpr000020010917du41009f3

News

‘Radical rich’ seek more taxes Hold rally and pledge to shun big windfalls

Leo Rennert
McClatchy Newspapers
546 words
1 April 1998
The Patriot Ledger Quincy, MA
Run Of Paper
03

WASHINGTON — A radically new tax protest movement sprang to life yesterday as wealthy individuals marched on the Capitol to complain they’re not taxed enough.

They pledged to donate their 1997 capital-gains tax breaks to foster more social and economic justice.

At a rally that contrasted sharply with the anti-tax crusades of recent years, scions of some of America’s richest families and new-money entrepreneurs told lawmakers that they’re tired of getting too many benefits and won’t take special tax windfalls anymore.

The new organization, known as Responsible Wealth, so far has signed up 225 wealthy members — all with more than $125,000 in annual income or more than $500,000 in net assets.

Two weeks before tax-filing deadline, 23 members already have tallied $628,000 in tax breaks that they will return, mostly in the form of donations to nonprofit groups seeking to reverse a growing gap between haves and have-nots. Some intend to send checks to the U.S. Treasury.

To date, individual give-back pledges range from $100 to $212,000.

Among the group’s charter members are Chuck Collins, great-grandson of meat packer Oscar Mayer; George Pillsbury, great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Co.; Robin Lloyd, a Chicago Tribune heiress; Patrick Reynolds, of the Reynolds tobacco family; and entreprenueur Michelle McGeoy of Richmond, Calif., who started a software firm in Berkeley.

Their collective anger was aroused by last year’s balanced-budget agreement between the Republican Congress and President Clinton, which provided a reduction in the top capital-gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent, retroactive to last May 7.

Of the 80 percent of federal tax filers earning less than $59,000, only one in 17 will get any tax cut at all this year and the average for those families will be $6, he said.

The 1997 measure also contained $500 child credits and tax breaks to help middle-class families pay for college tuition, but these are to be phased in over the next several years.

Clinton justified his decision to sign the bill on the ground that he otherwise could not have swung over Republicans intent on cutting estate and capital-gains taxes in his drive to get tax relief for middle-income families.

Republicans argued that lower capital gains rates would spur investments and fuel economic growth. They rejected criticism of the bill as “the politics of envy and class warfare.”

But at the Capitol Hill event sponsored by Responsible Wealth, lawmakers who voted against the legislation, including California Democratic Reps. Robert Matsui and Fortney “Pete” Stark, said it would increase the nation’s income gap.

That also was the message of some of its biggest beneficiaries, who said their consciences rebelled against accepting more government largesse.

“We don’t need this tax break; we shouldn’t accept it,” Robin Lloyd said.

TODAY’S BUSINESS

PLEASE, TAX US MORE

Leo Rennert McClatchy Newspapers
964 words
2 April 1998
The Capital Times
All
1B

A radically new tax protest movement sprang to life this week as wealthy individuals marched on the Capitol to complain they’re not taxed enough and pledged to donate their 1997 capital-gains tax breaks to foster more social and economic justice.

Scions of some of America’s richest families and new-money entrepreneurs told lawmakers that they’re sick and tired of getting too many benefits and won’t take special tax windfalls anymore.

In a classic man-bites-dog twist, their campaign offers a sharp counterpoint to more traditional anti-tax crusaders who demand lower tax bills.

The new organization, known as Responsible Wealth, so far has signed up 225 wealthy members — all with more than $125,000 in annual income or more than $500,000 in net assets.

Two weeks before tax-filing deadline, 23 already have computed a total of $628,000 in tax breaks that they will return, mostly in the form of donations to nonprofit groups seeking to reverse a growing gap between haves and have-nots. Some intend to send checks to the U.S. Treasury.

To date, individual give-back pledges range from $100 to $212,000.

Among the group’s charter members are Chuck Collins, a Madison-native and great-grandson of meat packer Oscar Mayer; George Pillsbury, great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Co.; Robin Lloyd, a Chicago Tribune heiress; Patrick Reynolds, of the Reynolds tobacco family; and entreprenueur Michelle McGeoy of Richmond, Calif., who started a software firm in San Francisco. Their collective ire was aroused by last year’s balanced-budget agreement between the Republican Congress and President Clinton, which provided a reduction in the top capital-gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent, retroactive to last May 7.

Of the 80 percent of federal tax filers earning less than $59,000, only one in 17 will get any tax cut at all this year and the average for those families will be $6, he said.

The 1997 measure also contained $500 child credits and tax breaks to help middle-class families pay for college tuition, but these are to be phased in over the next several years.

However, even after all provisions take effect, 50 percent of the cuts will go to individuals in the top 5 percent income bracket, McIntyre said.

Republicans argued that lower capital gains rates would spur investments and fuel economic growth. They rejected criticism of the bill as “the politics of envy and class warfare.”

That also was the message of some of its biggest beneficiaries, who said their consciences rebelled against accepting more government largesse.

“I believe it is time for people of wealth to speak out,” said Lloyd, a descendant of Henry Demarest Lloyd, a writer for the Chicago Tribune who married the boss’s daughter.

“We don’t need this tax break; we shouldn’t accept it,” Robin Lloyd said.

Lloyd said she will donate her $8,000 in capital-gains savings to the Peace Development Fund and other nonprofits.

Demere said he will give his $5,000 tax windfall to the Fund for Tax Fairness.

Pillsbury chipped in $2,000 to help advocacy-reform groups reduce the impact of big money on the political system.

In a message from California, McGeoy blasted the 1997 tax breaks. “I want to speak with my dollars,” she said. “I think many others will join with me.”

McGeoy sold her software company, Tailored Solutions, in 1993 and now heads a nonprofit organization that provides high-tech training to high school students. She pledged her $1,300 tax break to the Fund for Tax Fairness.

Mike Lapham, a Bostonian who serves as project director of Responsible Wealth, said some members are willing to go public, while others prefer anonymity.

Since most members of Congress meet its wealth-eligibility criteria, Latham said he may circulate the group’s “Tax Break Pledge” forms on Capitol Hill.

Matsui joined with other opponents of the 1997 tax law in congratulating Responsible Wealth members for declining their windfalls. “The legislation was a farce; it had no basis except greed,” he said.

Stark said Congress sent a message that “the richer you are, the more benefits you get.”

Both lawmakers said they didn’t have capital gains last year and thus won’t be able to take the tax-break pledge when they file their 1997 returns.

xwst000020010919du42005zv

Grandson of tobacco company founder speaks out against smoking

361 words
11 November 1998
06:15 am
Associated Press Newswires

GOSHEN, Ind. (AP) – An unlikely spokesman for a Tobaccofree Earth says he’d like to see smoking completely eliminated.

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., told Goshen students on Tuesday that he envisions a day when the world will be a smokeless society.

Reynolds stopped toeing the family line in 1986, drawing immediate attention to his anti-tobacco words.

“I was catapulted overnight into a position of leadership in the movement,” he said.

His message was effective because it was personal. His grandfather, father and older brother all died of tobacco-related illnesses. Reynolds himself was a pack-a-day smoker for years before finally quitting the habit and selling his R.J. Reynolds stock.

In 1989, he founded the Foundation for Tobaccofree Earth.

“I’ll keep doing this the rest of my life,” he said.

Reynolds spent Tuesday in Goshen speaking during the day to students at Goshen Middle School and in the evening to adults at Goshen College. His visit was part of the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the college and Goshen Health Systems.

Reynolds spoke fervently about the issue that has become his passion.

“I’m very much in favor of no-smoking laws,” he said, citing an Elkhart proposal to ban smoking in restaurants. He encouraged people to rally behind such bans.

Reynolds said he wants to take his message to more children. When he spoke to middle school kids earlier in the day, he asked them to raise their hands if they had seen a friend smoke, and many hands went up.

Smoking is a children’s disease, he said. Most smokers start at the age of 14 and are addicted by the age of 19.

Since 1988, the year Joe Camel was introduced in advertising, smoking among teens has increased 73 percent, he said.

“Is smoking a matter of choice?” he asked. “No, it’s an addiction.”

But Reynolds does remains optimistic that the trend is changing.

“One day,” he said, “our children are going to look back and say, ‘Did people ever smoke?”‘

Rush

Keep your resolve

SCOTT RICHARDSON
877 words
5 January 1999
The Pantagraph Bloomington, IL
D2

So, it’s the fifth day of the New Year, and your enthusiasm for your New Year resolutions is already waning. Get help and support on the Internet.

No. 1 resolution on many lists (including mine) is losing weight. Try Diettalk, a Yahoo-styled directory of sources from diet books and weight-loss programs to eating disorders. Visit the News and Magazines sections for the latest on a variety of health topics. Get healthy recipes. Link to the Diet Webring if you have hours as well as calories to burn – you’ll be taken to Web site after Web site on diet-related issues. There’s a variety of online calorie counters, including one that shows how much you burn off during more than 100 common activities. Ask a Dietician offers sources of individual help.

Visit Fitness Online for ideas on how to exercise off that unwanted flab. There are links to spots such as “Quad Almighty, for legs;” “Chest training from all angles,” “Maxin’ out the arms” and more. Take part in forums and chat rooms with fellow sufferers. Make that, happy people in training.

Blair’s Stop Smoking Resources is dedicated to offering free support in your effort to beat tobacco (I did this one, 10 years and counting). It’s one of the busiest Web sites on the Internet on the topic, attracting 1,500 visits daily. Visit the chat room or scan the bulletin board. Add your name to the ex-smoker’s list. Get ideas for books to help. Oh, oh, there’s a diet and weight-loss section here too to help fight the urge to stuff your face when you put the tobacco out. Read a list of cigarette ingredients. Let’s see, there’s ammonia, acetone, nickel, lead and arsenic just to name a few. Makes you want to grab the pack for another, doesn’t it?

Visit the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, with its primary spokesman Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Co. Read a message to youth, get more tips on how to stop and read the latest research on tobacco’s damaging effects.

Did you resolve to start the New Year with a new job? Check into Job Place, a site of the Better Business Bureau to provide a centralized clearing house for resumes. More than 2,000 businesses will have access to yours once you post it. Or, read job opportunities from all over the United States. If you don’t find something to your liking there, try Career Web. Post your resume for free. Read a listing of all employers that advertise with the service. Sign up for Jobmatch, an e-mail service that will alert you when a new job posting matches your profile. Visit Career Doctor for articles on how to add zest to your work. Find out if self-employment and having your own business if for you. Get tips on how to be effective during an interview or find out what it takes to be a successful woman in business. If you’ve been a working mom at home and you want to get a job outside the family’s corporate headquarters, see what you must do to help your husband cope.

How about taking that class you’ve been putting off. Arragon is a Web site that offers free services to identify classes near your home or distance-learning opportunities available through the Internet. It specializes in helping working adults who wish to return to school. Get information on topics ranging from and literature to business, fine arts or computer technology. Visit the free on-line counseling service.

If managing your money better is your goal for 1999, take a seat at Armchair Millionaire, a free site of people who want to help you build a million-dollar portfolio through the “Five Steps to Financial Freedom.” Get help devising your financial action plan.

Local/State

Reynolds tobacco heir brings anti-smoking message to school

MORGAN LEE, Staff Writer
902 words
28 January 1999
Morning Star – Wilmington, N.C.
1B, 4B

Middle school students craned for a view and the whispering stopped Wednesday when Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, flashed a photo of a high school track star on the screen.

“Hear me now and hear me again,” he said.

The athlete chewed tobacco and lost his tongue, jaw and the tip of his nose to cancer before dying of the disease at 19, he said.

An unlikely tobacco foe, Mr. Reynolds said his father’s death at 58 from emphysema, a respiratory disease, still inspires his pleas for a smoke- and tobacco-free country.

A show of hands at in the Roland Grise Middle School auditorium showed most students knew a friend who smoked or who had stolen cigarettes from convenience store racks.

Mr. Reynolds warned the students to beware of countertop cigarette displays strategically placed at eye level. “Each of you has the power to influence your friends and take them in a good direction,” he said.

J. ReynoldsTobaccoCo. spokesman Jan Smith said later by telephone that cigarette displays are placed at checkout counters because they are the point of purchase where adults make choices between brands and the location can protect stores from theft.

The idea that it is placed at eye level to target young people is “absolute baloney,” she said.

RJR Tobacco now distributes school curriculums and hires celebrities to deliver lessons on coping with peer pressure and avoiding cigarette use among youths.

Mr. Reynolds, who divested his holdings in the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in 1979, still was relishing Wednesday new cigarette taxes and advertising limits created in the settlement between tobacco companies and 50 state attorneys general.

When Mr. Reynolds first spoke in favor of a ban on tobacco advertisements at a congressional hearing in 1986, the appearance sparked a blizzard of requests for interviews and speeches. It launched what became a career of lecturing and lobbying for cigarette taxes and smoking restrictions before state legislators.

“It’s satisfying to see the tide turn,” Mr. Reynolds said “We’re past the halfway point.”

Mr. Reynolds still enjoys lobbing political bombs at the tobacco industry.

He found bitter irony Wednesday in the impeachment hearings and ongoing Senate trial of the president.

“Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have said that when a chief executive commits perjury that {he} should be prosecuted,” Mr. Reynolds said before his address to the students. “But the Republicans did nothing to prosecute the seven tobacco company CEO’s who perjured themselves when they said that nicotine is not addictive.”

Mr. Reynolds referred to the April, 14, 1994 congressional subcommittee hearings on nicotine and cigarettes chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

“Cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction,” said James W. Johnston, CEO and chairman of RJR Tobacco Co., who now is retired. “There is no intoxication.”

Mr. Reynolds started his speech at Roland Grise by recounting a meeting with his father, R. J. Reynolds Jr. It’s a story he often shares at speeches, which are republished at his Web page.

Patrick Reynolds and his father were separated for six years because of a divorce. He was 9 when he visited his bedridden father. R. J. Reynolds told his son he had asthma. In reality, it was emphysema and Mr. Reynolds would die of the respiratory disease before Patrick turned 17.

Mr. Reynolds, who has quit smoking, showed the student crowd slides lampooning cigarette icons including a cancer-wracked likeness of Joe Camel, named “Joe Chemo,” lying in a hospital bed. He told students, however, not to ridicule smokers or smoking. Wearing a remote clip-on microphone, Mr. Reynolds stepped into the crowd for questions, like a television talk-show host.

What’s more dangerous, smoking or chewing tobacco, one boy asked.

“They’re equally dangerous,” Mr. Reynolds said.

Wandering off topic, one student asked whether it was OK for adults to drink a glass of wine with dinner.

I wouldn’t say it is all right to drink wine every day, he said.

“Some of the children are wrestling with these things already: they want information,” school administrator Marjorie Way said, explaining the many hands waiting to question Mr. Reynolds.

Although tobacco ads are being pulled off billboards by April 22, Mr. Reynolds said he still wants less publicity for the toxic product.

Movie and television stars play into tobacco company hands by showing more smokers on the screen than there would be in real life.

“I don’t believe in censoring movies, that would be wrong” said Mr. Reynolds, a Los Angeles resident. “We can give {movie stars} some healthy shame – not excessive shame.”

RJR Tobacco does not pay for or give permission to place its product in films or on television, Ms. Smith said.

Mr. Reynolds’ addressed an older audience Tuesday night at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and visited two other public schools Wednesday. The speeches were sponsored by local health groups, including Project Assist, UNCW Crossroads and Wilmington Health Access for Teens.

Caption: Staff photoKEN BLEVINS. Tobacco heir Patrick Reynolds talks to 6th graders Wednesday at Roland Grise Middle School about the dangers of using tobacco. Mr. Reynolds said his father’s death at 58 from emphysema inspired him to advocate against tobacco use.

METRO

BRIEFLY

609 words
13 March 1999
Dayton Daily News
CITY
1B

METRO AREA QUICKREAD

Reynolds heir to speak Tuesday about tobacco

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds, will deliver a speech, “The Truth About Tobacco,” from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday at Samaritan North Health Center, 9000 N. Main St., Englewood. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. For information, call 276-8327.

Boy Scouts will collect nonperishable items for hungry

In an effort to feed the hungry, the Boy Scouts of America will deliver Scouting for Food bags to residents of the Miami Valley today. On March 20, the Scouts will collect the bags filled with nonperishable food items and deliver them to a local food pantry. Canned and boxed goods, baby food and peanut butter are needed. If your bag is not picked up, you may leave it at any Montgomery County Jiffy Lube. For information, call 278-4825.

METRO TODAY
MARY MCCARTY

COMMENTARY; TOBACCO FIGHTER BRAVE ENOUGH TO STAND UP BEFORE 6TH- GRADERS

MARY MCCARTY
643 words
17 March 1999
Dayton Daily News
CITY
1B

Junior high school kids are the toughest audience. The very toughest.

Either from instinct or experience, Patrick Reynolds knows this. The grandson of R.J. Reynolds has testified against the tobacco industry before Congress. That’s an easy audience compared with what he faced Monday at Kettering Middle School: 400 sixth-graders, squirming in an auditorium, ready for him.

Reynolds told them he was going to start out by telling his own story.

“It’s kind of a sad story. As a boy of 3, my parents divorced, and I didn’t see my father again until I was 9 years old. And I really needed him and missed him. I didn’t have him to pat me on the back and say, `You did a good job, son.”

A kid in the audience said, ” Awwww …” with the scorn only a sixth-grader could muster.

If Reynolds heard the comment (and he did), he didn’t let on.

“A lot of you share some of this loss,” he continued. “How many of you are living in homes with only one parent?”

A third of the hands went up.

Reynolds finally wrote a letter to his father – “Dad, where are you?” – and his father sent for him.

“The anticipation was huge,” he said. “I walked into this room and there was my dad, lying on his back dying of emphysema caused by smoking.”

“Dad, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“I have asthma,” his father said, lying to his son.

Reynolds saw his father five more times before he died at 58.

It was hard to tell when Reynolds hooked the kids. Maybe it was the adolescent humor. (He got a big reaction when he put up a slide of “Joe Chemo,” depicting the famous cigarette icon camel in a hospital bed.) Maybe it was the shock tactics: before-and-after photos of a high school track star who chewed tobacco.

“They cut his tongue out,” he said, “and he could never talk.”

A half-hour into his presentation – a time span that normally would have tested all bounds of sixth-grade endurance – the kids sat spellbound for an entire 10 seconds while Reynolds paused for dramatic effect . “He had them,” said Kettering Middle School Principal Rusty Clifford.

The theatrics come naturally to Reynolds, 50, who also spoke at Valley View and Wayne high schools and the Samaritan North Center during his two-day trip to the Miami Valley. He had a Hollywood career for many years. He starred in a 1986 film, The Eliminators, playing a robot named Mandroid who delivered such lines as, “You’re the one who needs body work.” His jet-set lifestyle included a relationship with actress Shelley Duvall and acquaintances with Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But “the jet-set life didn’t give me what I was looking for: my father.”

A former smoker, Reynolds doesn’t want to emulate his father, either in his untimely death or his role as the “profligate heir with the 200-foot yacht and homes all over the world.”

One of seven children from his father’s four marriages, Reynolds inherited $2 million from his father, who left most of his estate to charity. Reynolds pumped half of his fortune into his Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth. In addition to numerous speaking engagements, he lobbies lawmakers to increase the cigarette tax and to make it harder for juveniles to buy cigarettes.

No member of the Reynolds family has held a position of power at R.J. Reynolds for 50 years, he said, yet the name holds a symbolic weight.

What makes a man turn against a business that left him a comfortable fortune?

This memory: a 9-year-old boy watching his father die.

OPINION
MARY MCCARTY

He’s not blowing smoke

MARY MCCARTY
Mary McCarty writes for the Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio.
682 words
21 March 1999
Tulsa World
FINAL HOME EDITION
6

DAYTON, Ohio — Junior high school kids are the toughest audience. The very toughest.

Either from instinct or experience, Patrick Reynolds knows this. The grandson of R.J. Reynolds has testified against the tobacco industry before Congress. That’s an easy audience compared with what he faced recently at Dayton’s Kettering Middle School: 400 sixth- graders, squirming in an auditorium, ready for him.

Reynolds told them he was going to start out by telling his own story.

A kid in the audience said, ” Awwww …” with the scorn only a sixth-grader could muster.

If Reynolds heard the comment (and he did), he didn’t let on.

“A lot of you share some of this loss,” he continued. “How many of you are living in homes with only one parent?”

A third of the hands went up.

Reynolds finally wrote a letter to his father — “Dad, where are you?” — and his father sent for him.

“The anticipation was huge,” he said. “I walked into this room and there was my dad, lying on his back dying of emphysema caused by smoking.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” I said.

“I have asthma,” his father said lying to his son.

Reynolds saw his father five more times before he died at age 58.

“They cut his tongue out,” he said, “and he could never talk again.”

A half hour into his presentation — a time span that normally would have tested all bounds of sixth-grade endurance — the kids sat spellbound for an entire 10 seconds while Reynolds paused for dramatic effect.

“He had them,” said Kettering Middle School principal Rusty Clifford.

The theatrics come naturally to Reynolds, 50, who also spoke at Valley View and Wayne high schools and the Samaritan North Center during his two-day trip to the Miami Valley. He had a career in Hollywood for many years. He starred in a 1986 film, “The Eliminators,” playing a robot named Mandroid who delivered such lines as “You’re the one who needs body work.” His jet-set lifestyle included a relationship with actress Shelley Duvall, and acquaintances with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dodi al Fayed. But, he said, “The jet-set life didn’t give me what I was looking for — my father.”

A former smoker, Reynolds doesn’t want to emulate his father, either in his untimely death or his role as the “profligate heir with the 200-foot yacht and homes all over the world.”

No member of the Reynolds family has held a position of power at R.J. Reynolds for 50 years, he said, yet the name holds a symbolic weight: “My name gives me the ability to focus attention on tobacco use — and that may be the greatest inheritance of all.”

What makes a man turn against a business that left him a comfortable fortune?

This memory: A 9-year-old boy watching his father die.

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News

What’s Happening

1,217 words
24 March 1999
The News & Observer Raleigh, NC
Final
B2

– WAKE –

Jazz by the tracks: The 1999 season of the Concerts at the Depot series in Apex begins Saturday with a concert by the St. Augustine’s College Jazz Band. The 20-piece student group performs standard arrangements for stage band, pop and rhythm and blues. Hank Williamson of the Ink Spots will be singing with the group at the 6:30 p.m. concert in front of the Apex Chamber of Commerce Train Depot, 220 N. Salem St. Admission is free. Bring your own lawn chair or reserve a picnic table for $25. It seats eight. Food will be sold on site or you can bring a picnic basket. Information: 362-6456.

Charity sale: The Peace College Student Government Association is sponsoring its second annual yard sale for charity from 7 a.m. to noon Saturday on College Green on the Peace campus in Raleigh. Proceeds from this year’s sale will benefit the Raleigh Rescue Mission and the Girls Club of Wake County. Information: 508-2305.

Women and music: On Saturday, “An Evening with Women Composers and Musicians at NCSU” will be presented at 8 p.m. in Stewart Theatre, N.C. State University, Raleigh. The concert will feature works by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach and Esther Williamson Ballou. Featured musicians from the NCSU faculty will be Phyllis Vogel, pianist; Marilyn Lynch, organist; Eleania Ward, soprano, and pianist Nancy Ping-Robbins. Tickets are $5, $4 for NCSU staff and faculty, $2 NCSU students, at 515-1100.

* * *

– DURHAM –

A diverse performance: A Concert for Human Rights, featuring Tibetan monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery; Kabankafo, an African dance ensemble with Mohammed Docasta; poet Mara Jebsen and singer Worokya Diomande will be performed Thursday at Duke University. Tickets for the 8 p.m. concert in Reynolds Industries Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus, are $10, $7 for students, at Page Box Office (684-4444). Proceeds will benefit refugee communities in Nepal and India.

Remember the Soviet Union? Put on your fanciest “Cold War” attire, or come as you are, and join Tom Whiteside, assistant director of the Duke University Program in Film and Video, for the shooting of scenes for the new “mockumentary,” “Hot Car, Cold War,” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday during the After Hours program at the Duke University Museum of Art on East Campus.

At 6:30 p.m., Whiteside will give a brief presentation on the Chaika, the inspiration for the motion picture. Refreshments and a cash bar will be available until 8 p.m. and camera crews will be busy throughout the evening filming folks having a good time.

Improvisational performances will be appreciated and Russian speakers are especially encouraged to take part. Information: 684- 5135.

Combined musical forces to perform: Rodney Wynkoop will lead the Choral Society of Durham, the Duke Chapel Choir and the North Carolina Symphony in two performances of the Berlioz “Requiem” this weekend at Duke Chapel on Duke University’s West Campus. Tickets for the 8 p.m. performance Friday and 3 p.m. performance Saturday, featuring four brass ensembles and more than 300 singers, are $22 and $19, available at the door; Page Box Office (684-4444); Kitchenworks, University Mall, Chapel Hill; and Quail Ridge Books, 3522 Wade Ave., Raleigh. Information: 560-3030 (for Friday’s concert) or 560-2733 (Saturday’s performance).

* * *

– ORANGE –

No cigarettes in his house anymore: Patrick Reynolds, grandson and heir of R.J. Reynolds who founded the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, brings his anti-smoking message to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today. The former pack-a-day smoker speaks at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union Building. Patrick Reynolds quit smoking in 1984 and began his campaign for a Tobaccofree Earth in 1986, spurred on by the early deaths of his father, mother and two aunts, all of whom were longtime smokers. And he attributes his grandfather’s death to chewing tobacco.

In 1989, he founded the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, a nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to help bring about a smoke-free society.

Admission to the lecture, sponsored by the Carolina Union Activities Board, is free. Information: 966-3834.

Coming together through music: The fourth annual Concert for Unity at UNC-Chapel Hill takes place at 8 p.m. Thursday in Hill Hall Auditorium. The concert is organized each year by students to raise money for a humanitarian cause. This year, the concert’s proceeds will benefit the Mother of Peace AIDS Orphanage in Mutoko, Zimbabwe. Groups performing will be Bhangra Elite, Hip Hop Nation, CHispa, Sangam, the Vietnamese Student Association, Unified, the N.C. State Step Team, the Persian Student Association, Roman Candle and Kamikazi. Tickets are $3, available in advance by calling Branson Page at 914-0619 or Shannon Smith at 929-2213; $5 at the door.

Helping students succeed: Dr. John Ratey of Harvard University will present “New Frontiers in AD/HD: Promoting Success for High School and College Students” at 2 p.m. March 31 at the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center in Chapel Hill.

After the lecture, there will be two breakout sessions: one open to high school and college students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder only and one for parents, counselors, college faculty and psychologists on current trends in college programming for students with the disorder. Admission is free but pre- registration is required by calling Learning Disabilities Services at 962-7227.

* * *

– TRIANGLE –

Women’s book fair on three campuses: UNC-CH, Duke University and N.C. Central University will bring together black female writers and their fans in the Triangle Area Black Women’s Book Fair today through Friday.

Admission to the fair, which takes place on all three campuses, is free. The schedule:

– Today: Roslyn Terborg-Penn of Morgan State University, author of “African-American Women and the Struggle for the Vote,” 3 p.m. in Room 208-209, Frank Porter Graham Student Union at UNC-CH.

A cultural celebration of black women writers will follow, with a poetry performance by Lucille Clifton. And there will be a discussion on black women’s literature.

– On Thursday, Duke University will host two workshops for aspiring authors.

At 4 p.m. in the Levine Science Center, former Essence magazine editor Cheryll Greene will present “So You Want to be a Writer!” followed at 5:30 p.m. by literary agent Marie Brown speaking on “So You Want to Get Published!”

The fair’s featured speaker will be Kimberle Crenshaw of the UCLA Law School who will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Duke’s Levine Center. A leading black feminist legal theorist, Crenshaw co-edited “Critical Race Theory.”

– On Friday, two events will feature black female writers in the Miller-Morgan Health Science Center at N.C. Central University. At 3 p.m., Linda Kerr-Norflett will moderate the panel “African-American Women and Spirituality.” Bettye Collier-Thomas, author of “Daughters of Thunder,” and Marla Frederick of Duke also will be featured.

An evening discussion on black businesses will feature Juliet Walker, author of “Free Frank,” and Barbara Robinson, author of “Yes You Can!”

For more information, call 962-6810, 684-2830 or 560-6271.

– Compiled by Jim Carpenter

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News

Tobacco draws RJR scion’s fire

MANYA A. BRACHEAR
STAFF WRITER
564 words
25 March 1999
The News & Observer Raleigh, NC
Orange
B3

CHAPEL HILL — Patrick Reynolds isn’t blowing second-hand smoke when he denounces the tobacco tycoons. In fact, Reynolds – grandson of Winston-Salem tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds – based his anti- smoking message Wednesday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on firsthand knowledge.

Once a pack-a-day smoker, Reynolds is now president of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth, an organization that motivates people to stop smoking or not to start.

Reynolds founded the organization in 1989 after he testified, at the request of Democrats, before a Senate subcommittee in favor of a cigarette tax and for several states’ fledgling anti-smoking laws.

The paradoxical pairing of his pedigree with his anti-smoking stance has earned him wide recognition as a leader in the anti- smoking battle.

Now he takes his partisan views on the road, encouraging anyone who will listen to lobby at the local level for 100 percent smoking bans in their cities and towns.

Reynolds said the stage was set for his rebellious role from the beginning, when his father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., married his mother, a poor Irish show girl – quite the contrast to Reynolds’ Southern aristocratic roots.

“I was ostracized from the Reynolds family” because of the family’s disdain for his mother, Reynolds said.

Since then, the rebel Reynolds has spoken at middle and high schools as well as colleges about the dangers of smoking. His advocacy efforts have targeted children, because 60 percent of today’s smokers started before the age of 14.

“In this country, we’re a nation of addicts – food, alcohol, drugs, television, sex,” he said. “It’s about avoiding our pain.”

For years, politicians have blamed teen-targeted advertising and the glamorous aura of smoking in film and other mass media for the rising rates of teen smoking. Reynolds said teen smoking has increased 73 percent since 1988, the year Joe Camel was launched as an RJR advertising vehicle.

More recently, Reynolds said, market researchers for Coca-Cola have uncovered a third, perhaps more key, reason why children are more likely to pick up a cigarette: lack of faith in the future.

They simply don’t believe they will be around for long anyway, so they light up, Reynolds said.

Persuading children to deal with their pain positively is the challenge to prevent raising another generation of cigarette-addicted teens, Reynolds said. “Your education is not complete until you’ve been through therapy,” he said.

Since Reynolds’ battles have been both personal and political, Bill O’Neal of Chapel Hill expected to hear more about the former smoker’s personal experience. O’Neal said he decided several months ago to quit smoking as of this Friday. He hoped Reynolds would be a source of helpful hints to survive withdrawal.

Indeed, Reynolds recommended holding off for five minutes after the initial craving strikes, and drinking a lot of water.

Spouting statistics without citing his references, he said one out of three people in the world now smokes. Forty-three percent of them, about 500 million, will die from smoking-related diseases.

“My grandfather did not know this,” Reynolds said.

“We want to hold onto our health to enjoy the new century,” he added. “We’re going to have a smoke-free society in the 21st century.”

rnob000020010829dv3p00952

Daybook

542 words
24 June 1999
03:15 am
Associated Press Newswires

. .

Eds: Listing does not mean AP plans coverage of the event.THURSDAY, JUNE 24THURSDAY, JUNE 24

PHOENIX

8:50 a.m. – Arizona’s assistant U.S. attorney and a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge are bringing the century-old case of the gunfight between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday at the OK Corrale in Tombstone to court in a mock trial. The Phoenician, Estrella Theater.

9:00 a.m. – Sentencing of Joe Manuel Ruiz, who pled guilty to murder after wife’s body was found buried on his relative’s property. Judge Ronald Reinstein. Maricopa County Superior Court.

9:00 a.m. – Closing arguments in the trial for Taron Auzene, Jermaine Johnson, Daniel Robinson, Darrion Hartley and Carl Blackman, charged with the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in South Phoenix. Judge Gregory Martin. Maricopa County Superior Court.

11:45 a.m. – The Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board of Directors will hold a special meeting, open to the public, for the purpose of considering certain matters and deciding whether to go into executive session. CAP headquarters, 23636 N. Seventh St., Board Room. Contact: 623-869-2333.

2 p.m. – The County Attorney’s Office will hold a news conference to award $120,000 to 10 organizations that work with at-risk children in afterschool programs. 301 W. Jefferson. Contact: Bill Fitzgerald: 506-3170.

TEMPE

1 p.m. – The Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Arizona will host Patrick Reynolds, a grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds tobacco company. They will also present Ernesto Lopez, owner of South Tucson’s Mi Nidito Mexican Restaurant, an award for providing a smokefree environment prior to Tucson’s recent smokefree restaurant ordiance. The American Heart Association’s Halle Heart Center, 2929 S. 48th St. Contact: Carolyn Crosson, 224-0524.

MESA

7:30 a.m.-9 a.m. – MEGACORP will host their third annual meeting. Hilton Mesa Pavilion. Contact: Brad Smidt, 480-644-3562 or Andrea Rasizer, 480-644-2569.

TUCSON

Noon – Former Sen. Bill Bradley, running for the Democratic nomination for President, will attend a luncheon to benefit the Arizona Democratic Party. Doubletree Hotel, 445 S. Alvernon. Contact: 520-257-9136.

1:30 p.m. – The INS Western Regional Director will introduce a new series of Public Service Announcements aimed at preventing desert crossings and potential deaths from occuring. Tucson Border Patrol Station. 3200 N. Silverbell. Contact: PIO Rob Daniels, 520-670-6871, ext. 4999.FRIDAY, JUNE 25FRIDAY, JUNE 25

PHOENIX

8:30 a.m. – Sentencing of Tammy Noel Sasek, found guilty of leaving the scene of a fatal accident in which a man and his girlfriend were killed in a cross-walk at 23rd Avenue. Judge Silvia Arellano, Maricopa County Superior Court.

9:30 a.m. – Presentence hearing for Michael Sanders, found guilty of two counts of murder, four counts aggravated assault, four counts unlawful imprisonment and one count of burglary in connection with the shooting deaths of two victims by alleged bounty hunters.

1:30 p.m. – Sentencing of Jack Wilmoth, who pled guilty to second-degree murder and armed robbery in the death of an elderly man who was last seen picking grapefruit in his backyard. Judge Daniel Barker, Maricopa County Superior Court.

Rush

aprs000020010829dv6o04q96

News; Domestic

Tobacco Debate

Catherine Crier
2,265 words
1 July 1999
10:30 pm
Fox News: The Crier Report

Federal Clearing House.

(NEWSBREAK)

CRIER: When the tobacco industry struck a $206 billion settlement with 46 states last November, it seemed as if the tobacco debate was over. Well, now smoker’s themselves are suing some of those same companies in a class action lawsuit in Miami.

Both actions have come one common theme, the question of who is responsible for the damages done by smoking, big tobacco or smokers themselves.

Joining me now from Los Angeles is Patrick Reynolds, president of tobaccofree.com, and grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. And from Washington, Sam Kazman, general counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Patrick, let me ask you this. Are you going to be satisfied before the day the tobacco companies are buried permanently?

PATRICK REYNOLDS, PRESIDENT, TOBACCOFREE.ORG: Well, as long as the tobacco industry continues to addict children and as long as we have not taken strong measures to keep cigarettes out of the hands of kids, to eliminate tobacco advertising, to substantially raise the cigarette tax to be where it is with the rest of the world, I won’t be satisfied until then.

And I think that one of the big questions here is whether smokers are responsible for their choice. Yes, I say they are. But does that mean that we should let the tobacco industry go unaccountable for its part in the substantial addiction of our nation? Twenty-five percent of Americans smoke…

CRIER: But…

REYNOLDS: … And most of them started as kids.

CRIER: … Yeah, but Sam Kazman, what you’ve got are a lot of people who have been aware of the damages and dangers for a very long time having the opportunity to sue in the court system. And one might ask where is the shared responsibility?

SAM KAZMAN, GENERAL COUNSEL, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Look, I think since the 1960s when the first mandatory warnings began to appear on cigarette packets, it’s been clear that just about anyone in this country who can read has been on notice that smoking is dangerous.

The ultimate issue I think is this. If people know those risks, why shouldn’t they be allowed to take those risks? Now, the industry…

REYNOLDS: 90 percent of all smokers became addicted before the age of 19…

KAZMAN: … Look, you know…

REYNOLDS: … You’re saying that children should make a responsible, informed choice, and that children should read the warning labels on the side of the pack.

KAZMAN: … If you think there’s evidence that the industry has actively marketed to kids, and there ought to be evidence if it’s occurred because you’ve had millions of s unveiled in the last year…

REYNOLDS: There’s plenty of evidence to that effect.

KAZMAN: … where, Patrick, are the criminal indictments? Why is it that not a single federal or state agency has gone after the industry claiming we have evidence of a conspiracy to market to people, namely children, for whom sales are illegal. That hasn’t happened because I suspect the evidence simply isn’t there.

REYNOLDS: Well, it’s interesting that the Republican leadership in Congress goes after the president for committing adultery, but they don’t go after the tobacco company’s CEOs who perjured themselves under oath. And the reason is I believe that the tobacco industry is one of the biggest donors to the GOP, the second biggest donor in fact.

KAZMAN: Well, then how do you explain the fact that not a single state attorney general has brought the type of suit that I’m asking you about?

If there’s evidence that the industry actively marketed to kids, why hasn’t there been a single criminal indictment on this issue?

CRIER: But…

REYNOLDS: How come the attorneys general, sir, didn’t go ahead and make it mandatory that a percentage of the proceeds of this $200 billion go toward tobacco education? Why didn’t the attorneys general (INAUDIBLE)?

KAZMAN: Because you know and I know that when it comes to revenues from either these lawsuits or from the negotiations themselves and the settlement that was arranged last fall, this was not a search for justice. This is really a treasury hunt. No matter…

REYNOLDS: Wrong. The attorneys general…

KAZMAN: … how addictive you think tobacco is, I think it’s clear when it comes to politicians, tobacco revenues are a lot more addictive.

REYNOLDS: Well, tobacco…

CRIER: I think that’s absolutely true. Patrick, let me focus a question here just a little bit because there are certainly those who are indicting the attorneys general for cozying up too closely to a lot of those plaintiff’s attorneys who are making something like $200,000 an hour when you calculate the $3.4 billion that a small group of attorneys have in fact made in this. And the funds are not going to do the very things you say would better the country.

REYNOLDS: The attorneys general, Catherine, could have made it mandatory that a big portion of the settlement would have gone toward educating kids. They didn’t do that.

Why? The attorneys general know very well rather than cozying up to the plaintiff’s attorneys as you say, the attorneys general I believe are cozying up to the tobacco industry because they know that the tobacco companies are one of the biggest single contributors to political campaigns. And those AGs that want to go on and run for governor are going to look to the tobacco companies I’m sure for donations to their future political campaigns.

KAZMAN: Well, when it comes to making political contributions, plaintiff’s attorneys are no small players either.

CRIER: Absolutely. They’re what, the second largest lobbying group in the country. But we’re going to take a break.

And when we come back, are the tobacco companies really being gouged by these settlements? Or are the taxpayers? We’ll talk about it. Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CRIER: All right, talking big tobacco with Patrick Reynolds and Sam Kazman.

Patrick, if you want the tobacco companies to pay through the nose, isn’t it interesting that following the big settlement with 46 states, the tobacco stocks went up? Big payments are being made to the presidents and CEOs of these companies because they’re doing so well. And in fact, the taxes paid by smokers are the ones, are the moneys that are going to the states, not the big tobacco company’s revenues.

REYNOLDS: Well, that’s true. And shouldn’t smokers be paying for a substantial portion of the disease and death that they cause?

You know, tobacco causes $2.17 of medical costs for every pack of cigarettes sold. And that cost is born by the rest of us, mostly nonsmokers, who are paying that in the form of higher health insurance premiums.

KAZMAN: No, I think that’s simply wrong. That’s simply wrong.

First of all, Cathy (ph), it’s interesting that the day after or at least the week after that nationwide settlement was announced, the industry announced, unveiled, the largest price hike in industry…

CRIER: Yeah.

KAZMAN: … on cigarettes. So the cost immediately is being born by smokers. But on the question of whether really smokers pay their own way or whether somehow society is being forced to bear the cost of their illnesses, I think there are several issues you’ve got to look at that are almost always left out of the claim that smokers don’t pay all of their way.

The average 30-year-old smoker, a two-pack-a-day smoker has a life expectancy six to eight years less than a nonsmoker, which means that person is going to be drawing a lot less out of Social Security, a lot less out of retirement funds, and a lot less out of Medicare and Medicaid. Once you factor that in and the anti-smoking activists…

REYNOLDS: That’s a little morbid, there, Sam.

KAZMAN: … It’s morbid, but it’s true. And you’re the last one to be disputing this. Once you factor that in, the economists who have looked at that have found that smokers pay their own way. When you look at the taxes they pay on every pack of cigarettes, smokers more than pay their own way. So…

(CROSSTALK)

CRIER: The figure — Patrick, let me give you the figure that I was reading in an article that the government, the country makes about 86 cents a pack ultimately because smokers die early.

REYNOLDS: Well, there’s maybe some truth in those statistics. But Catherine, the truth is, and the reality is, that in this country we have one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the world. We have the second lowest cigarette tax in the world after Spain when you average state and federal taxes…

KAZMAN: Because we’re a relatively free country.

REYNOLDS: … And the reality here is in my opinion that the corporations when you look at the big picture, the corporations have become too powerful over the government. And when you hear people who are conservatives saying that we don’t need the government in our lives, look out, it’s a corporate spin because really what we have is the corporations in our lives.

The tobacco industry’s influence over Congress is unprecedented. For 30 years, we had the lowest cigarette tax in the world. Congress did nothing to make it harder for children to buy cigarettes.

CRIER: Well, Patrick, no, jump to the bottom line here. And that is the corporations can pass on the costs. So they’re not hurt any way you do it unless you legislate. Now this makes a lot of people nervous if you want…

REYNOLDS: And unless you regulate…

CRIER: … If you want to get in an regulate and legislate…

REYNOLDS: You bet.

CRIER: … not through lawsuits, but through government action.

KAZMAN: Well, I think it’s…

REYNOLDS: We need both. But Congress is too corrupted by the tobacco industry’s money. And they’re…

KAZMAN: The people who are going to bear the immediate cost of all this are smokers. The people who are going to bear the ultimate cost of all of this are kids. I think my kids are far less threatened by Joe Camel ads than they are by what’s happened to the 1st Amendment in terms of the holes that are being shot into it by this entire approach.

REYNOLDS: It’s time to take away — read David Korten — K-O-R-T-E-N — his new book…

KAZMAN: Let’s not get into the footnotes (INAUDIBLE)…

REYNOLDS: … This is important. When you read this book, “The Post- Corporate World,” you’ll see that we should take away the rights of corporations and not give them the same rights as we give individuals.

KAZMAN: Well, you take away the rights of corporations, you take away the rights of individuals.

REYNOLDS: At the time of (INAUDIBLE), no you don’t. And at time of Adams-Smith (ph), corporations were never meant to become as powerful as they have become over our government. And we need to regulate them.

KAZMAN: Well, when a tax that is thrust on corporations ends up being passed onto customers who are individual people, it’s clear the people are bearing the ultimate cost of all this. You can’t put the corporation in there as a veil to escape this argument.

REYNOLDS: You are defending the corporations, sir. They’re too powerful (INAUDIBLE)…

KAZMAN: I’m defending the corporations. I’m defending their customers. I’m defending the fact that grownups have a right…

REYNOLDS: The Congress did nothing to pass a federal workplace smoking law…

KAZMAN: … to take risks that they choose to take.

REYNOLDS: … Congress has done nothing to raise the cigarette tax, to limit advertising in any way, to keep cigarettes out of the hands of our kids. Congress has done nothing. It took the judicial arm of our government to bring something to pass.

KAZMAN: No, no, no. It took 46 different statute legislatures, all of them changing the rules of the game, abolishing some basic aspects of justice, such as assumption of risks, to do that…

CRIER: OK…

KAZMAN: … This has nothing to do with the judiciary.

CRIER: … All right, Sam Kazman…

REYNOLDS: The corporations are too powerful and…

CRIER: … Patrick Reynolds…

REYNOLDS: … I’m a Democrat.

CRIER: … That’s the last word today. But obviously…

KAZMAN: I’m a libertarian.

CRIER: … the debate goes on, and much of it in our courtrooms.

And coming up next, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu on her latest fabulous project, “The Living Museum.” Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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News; Domestic

Suing Big Tobacco

Sean Hannity; Alan Colmes
2,287 words
23 September 1999
09:30 pm
Fox News: Hannity & Colmes

Federal Clearing House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP – September 22, 1999)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Over the years, smoking-related illnesses have caused taxpayers billions of dollars through Medicare, veterans’ health and other federal health programs. Today the Justice Department declared that the United States is, in fact, filing suit against the major tobacco companies to recover the costs borne by taxpayers. I believe it’s the right thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Sean Hannity.

Leading tobacco companies are ready to fight the $20 billion civil lawsuit filed yesterday by the Justice Department. The suit accuses the tobacco companies of a 50-year campaign to conceal the harmful effects of cigarette smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine. After the suit was filed, an attorney for Philip Morris had the following to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP – September 22, 1999)

GREG LITTLE, PHILIP MORRIS ASSOC. GENERAL COUNSEL: We will not succumb to politically correct extortion. We will not settle this lawsuit. We are right on the law, we’re right on the facts, and we fully expect to prevail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: So have the tobacco companies been lying to us? Should they help pay for sick smokers?

Joining us in Los Angeles, tobaccofree.org founder Patrick Reynolds. He’s the grandson of tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. In Washington, Republican congressman, our good friend, Bob Barr.

All right, Patrick, let me — let me start with you. This is –this is absolutely so hypocritical. The federal government has been subsidizing the tobacco that people use now for decades. They’ve been regulating tobacco for decades. And they’ve also been taxing tobacco and profiting from smoking for decades. And now they turn around and they want to sue tobacco manufacturers when they’ve been their closest ally, their closest supporter, and their fellow profiteer.

PATRICK REYNOLDS, TOBACCOFREE.ORG: Well, Sean, the fact is that the government was unaware that the tobacco industry was guilty of misconduct. The tens of thousands of pages of internal tobacco company memos show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the tobacco industry was going after young people in its advertising campaigns, like Joe Camel and the Marlborough Man. They lied…

HANNITY: Patrick…

REYNOLDS: … that they knew — they knew smoking was addictive…

HANNITY: You know why that’s not legitimate?

REYNOLDS: … and they knew smoking was dangerous.

HANNITY: You know why…

REYNOLDS: Sean, they lied.

HANNITY: … that’s not legitimate? Because they’ve been putting — since 1964, on the side of the pack of cigarettes, because the government mandated this — government — “Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health.” They’ve been warning people for all these years about the dangers of smoking, but they’re profiting from it.

REYNOLDS: Sean, they never…

HANNITY: And now they’re…

REYNOLDS: They never…

HANNITY: Now they’re actually financing entire government programs for kids because of the profits that the government’s been making from this.

REYNOLDS: Sean, they never warned people that cigarettes were addictive. They didn’t warn them about the addictiveness.

HANNITY: Oh!

REYNOLDS: And they said it’s never been proven…

HANNITY: (laughs)

REYNOLDS: … that cigarettes have caused disease.

(CROSSTALK)

REYNOLDS: … fraud and lying and the…

HANNITY: Oh!

REYNOLDS: They perjured themselves under oath. They said, “No, I do not believe nicotine is addictive.” Well, the Republicans in Congress went right after the…

HANNITY: Well…

REYNOLDS: … Clinton for perjuring himself about…

HANNITY: You know what?

REYNOLDS: … adultery, but…

HANNITY: I guess, Congressman…

REYNOLDS: … they didn’t go after the CEOs who perjured themselves for lying about the addictiveness of nicotine.

HANNITY: Congressman, you know, I’m surprised that people on the left, by the way, care about lying under oath, after all. But Congressman…

COLMES: You never miss a chance, do you.

HANNITY: Never. Never miss a chance. By the way, you know…

REYNOLDS: Come on!

HANNITY: Shouldn’t Al Gore, who bragged about hoeing it, growing it, selling it — you know, shouldn’t he then be culpable in this particular type of thing, or Clinton, since his administration hasn’t even attempted to make this product illegal? Don’t they have culpability in this particular case, Congressman Barr?

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB BARR (R-GA): Well, I think that a very appropriate legal move by the defendants in this case that the government has brought would be to bring the U.S. government in as a third-party defendant because I think they are culpable. But all of that aside, my concern more than anything else, I think, Sean, is that what this represents is yet another assault on our legal system and our commercial system in this country. It goes hand in glove with what the government is doing and some trial lawyers are doing to make the manufacturers of firearms — another lawful product with tobacco — liable for the use of that product.

COLMES: Congressman Barr, I…

BARR: And if we — if we allow this to keep going forward, we’re going to have no commerce left in this country.

COLMES: I have some…

REYNOLDS: Let me — let me…

COLMES: Go ahead, Patrick.

REYNOLDS: I want to jump in here…

COLMES: Go ahead.

REYNOLDS: … because look at what Congress did to regulate tobacco. Nothing. There’s been no really substantial cigarette tax increase. Congress did nothing to make it harder for children to buy cigarettes. Congress did nothing to limit tobacco advertising in any way. And Congress did nothing to pass a federal workplace smoking law. Why? It’s because of…

BARR: Oh, well, that — that…

REYNOLDS: … campaign contributions.

COLMES: All right, let’s…

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: All right, Congressman Barr, you know, I agree…

BARR: Yes, sir.

COLMES: … with you a lot about this. I actually believe that the government has a limited — should have a limited ability to affect commerce, and I’m concerned about some of the 1st Amendment issues, like outlawing Joe Camel. I don’t think that is something…

BARR: Right.

COLMES: … for the government to do. But that being said, you got five of the top donors to the Republican Party in the 1996 elections were tobacco companies. You’ve got the — they’re a huge lobby. The Republican Party has run away from campaign finance reform and has looked favorably upon the tobacco industry because of all the money that goes into Republican coffers. Isn’t that true?

BARR: No, it’s not true. Simply because you take campaign donations from either an industry or individuals involved with an industry because you support the same things that they do doesn’t mean you’re beholden to them. I mean, good heavens. You could never take campaign donations from anybody. Now, maybe that’s what you want — if then you can’t…

COLMES: Actually, that’s what I do want. I want publicly financed elections. But supposedly…

BARR: Well, I was hoping you would show a conservative streak there just a couple of minutes ago, but darn…

COLMES: Yeah, well, look…

BARR: … if you didn’t blow it apart.

COLMES: … I’m a free thinker. Trent Lott killed a tobacco bill on the Senate floor after Philip Morris and Brown & Williamson, two major tobacco companies, found it unacceptable.

BARR: Well, the fact of the matter is that the votes that Trent Lott cast, the vote that many members cast, are because they agree with what you initially said, and that is they believe in free enterprise in this country. Now, that may be a dying art form to actually believe in free enterprise, but a lot of us still do.

HANNITY: All right, we…

REYNOLDS: I don’t know how you…

BARR: It doesn’t matter whether or not…

HANNITY: We will take a break…

(CROSSTALK)

BARR: … or another industry.

HANNITY: We’ll take a break. We’ll come back. More of this debate as HANNITY & COLMES continues. Please stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Alan Colmes.

We continue with tobaccofree.org founder Patrick Reynolds and Republican Congressman Bob Barr.

Patrick, let’s respond to this issue of the relationship between the tobacco industry and the Republican Party and what that means in terms of the health and the wellbeing of the American public.

REYNOLDS: Five out of — as you said, five out of the top ten donors to the GOP in the ’96 election were tobacco companies. The Republicans have done favor after favor after favor for big tobacco. And when we look at the big picture, we — you know, we hear from the right wing that we don’t need the government in our lives. But what about big corporations and big business in our lives, buying and selling our personal medical data, our home addresses, our home phone numbers?

More ominously by far, this is an example of excessive corporate power over Congress. Congress did nothing about the tobacco problem. We had to rely on the judicial branch of our government, the court system, to bring big tobacco to heel. The corporations have become so powerful over the government. So many Republicans have been demonstrably bought off by…

HANNITY: Oh!

REYNOLDS: … big tobacco and their campaign donations that I am outraged.

COLMES: Congressman Barr…

(CROSSTALK)

REYNOLDS: I am!

COLMES: We have — there’s a lot of corporate relationships, mostly with the Republican Party, that takes more soft money — that means unregulated money — than the Democratic Party does. When there was a big outcry about what Clinton did, the Republicans refused to even change the system when they had the opportunity.

BARR: Alan…

REYNOLDS: Sir, you’re a very vocal defender of the tobacco industry, and I…

BARR: Alan, this is…

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: Let’s give Bob Barr a chance to respond. Congressman, go ahead.

BARR: Alan, this is not about campaign donations. It is about whether our legal system is going to be abused by the Department of Justice and by others to completely change the character of the legal system. This case, I hope and I expect, is going to be thrown out. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the government cannot force private companies to pay for medical costs unless Congress has expressly authorized it. They haven’t. And I think that this case — I think the tobacco industry is correct to fight it. I think it was a grave mistake for them to have caved in…

HANNITY: I agree.

BARR: … on the other lawsuits because of the…

HANNITY: We…

BARR: … precedent that it set.

HANNITY: Patrick…

REYNOLDS: The legal system…

HANNITY: Hang on a second. Patrick, I want to ask you this question.

REYNOLDS: OK.

HANNITY: You know — by the way, the DNC has accepted big-time campaign contributions from the tobacco industry. But I don’t have a lot of time to go into that.

REYNOLDS: Yeah, but the Democrats want campaign finance reform. The Republicans get twice as much money as the Democrats do.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Hang on. Patrick — Patrick, I want to ask you this question.

REYNOLDS: OK.

HANNITY: Patrick, you’ve inherited millions. You’ve inherited millions of dollars because of the sale of tobacco and tobacco products.

So are you any different? What’s — I mean, you never — you’ve accepted that money.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: … integrity or your character.

REYNOLDS: Tobacco killed my father. I want to address the other gentleman’s point, the congressman’s…

HANNITY: No, no, no, no, no! We only have 30 seconds.

REYNOLDS: The legal system — listen up. I want 30 seconds to talk about the fact that the legal system is the last hope for bringing the power, the excessive power…

HANNITY: But if you want…

REYNOLDS: … of the corporations over Congress to heel.

HANNITY: If you want the RNC…

REYNOLDS: And if we don’t…

HANNITY: If you think they’re…

REYNOLDS: … bring these corporations under control…

HANNITY: … corrupt to have it…

(CROSSTALK)

REYNOLDS: I’m sorry.

HANNITY: You accepted the money. Why — and you want them to give the — you say it’s corrupt when they do it. Why don’t you take all the money that you inherited because of the sale of tobacco and give it away?

REYNOLDS: The legal system is the last…

BARR: Good point, Sean.

REYNOLDS: … hope for our — controlling the excessive power of the corporations in this country.

BARR: This guy’s a fascist, there, Sean!

REYNOLDS: We need the legal…

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: We’re just — we’re just out of time, unfortunately.

BARR: Where’d you dig this guy up from?

COLMES: Congressman, thank you. Patrick, thank you.

BARR: Yes, sir.

COLMES: Coming up: Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley picked up a big endorsement today from someone who says Al Gore is unelectable. We’ll talk to Bill Bradley’s campaign spokesman. Stay with us on HANNITY & COLMES.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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Up Front: BIG TOBACCO

WINNING HEARTS AND LUNGS

By Roy Furchgott EDITED BY ROBERT McNATT
228 words
11 October 1999
Business Week
8
Number 3650

McGraw-Hill, Inc.

It may be embroiled in lawsuits and controversy, but somehow tobacco giant Brown & Williamson still thinks that love rules the world–or at least the smokers in it.

B&W says that people calling one of its customer-service lines were getting testy with operators after navigating the standard “press zero if you want to speak to an operator” option menu. So, after warning those who are underage and nonsmokers to hang up, a message from Chairman Nicholas Brookes’ company states: “We, the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., are in love–with you.” Music swells in the background. Then: “We’re a giant corporation, and you make us feel like a little kitten. Thank you, lover.

“By the way, the other tobacco companies hate you and think you are ugly. They told us so.”

So what gives? A B&W spokesman says, “We think we are a fun company. We are human beings with families and a sense of humor.”

Not everyone is laughing. Says Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and an antismoking activist, “If you don’t think people in tobacco companies are a little warped, call this number.”

Hear it for yourself: 1-800-578-7453.

Photograph: PALM VII: Handy PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUGLAS LEVERE

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U. Southern California: FILM REVIEW: Smoking denial is exposed in new ary

727 words
11 October 1999
U-WIRE

U-Wire.

By David Jay Lasky, Daily Trojan (U. Southern California)

LOS ANGELES — “Smoke And Mirrors: A History of Denial” is a fascinating and richly detailed ary. Directed by Torrie Rosenzweig and narrated by Sharon Gless of Cagney & Lacey fame, “Smoke” explores the influence of cigarettes in popular culture, particularly movies and television commercials.

In a span of 75 minutes, the ary covers cigarette smoking from the roaring ’20s to the cynical ’90s. The film uses archival footage from various cigarette advertisements such as Lucky Strike, Camel and Marlboro to demonstrate how manipulative tobacco companies are to the consumer. Some interesting footage of the ’20s includes images of flappers smoking and defying traditional women’s roles. Their spirit is contagious even though the message is given to make a good profit.

The most exciting segment of the ary is the discussion about the image of smoking actors and actresses in movies. Bette Davis in “Now, Voyager” is an example of an actress who smoked in her film to add sizzle to her romantic scenes with Paul Henreid. Brad Pitt lit a cigarette in “Sleepers” while Sharon Stone lit a cigarette – and her career – in “Basic Instinct.” Countless other actors such as Julia Roberts, James Dean, Uma Thurman and Humphrey Bogart have used cigarettes in their performances.

The issue of female sexuality is raised in the ary. Smoking in the early 20th century was something liberating for women. Actresses like Stone and Davis have strong-willed personas that blend with their non-conforming nature. Actors, on the other hand, display their masculinity with a smoke, according to the ary. The image of a tough cowboy is synonymous with an actor like John Wayne.

The least appealing aspects of this ary include the long interviews with different state university professors. They seem out of touch with the common person in the analysis of tobacco statistics and warning labels on the cartons. It would have been great had the filmmaker interviewed actual smokers. That might have made the film more perceptive and slightly more interesting. The overall look of this film is plain. There is no real visual style except for the many flowing images. The interviews lack bright backdrops, which makes watching them bland.

Sharon Gless does a fine job narrating the film with her clear, passionate and persuasive tone. There is never a lull in her voice that turns the viewer away like other ary features (though Peter Graves of Mission: Impossible fame still holds the position as the best ary narrator). Gless is eloquent and refined in her speech, particularly when the film is discussing the manipulation of the tobacco industry.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument is that of Sen. Robert Kennedy’s from a speech in 1967 at the First Conference on Smoking and Health. “All of you share with us a distressing lack of knowledge about how to convince people, particularly young people, not only that cigarettes may kill them, but that they should do something about it,” Kennedy said. Though he made this argument more than three decades ago, it still has plenty of substance today.

A surprise came from Patrick Reynolds, tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds’ grandson. In 1986, Reynolds said, “When my grandfather began manufacturing Camels, he didn’t know – we didn’t know – that they caused cancer, heart disease, lung disease and emphysema. Now that we know this, I think it’s time, given all the advertising, the seductive advertising that the Reynolds Company has perpetrated on the public to get people to smoke cigarettes… Now I want to do something to get them to stop.”

This film comes out at the perfect time considering Al Pacino’s latest film, “The Insider,” covers the issues of the corrupt, money-hungry cigarette industry. While this film is endorsed by the American Lung Association, Pacino’s film will likely continue the controversy. Unfortunately, this ary is not hard-hitting and impassioned enough to cause a controversy. It is good, however, in terms of its archival footage and perspective. This small film likely will not affect the industry even though it needs to be changed. Contrary to the title, the filmmaker does not deny the viewer the truth and keeps away the smoke and mirrors the industry has been providing for so long.

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NEWS

DEATHS & FUNERALS

6,728 words
19 October 1999
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Home Final
04C

Columbus Dispatch.

ALEXANDER Willard Ray Alexander, age 70, October 17, 1999 at his residence. Preceded in death by brothers Steven Eugene and James. Survived by daughters, Vickie (William) Davis of Galloway, Kammy (Douglas) Meyer of Hilliard; son, Daniel Ray of Virginia Beach; sister, Thelma Kasaboski of Ontario, Canada; 6 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren. At his request, no calling hours or service. Private arrangements with COOK & SON-PALLAY FUNERAL HOME.

ARVIN Evangelist Barbara Smith Arvin, went to her eternal glory on October 16, 1999. She leaves to cherish her memory; son, Carlus Arvin, Columbus; sister, Roslyn Trent, Richmond, Va.; 2 brothers and sisters-in-law, Warren and Janie Smith, Richmond, Va. and Eulas and Effie M. Gaddy, Ft. Washington, Md.; 1 nephew; 9 nieces; 3 great-nephews; 6 great-nieces; and a host of relatives and devoted friends including Pastor Bettie Clay and Pastor Mary Cofield. Funeral service 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at SCHOEDINGER EAST CHAPEL, 5360 E. Livingston Ave., where friends may call 1 hour prior to the service. Pastor Harry Davis officiating. In lieu of flowers friends who wish may contribute to Hospice at Riverside and Grant in her memory.

BALLOU Betty M. Ballou, age 44, of Columbus, died Monday, October 18, 1999 at home. She was an Office Manager and is survived by brothers, Charles (Lois) Ballou and Steven (Linda) Ballou, Columbus; sister, Barbara (Donald) Baker, Marysville; several nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews; devoted cat, Spice. Friends may call Wednesday 6-9 p.m. at the SCHOEDINGER NORRIS CHAPEL, 3920 Broadway, Grove City, where the service will be Thursday 1 p.m. with Rev. Tom Bell officiating. Interment Green Lawn Cemetery. Memorials in lieu of flowers, may be made to the Arthur G. James Hospice program or to the American Cancer Society.

BARRETT Margaret M. Barrett (nee Monnett), age 88. Beloved wife of the late Herbert J.; dear mother of Bruce H. of Mobile, Ala., Elizabeth Anne Gillespie (husband, Ron) of Cincinnati, Oh. and Margaret B. Spriggs (husband, Gary) of Cleveland, Oh.; dear grandmother of Sara Lynn Barrett, Melissa B. Hodgson and Michael B. Barrett. Funeral service at Messiah Lutheran Church, 5200 Mayfield Rd., Lyndhurst, Oh. 44124, Tuesday at 7 p.m. Interment Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Oh., Wednesday 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Messiah Lutheran Church Memorial Fund. Arrangements by MAHER-MELBOURNE FUNERAL HOME, 216-382-4500.

BERNSDORF Eva M. Bernsdorf, age 96, formerly a longtime resident of Upper Arlington, died Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Wesley Glen Health Center. She was retired from Xerox Corp. She is survived by her sons and daughter-in-law, Edward W. and Roseanne McQuiston of Mission Viejo, Calif. and Stanley O. Nollenberger of Columbus; 10 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren. She was a longtime member of Northwest United Methodist Church and Community Chapter 488 O.E.S. Friends may call 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at SCHOEDINGER NORTHWEST CHAPEL, 1740 Zollinger Rd., where funeral service will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday, October 20, 1999. Interment Green Lawn Cemetery.

BILLMAN Olga E. (Schlosser) Billman, 90, of Grove City passed away Sat., Oct. 16, 1999 at her home. She was retired from S.W.C.S. where she was head cook at the Darbydale School, and was a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Rome. Preceded in death by husband by George M.; son James H.; brothers, Clarence and Earl Schlosser and son-in-law Richard Sheets. Survived by children, Mary Sheets and Jerry (Ruth) Billman; 8 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; 9 great-great grandchildren and sisters, Helen Calloway and Hilda White. Calling hours Tues. 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at the SCHOEDINGER NORRIS CHAPEL, 3920 Broadway, Grove City. Funeral serivce 11:30 a.m. Wed., Oct. 20, 1999 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 55 Pasadena Ave. with Pastor Ray Rosenthal and Pastor Matthew Cox officiating. Interment at Grove City Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may made to the church.

BLACK Archie Black, 76, of Mt. Sterling, died Friday, October 15, 1999 at his residence. Born May 31, 1923 in Spencer, Tenn. He was the son of Archie and Lucinda (McBride) Black. Member of Carpenters Local 200. Survived by daughter, Diann (Eric) Swank, Grove City; son, Archie Thomas Black, Hillsboro; 4 grandsons; special friend with whom he made his home, Aileen Nance, Mt. Sterling. A graveside service for burial of cremains will be held 11 a.m. Friday, October 22, 1999 in Pleasant Cemetery, Mt. Sterling. Rev. Dortha Ross officiating. Arrangements were made under the direction of PORTER FUNERAL HOME, Mt. Sterling.

BUTT Edwin Butt, age 67, died October 18, 1999 at Mt. Carmel Medical Center. Arrangements being completed at the JERRY SPEARS FUNERAL HOME, 2693 W. Broad St.

CLARK James Walker Clark, age 78, of Sunbury, Oh., on Sunday, October 17, 1999 at St. Ann’s Hospital. Survived by wife of 53 years, Virginia Clark; daughters, Connie (Gordon) Travis of Sunbury, Janice Lindsey of Columbus and Linda VanGundy of Hilliard; son, James R. (Sharla) Clark of Orrville, Oh.; 1 granddaughter; 6 grandsons; 1 great-granddaughter; brothers, Estill Clark of Fla. and Clifford Clark of Calif. Preceded in death by brothers Paul, Russell, Herman and Steve Clark, sisters Stella Owens and Martha Walters. Mr. Clark was a 40 year member of Carpenters’ Union Local 200. Member of American Legion Post 0888 and V.F.W. Post 14000. A WW II U.S. Army veteran serving with the 83rd Thunderbolt Division in the European Theater receiving 5 Bronze Stars, a Silver Star and Arrowhead. The family will receive friends 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Wednesday at SCHOEDINGER NORTH CHAPEL, 5554 Karl Rd., where funeral service will be held 11:30 a.m. Thursday, October 21, 1999. Pastor Gene Deitz presiding. Interment service with military honors to follow at Blendon Central Cemetery.

CLOUSE Regina Clouse, age 49, of Columbus, died suddenly on Friday October 15, 1999. Preceded in death by her parents, Burt and Kathleen Mock. Regina is survived by her sister, Sally (Lew) Reynolds, of Somerset, MI; nephews, Kris Reynolds and Shawn Reynolds, of Myrtle Beach, SC and Patrick Reynolds, of Somerset, MI; aunts, Katherine Cameron, of Worthington and Eileen Mock, of Columbus; uncle, Herman (Ann) Price, of Columbus; and many cousins and friends. Family will receive friends from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday at RUTHERFORD-CORBIN FUNERAL HOME, WORTHINGTON CHAPEL 515 High St., Worthington, Funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20, 1999 at the Chapel of Resurrection Cemetery, 9571 North High St., Lewis Center, OH (1-1/2 miles north of I-270), Msgr. John K. Cody, Celebrant. If they choose, friends may make memorial contributions to Central Ohio Diabetes Association, 1580 King Ave., Columbus, OH 43212, in Regina’s memory. (Please note corrected date and time of funeral service).

CRAWFORD Mrs. Marilyn Sue Crawford, 60, of 2899 Irwin Dr., St. James-Southport, N.C., died Sunday, October 17, 1999 at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Wilmington, N.C. The memorial service will be conducted 11 a.m. Thursday at Trinity United Methodist Church, Southport, N.C., where she was a member. Mrs. Crawford was born December 11, 1938 in Akron, daughter of the late Kenneth and Edith Mattox Miller and moved to N.C. in May, 1998 from Worthington. To the following people who survive, she was a wonderful and loving wife, mother and grandma. Her husband, Norman D. Crawford of the home; daughter, Lisa Cline and husband, Jan of Delaware, Oh.; sons, Scott and Mark Crawford, both of Columbus, Oh.; grandsons, Ryan and Nicholas Cline, both of Delaware, Oh. Memorial contributions may be made to Trinity United Methodist Church, E. Nash St., Southport, N.C. 28461. PEACOCK-NEWNAM FUNERAL HOME, Southport, N.C.

CROWL Lela B. Crowl, 91, Sunbury, Sunday, October 17, 1999, St. Ann’s Hospital. Born on February 3, 1908 to the late Christopher and Byra (Hartsock) Needles. Graduate of Hartford High School, Class of 1925. She had been a clerk for various area grocery stores, employed at the former Kilgore’s & Nestle’s plants and retired from the micro film department of Franklin County Courthouse. Preceded in death by husband of 68 years Leland P. Crowl, 12 brothers and sisters. Survived by daughter, Patricia (John) Wise of Sunbury; host of nieces and nephews. Friends may call Tuesday 4-8 p.m. at DeVORE-SNYDER FUNERAL HOME, SR 3 at 61, Sunbury, where service will be held Wednesday 2 p.m. Pastor Larry A. Griffin officiating. Interment Sunbury Memorial Park.

DARST Richard E. Darst, age 88, passed away October 16, 1999 at Grady Memorial Hospital, on his late mother’s birthday. Resident of Sunbury Nursing Home. Former resident of Marion Square Senior Citizen Center. U.S. Navy Veteran, served in Japan during WW II. Retired from Timken Roller Bearing. Attended Condit Presbyterian Church. Survived by daughters, Nancy (Ralph G.) Fuller, of Sunbury, Barbara ”Bobby” (Donald) Miller, of Grove City, and Elizabeth ”Tootie” (Richard) Clipner, of Grove City; 9 grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; brothers, Robert Darst, of Columbus and Harry Darst, of Buckeye Lake; sister, Emma Bruce, of FL; many nieces, nephews, and cousins. Family will receive friends Monday, 6 to 8 p.m. at GRAUMLICH & SON FUNERAL HOME, 1351 S. High St., where service will be held Tuesday, 2 p.m., Rev. Carol Weiss officiating. Interment Walnut Hill Cemetery. Those who wish may contribute in memory to Condit Presbyterian Church, 15102 Hartford Rd., Sunbury, OH 43074.

DICKERSON Howard Edge Dickerson, age 82, of Columbus, died Thursday, October 14, 1999 at Westminster Thurber Retirement Community. Veteran of the U.S. Army, WW II. Preceded in death by sisters Esther Haberle and Evelyn McCallum. Survived by brother, Benjamin W. Dickerson of Worthington; nieces, Mary Ellen (Duane) Bartholomew of Westerville, Martha (Harold B.) Lamb of Salt Lake City, Ut.; nephew, Ronald B. (Connie) Dickerson of Westerville; 5 great-nephews. Funeral service will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 20, 1999 at the Chapel of Westminster Thurber Retirement Community, 717 Neil Ave., Columbus. Family will receive friends 1 hour prior to and immediately after the service. Burial will be held at Hackettstown (N.J.) Union Cemetery. Arrangements by RUTHERFORD-CORBIN FUNERAL HOME, WORTHINGTON CHAPEL, 515 High St., Worthington, 885-4006.

DILLARD Tommie Dillard, age 49, October 11, 1999 at Doctors North Hospital. Arrangements by GARY MEMORIAL CHAPEL.

DIXON Henry Dixon, age 79, October 15, 1999 at the Dayton Veteran’s Affairs Hospital. Preceded in death by his wife Ada Walker Dixon, daughter Evonne Watson, parents Marcus and Hattie Dixon, brothers Clifford Garnett, Carl (Ossie) Dixon and Charles (Linda) Dixon. Survived by daughter, Gloria Leeper; and a host of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and numerous other relatives and friends. Retired barber, former employee of Buckeye Steel. U.S. Army Veteran. Member of the American Legion and the Brentnell Apostolic Faith Church Congregation, also worshipped at the Mt. Carmel Holiness Church of America. Friends may call at Mt. Carmel Church, 1528 Old Leonard Ave., Wednesday after 6 p.m. where family will receive friends until the time of the service. Pastor S.J. Walker Jr. officiating. Interment National Cemetery, Dayton, Oh., Thursday at 1 p.m.

DeVOSS Sara Janet DeVoss, age 85, of Harrisburg, Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Columbus West Park Nursing Center. She was a retired floral designer at Lazarus. Member of Harrisburg United Methodist Church, Past Worthy Matron Grove City Chapter 502 OES, Past President of Darby Valley Garden Club, Past President of Ohio Association of Garden Clubs, Golden Moose Columbus Lodge 11. Survived by husband, Dwight ”Barney” DeVoss; sons, Ted (Meg) of Gahanna and Tom (Teresa) DeVoss of Grove City; daughter, Diane (Dale) Hufford of Dunedin, Fla.; grandchildren, Paige (Art) Tavoularis, Chris (Lisa) DeVoss, Jeff (Tammi) DeVoss and Brandon DeVoss; 5 great-grandchildren; sister, Peg Chapin. Visitation Tuesday 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. at MILLER FUNERAL HOME, 2697 Columbus St., Grove City, where funeral will be Wednesday 10:30 a.m. Rev. Phyllis Riggs and Rev. Philip Romine officiating. Interment Concord Cemetery. OES service Tuesday 7:30 p.m.

EDMONSON Gary Edmonson, age 80, of Reynoldsburg, Oh., passed away Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Mt. Carmel East Hospital. Preceded in death by his parents John and Maude Edmonson. Survived by his beloved wife of nearly 54 years, Alta Edmonson; his daughter, Vicki Six; his grandchildren, Ashley Six and Shaun Six, all of Reynoldsburg; his sister, Gretchen Stefanski of Ind.; his brother, John (Becky) Edmonson; and several nephews and nieces. Gary was born and raised in Jasonville, Ind. and lived for 34 years in Zanesville, before retiring from his lifelong career with Muskingum Iron and Metal Co. and moving to Reynoldsburg to be near his grandchildren. He was a member of the Reynoldsburg congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Funeral service will be Wednesday, October 20, 1 p.m. at SCHOEDINGER EAST CHAPEL, 5360 E. Livingston Ave., Columbus, where friends may call from 12noon until the time of service. Burial in Glen Rest Memorial Estate, Reynoldsburg.

EGICH Dewey F. Egich, went home to our Lord the morning of October 16, 1999 at the age of 71. His wonderful smile, sense of humor and generous nature uplifted the lives of all who knew him. Born in Columbus, Oh. to Mary and Joseph Egich in 1928, he was honorably discharged from the service in 1956, served on the Auxiliary Sheriffs Department and was a member of Iron Workers Local 172 for 45 years. Dewey was a member of the Knights of Columbus Council 5429 where he served as Deputy Grand Knight, Grand Knight and Trustee. He served in numerous volunteer positions, most recently as Bingo Manager for Knights of Columbus Bingo and Vice President of Christopher Charity, Inc. Dewey was preceded in death by his parents, 4 brothers and 3 sisters. He is survived by his beautiful wife, Cleo L. Egich; children, Douglas Egich, Jodie Egich and Scott Egich; grandchildren, Nicholas and Lydia Egich; sisters, Bosia Lackey, Amelia (Frank) Workman and Marie (Daniel) Krivicich; numerous nieces and nephews. Friends received Tuesday and Wednesday 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at MAEDER-QUINT-TIBERI FUNERAL HOME, 1068 S. High St. Mass of Christian Burial 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Ladislas Church, 260 Reeb Ave. Burial St. Joseph Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

EITEL Howard E. Eitel, 73, of Grove City, passed away Sun., Oct. 17, 1999 at Mt. Carmel Medical Center. Employed by GM for over 37 years and a WWII Navy veteran. Howard was also a horse owner and loved every moment of his time spent at Beulah Park. Preceded in death by brother-in-law Dale Cline. Survived by his loving wife of 54 years, Jean; sons, Dana E. (Belinda) and Mark E. (Monet) Eitel; granddaughter, Misty; brothers, John D. (Sue) and Bob (Louise) Eitel and sisters, Norma Jean (Elbert) Strickler, Helen (James) Fasanaugh, Marilyn (Robert) Fasanaugh, Carolyn Cline and Betty (Don) Smith. Calling hours Tues. 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at THE SCHOEDINGER NORRIS CHAPEL, 3920 Broadway, Grove City, where the funeral service will be 10 a.m Wed., Oct. 20, 1999 with Rev. Lovell May officiating. Interment at Grove City Cemetery with a military graveside service.

ESSEX Betty M. Essex, 82, of Lancaster, passed away Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Crestview Manor Nursing Home. Funeral Service will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Mills Memorial United Methodist Church, 402 N. Broad St., where friends may call 2 hours prior to service. Arrangements were handled by HALTEMAN-FETT & DYER FUNERAL HOME.

GIBBS Pettis Lee Gibbs, passed Friday, October 15, 1999. Funeral service Thursday 8 p.m., Traveler’s Rest Baptist Church, 1533 Cleveland Ave. Friends may call Thursday 12noon-4 p.m. at the chapel of DIEHL-WHITTAKER FUNERAL SERVICE, 720 E. Long St. and after 5 p.m. at the church, where the family will be receiving friends 7 p.m. until time of service. Interment Friday 10 a.m. Kingwood Memorial Park, Delaware, Oh.

HADDOCK Marjorie L. Haddock, age 76, died October 17, 1999 at Riverside Hospital. Preceded in death by husbands Robert L. Fleming Sr. and John R. Haddock, son Robert L. Fleming Jr. Survived by daughters, Nancy L. (Raymond) Bardar of Granville, Oh., Janice L. Barbour of Columbus; brother, James Kinnaird; sisters, Betty George and Mary Louise Woods; 9 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren. She was a member of the F.O.E. for many years and was a life member of the V.F.W. 1598. No calling hours. Interment of cremains 11 a.m. Monday, 24th of October 1999 at Union Cemetery. Pastor G.A. Haubrich officiating. Arrangements by SCHOEDINGER LINDEN CHAPEL.

HAMILTON Bettie Jean Hamilton, age 66. Service will be at 10 a.m. Friday, October 22, 1999 at Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 453 S. Wheatland Ave. Family will receive friends from 9 a.m. until time of service. Burial Evergreen Cemetery. Full notice to follow. Arrangements by GARY MEMORIAL CHAPEL.

HENRY Patricia Lee Arquette Henry, age 71, on Saturday, October 16, 1999 at Worthington Nursing Home. Survived by daughter Peggy DeRosa; son, Glenn Henry; aunt, Margaret VanFleet; cousin, Max VanFleet; grandchildren, James DeRosa, Amy and Steve Estrada, Chad and Chanelle DeRosa, Justin DeRosa; great-grandchildren, Stephanie DeRosa, Jimmy DeRosa, Shaunnesy DeRosa and Jamie Estrada; special friends Sheila Camboni, Mary Smith and Mary Kay Kinstler. Preceded in death by daugher Linda Henry and parents Clarence Arquette and Hilda Arquette Kommnick. Mrs. Henry was a retired chief radio operator with Clinton Township Police and Fire departments. Previously employed by Dennison Engineering (ABEX) Corporation) and former president of the Volunteer Fireman’s Resource Organization. The family will receive friends 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at SCHOEDINGER NORTH CHAPEL 5554 Karl Road where funeral service will be held 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 20, 1999. Interment Claibourne Cemetery, Richwood, OH.

HILTBRUNNER Cora Hiltbrunner, age 90, Friendship Village Dublin. Survived by relatives and many friends. Retired Kroger Co. Member St. John’s Evangelical Church, American Business Women’s and Rose Capital Chapter. Service will be held Thursday 11 a.m., October 21, 1999 at WEIR-AREND FUNERAL HOME, 4221 N. High St., where family will receive friends 1 hour prior to service. Private interment Green Lawn Cemetery. Rev. Fred Ketner officiating.

HOYT Mr. John Sidney Hoyt, age 73, of Destin, Fla., passed away Sunday evening, October 10, 1999. Mr. Hoyt was born October 2, 1926 in Columbus, Oh. to the late Raymond and Irene Hoyt. He has been a resident of Destin since 1991 moving from Alexandria, Va. Mr. Hoyt served as Administration Assistant to U.S. Congressman Samuel L. Devine from Columbus, Oh. He was a member of the Masons in Oh. and the Okaloosa County Republican Executive Committee. Mr. Hoyt attended the Destin United Methodist Church. He enjoyed sailing, swimming and his computer. Mr. Hoyt is survived by his wife, Lois A. Hoyt of Destin; son, Mark Alan Hoyt of Santa Barbara, Calif.; son, Michael Arthur Hoyt and wife, Cathy of Dayton, Oh.; daughter, Kim Hoyt-Konrad and husband, Ervin of Columbus, Oh.; sister, Ann Hoyt McDonald and husband, Lee of Akron, Oh.; 6 grandchildren, Jeremy, Jessica, Amanda, Cody, Dylan and Keefe; and other extended family. Funeral services for Mr. Hoyt were held 10 a.m. Thursday, October 14, 1999 in the Destin United Methodist Church with Dr. John C. Friedman officiating. Interment followed at 1:15 p.m. at Barrancas National Cemetery. The family greeted friends Wednesday evening, October 13, 1999 from 6-8 p.m. at the funeral home. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the American Heart Association, 222 N.E. Hospital Drive, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. 32548 in memory of Mr. John Sidney Hoyt. EMERALD COAST FUNERAL HOME, 113 Racetrack Road N.E., Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. 32547 is in charge of the arrangements.

HUEY Mary ”Bonnie” La Vonne Huey, 74, died Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Whetstone Care Center. She is survived by her sons, Bob, Bill and Tim Huey and their familiee; brother, Richard A. Thoma. She is preceded in death by her husband Robert. Family will receive friends Wednesday 6-8 p.m. at SCHOEDINGER NORTH CHAPEL, 5554 Karl Rd. Graveside service and interment 11 a.m. Thursday, October 21, 1999 at Mifflin Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the American Diabetes Association in her memory.

KINKEAD Donna Phyllis Kinkead, age 74, on Sunday, October, 17, 1999 at Riverside Methodist Hospital. Survived by sons Mike (Linda) Kinkead, William (Ann) Kinkead, Jr. and Donnie (Tami) Kinkead; daughter Beckie (Brian) Bergman; grandchildren, Kyle, Keith, Caitlyn, Bradley and Erica; great-grandchildren, Steven and Lea; brothers, Noah Howard (Mary) Martin, Jr., Dale (Ellen) Martin and Don Martin; Many nieces, nephews and friends. preceded in death by husband William Kinkead, Sr.; granddaughter Kelsey; sister June Reese. Mrs. Kinkead was a former employee of Curtis/Wright Aviation Co. During WWII and Later with Capital City Products. Retired from Harts Department Stores. The family will receive friends 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at SCHOEDINGER NORTH CHAPEL, 5554 Karl Road. Graveside and Interment service 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 20, 1999 at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens. The family suggests contributions to Hospice of Columbus in memory of Mrs. Donna Kinkead.

KLEIN Jeanette Ellen Klein, age 87, of Sarasota, Fla., died October 15, 1999. She was born July 12, 1912 in Columbus, Oh. and moved to Sarasota, Fla. in 1980. Preceded her in death were her husband Henry and her grandson Bradley Sorensen. She was retired from the Ohio Department of Taxation where she was an Administrative Assistant. In Sarasota, she belonged to the Women’s Club at Phillippi Shores Marina Mobile Home Park. Survived by daughter, Beverly J. Malins of Sarasota, Fla.; son, David L. Klein of Hilliard, Oh.; 2 grandchildren; 5 great-grandchildren. Funeral service Wednesday 1 p.m. at SCHOEDINGER HILLTOP CHAPEL, 3030 W. Broad St. Interment at Alton Cemetery. Memorial contributions can be made to her favorite charity, The St. Labre Indian School, P.O. Box 216, Ashland, Mont. 59003-0216.

LATHAN Julia D. Lathan, age 84, of Carroll, Oh., formerly of Pinebluff, N.C., Sunday, October 17, 1999 at her residence. Born September 21, 1915 in Morven, N.C. to the late Joseph and Ashe (Moore) Diggs. Retired emergency room secretary at Moore Regional Hospital and member Pinebluff United Methodist Church. Survived by daughter, Libby (Bill) Carruthers, Carroll, Oh.; son, Mac (Linda) Lathan, Charlottesville, Va.; grandchildren, Shea (Scott) Mozingo, Lynn (Shawn) Freeze, Dennis (Jennifer) Carruthers, Tim Lathan, Covey Lathan, Cody Lathan; 5 great-grandchildren; beloved cousins and in-laws. Preceded in death by husband Harvey Lathan in 1993. Friends may visit 6-8 p.m. Thursday at the POWELL FUNERAL HOME, 106 E. New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines, N.C. Funeral service will be held 11 a.m. Friday at the Pinebluff United Methodist Church. Rev. Robert M. Hammond and Rev. Jim Hamilton officiating. Interment Pinebluff Cemetery. Friends who wish may contribute to Hospice of Fairfield County, 1111 E. Main St., Lancaster, Oh. 43130 in Julia’s memory. Local arrangements by DWAYNE R. SPENCE FUNERAL HOME, Canal Winchester.

LEEKE SR. James R. Leeke Sr., 72, died October 14, 1999 in White City, Oreg., formerly of Minerva Park. Survived by sons, James II (Jane) of Worthington, Oh., David of Detroit, Mich., Calvin (Helen) of Littleton, Colo., Jon (Connie) of Canal Winchester, Oh.; daughter, Carol Robey-Lucas (Joe) of Columbus, Oh. Also survived by numerous nieces, nephews, grandchildren, brother and sisters. Preceded in death by parents George and Lula Leeke of Harrisburg, Ill. Raised in the poverty of coal mining country, persevered and prospered to be not only the family’s first college graduate but also a successful small business owner, police officer, Army officer and civil servant. Veteran of WW II-Philippines Campaign, also Ohio Army National Guard 37th Infantry Division. Succumbed to cancer after lifelong battle with smoking. Private memorial service to be held by the family. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the American Cancer Society or the Open Shelter.

MARSHALL Dorothy Ruth Burget Marshall, died Thursday, October 14, 1999 at Broadview Health Care Center. Born April 1, 1908 in Altoona, Pa., the daughter of Walter and Nellie Burget. She is a retired Claims Examiner for the State of Ohio. Ms. Marshall has bequethed her body to The Ohio State University College of Medicine, to help play a vital part in training future physicians. She is preceded in death by brothers Kenneth and William Burget and son-in-law Ernest M. Strauss. Survived by daughter, Barbara C. Strauss; grandchildren, Craig M. Strauss, Michael M. Strauss, Kenneth K. (Kellie L.) Strauss and Matthew J. (Wendy) Strauss; great-grandchildren, Tracy, Courtney, Carissa and Sidney Strauss; brother, John (Donna) Burget; nieces and nephews. Private family service by the SCHOEDINGER NORTHEAST CHAPEL. Contributions may be made to Catholic Social Services, Senior Care, 35 Midland Ave., Columbus, Oh. 43223, in her memory.

MILLER Jerry E. Miller, age 58, of Columbus, died Saturday, October 16, 1999 in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. Owner of Millers Northland Auto Care. Preceded in death by father Eugene Miller and brother-in-law Bill Turner. Survived by wife, Judy Miller; mother, Amber Miller; son, Jeffery Miller; daughter and son-in-law, Jackie and James McGraw; grandchildren, Jessica, Jamie and Julie McGraw; sisters, Charlene (Ralph) Vorys, Linda (Larry) Rhoades; brother, David (Candy) Miller; uncle, Ehmann Miller; sister-in-law, Mary Turner; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Bob and Janet Gump; nieces and nephews; special friend, Eldon Voshart; special neighbors, George and Jeanne Johnson. Jerry was a long time volunteer for Hidden Lakes Campground (Mt. Gilead, Ohio) where he had many friends. Jerry will be loved and missed by everyone who knew him. Funeral service will be held 10 a.m. Thursday, October 21, 1999 at SCHOEDINGER NORTH CHAPEL, 5554 Karl Rd., where friends may call 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Wednesday. Interment Union Cemetery. Rev. Bob Burney officiating.

MILLER Warren ”Tom” DeVer Miller, age 88, of Upper Arlington, died Saturday, October 16, 1999 at Riverside Methodist Hospital. He was a graduate of Harding High School, Class of 1928, in Marion, Ohio, and a veteran of the U.S. Army, WW II. He was a 37 year employee of the Columbus Dispatch. He was a Past President of Upper Arlington Senior Center and was inducted into the Central Ohio Senior Citizen Hall of Fame in 1992. He was also the Columbus Commander and a Past District Commander of the U.S. Power Squadron and a member of the Coast Guard Auxillary. He was also a Past President of the Upper Arlington chapter of the AARP and received numerous awards for his volunteer work throughout the city and state. Tom was preceded in death by his wife Mary K. Miller in 1984 and also by his brother Leroy Miller. He is survived by his children, Melinda (Gordon) Jones, of East Hampton, CT, Craig R. (Karen C.) Miller, of Summerville, SC, and Jane (Michael) Adkins, of Upper Arlington, OH; 9 grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren; brother, Frank (Martha) Miller, of Ada, OH; sister, Lois Freiberger, of Lebanon, OH; numerous nieces and nephews; and many friends from the Upper Arlington Senior Center. Friends will be received 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday at SCHOEDINGER NORTHWEST CHAPEL, 1740 Zollinger Rd. and also one hour prior to a memorial service which will be held 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 20, 1999. A private interment will be held for the family at a later date in Walnut Grove Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Upper Arlington Senior Center, 1945 Ridgeview Rd., Columbus, OH 43221-2897 in his memory.

MORRIS Lillie Mae Morris, age 63, Columbus, Oh., went home to be with the Lord on October 17, 1999. Preceded in death by her husband Johnny Morris, mother Eloise Stirtmire, father John Goolsby and step-father Frank Stirtmire. She leaves to cherish fond memories of her, daughter, Debra (Matthew) Parks; son, James (Debra) Goolsby of Columbus, Oh.; godson, Michael (Sharon) Hansard of Cleveland, Oh.; brother, Frank Stirtmire; sister, Frances Stirtmire; 2 very dear cousins, Robert (Alene) Malone and Hattie Malone, all of Columbus, Oh.; a very special friend, Mattie Williams of Cleveland, Oh.; 30 grandchildren; 25 great-grandchildren; many loving relatives and friends. Friends may call Thursday after 11 a.m. at Christ Cathedral Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 3350 Allegheny Ave., where family will receive friends from 12noon until time of service at 1 p.m. Pastor Robert Keyes officiating. Interment Glen Rest Memorial Estates. CROSBY FUNERAL HOME serving the family.

McCLURE Patricia Smith McClure, age 76, of Columbus, died Sunday, October 17, 1999 in University Hospital East. She was a retired teacher and counselor for Columbus and Whitehall Public Schools and a member of Bexley United Methodist Church. She is survived by her husband, Kenneth D. McClure; daughters, Mary Lynn (Sam) Bates of Worthington, Oh. and Linda (Charles) Zimmer of West Chester, Oh.; 5 grandchildren, Susan (Dan) Griffin, David, Casey, Adam and Jason; sister, Marilyn Stocking of West Lafayette, Ind.; nieces and nephews. There will be no visitation at the funeral home. A memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Thursday in Bexley United Methodist Church, 2657 E. Broad St., where the family will receive friends immediately following the service. A private interment will be held earlier in Glen Rest Cemetery. If desired, contributions may be made to the memorial fund of Bexley United Methodist Church or to a charity of your choice in her memory. Arrangements by WOODYARD EAST CHAPEL.

OHANIAN (TAKACH) Georgia M. (Tackach) Ohanian, age 52, of Columbus, OH, Saturday, October 16,1999, at OSU Hospital. Preceded in death by mother Frances Hester Brooks Takach. Survived by husband, Ed; father, Edward (Lucy) Takach; sisters, Donna and Nancy Takach; mother-in-law and father-in-law, Carol and Norik Ohanian; sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Helen and John Overfield; brothers-in-law, Richard and Robert Ohanian; sister-in-law Cindy Ohanian; nieces, Jenny, Shelly, and Allison Overfield. Administrative Assistant, City of Columbus, Department of Economic Development. Memorial Service 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, October 19, 1999, at RUTHERFORD FUNERAL HOME AT POWELL, 450 W. Olentangy St. (Powell Rd.) Powell, Ohio, 43065, where friends may call Tuesday, 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Burial later. Contributions may be made to Childrens Cancer Fund at The Arthur G. James Hospital, 10th Ave., Cols., OH 43210 in her memory.

OSBORNE Ethel Osborne, age 77, of New Albany, Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Doctors Hospital North. Member Little Angel Old Regular Baptist Church. Survived by husband of 61 years, Forest; daughter, Sandra Kay (Birtchel) Mosley Jr., Ind.; sons, Roger (Shirley) Osborne, Canal Winchester, Forest ”Ozzie” (Jane) Osborne Jr., Grove City; sister, Estella Stanley, Columbus; 2 grandsons; 5 granddaughters; 7 great-grandsons; 5 great-granddaughters. Preceded in death by parents Grover Cleveland and Mary Lovely Oliver, 5 brothers, 1 sister and grandson Ron VanHorn. Friends may call after 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Little Angel Old Regular Baptist Church, 5733 Saltzgaber Rd., Groveport, with service Wednesday 6:30 p.m. Funeral service Thursday 11 a.m. Interment Forest Lawn Cemetery.

PICKENS Opal E. Pickens, age 78, of Whitehall, Sunday, October 17, 1999, Mt. Carmel East Hospital. Member East Community Church. Survived by daughters, Shirley Banfield, Whitehall, Nancy (Charles) Glosser, Gahanna, Ruth (Paul) Soller, Zanesville, Suzanne Price, Whitehall; son, John (Elaine) Pickens, Columbus; several grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; sisters, Grace Hart, Flint, Mich., Juanita Jenkins, Fla.; nieces and nephews. Preceded in death by husband John Pickens Sr., parents Andrew E. and Virginia E. (Woodard) Hart, brother Murry Hart and sister Dorothy Hoy. Friends may visit Wednesday 2 p.m. until the time of service at 2:30 p.m. at East Columbus Church of Christ in Christian Union, 6926 Tussing Rd., Columbus. Rev. Raymond McDaniel officiating. Interment Mifflin Twp. Cemetery. Arrangements by DWAYNE R. SPENCE FUNERAL HOME, Canal Winchester.

RAY Eric L. Ray, age 28, Friday, October 15, 1999. Graduate of East High School. Owner of Hair All Day Salon. Survived by father, Rudolph O. Stewart; mother, Marsha Ray; sons, Jamal and Shamar; sister, Erica Ray; mother of his children, Attiyyah Islam; grandmother, Mary E. Williams; great-grandmother, Mary Williams; host of aunts, uncles, nephews, cousins, other relatives and friends. Service Wednesday 1 p.m., chapel of WAYNE T. LEE FUNERAL SERVICE, 1370 E. Main St. Rev. Jerry Rice officiating. Family will receive friends 12 p.m. until time of service. Interment Glen Rest Memorial Estates. Family may be contacted at 278-7923.

RICE Edward Allen Rice, age 77, of Columbus, formerly of Lockbourne, Saturday, October 16, 1999, Mt. Carmel Medical Center. Retired owner/operator Ashland Oil Bulk Distributor, Lockbourne. Member of Lockbourne United Methodist Church. Survived by wife, Juanita; daughters, Kay McCormick, Columbus, Sue (Chuck) Larkin, Fla., Faye Arkley, Hebron, Carol (Glen) Emrich, Grove City, Lisa (Cam) Gott, Grove City; son, Eddie (Boney) Rice, Reynoldsburg; 6 granddaughters; 1 grandson; 1 great-grandson; sister, Catherine Daniels, Lancaster; brother, Lewis Rice, Jessup, Ga.; special thanks to staff of Monterey Nursing Home, Grove City, Station 4. Friends may call at the MYERS FUNERAL HOME, Groveport, Tuesday 5-7 p.m., where service will be conducted Tuesday 7 p.m. Interment Fernwoood Cemetery at the family’s convenience.

SEX Lewis W. Sex, 81, of Buckeye Lake, died Sunday, October 17, 1999 at his residence. Born August 8, 1918 in Newark, Oh., son of William and Ethel (Holton) Sex. Retired from Kaiser Aluminum in 1983. U.S. Army WW II Veteran. Member of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Buckeye Lake. Past member of Church Council. Member of V.F.W. 1388. 29 year member of A.A. Preceded in death by parents, wife Betty (Ingram) Sex, daughter Linda Bole and sisters Elizabeth Sex and Lucille Braumbeck. Survived by daughters, Mary Lou King and Debbie (Tom) Lawson, both of Buckeye Lake and Pamela (Jerry) Nichols of Heath; son-in-law, Ronald Bole; sisters, Ethel Vogelmire of Newark, Evelyn Sex of Port Charlotte, Fla; brother, Earl Sex of Newark; grandchildren, Debbie (Denny) Ridgeway of Heath, Jana (Michael) Newman, Ronnie (Tammy) Bole and Susie Eisel, all of Hebron, Oh., Shelly (Carl) Redman and Brian Nichols, all of Newark and Aaron Lawson of Buckeye Lake; great-grandchildren, Jason and Jennifer Ridgeway, Brittany, Catie and Jordan Newman, Megan and Donald Gillespie, Austin Negele and Brook-Lynn Bole; many nieces and nephews. Friends may call Wednesday, October 20 from 4-9 p.m. at BORING-SHERIDAN FUNERAL HOME, Hebron, Oh. Funeral service Thursday, October 21, 1999 at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Buckeye Lake with Msgr. Frank Meager officiating. Burial St. Joseph Cemetery, Newark.

STRAZISHAR Edward C. Strazishar, age 61, of Dublin, died unexpectedly Saturday, October 16, 1999 at Riverside Methodist Hospital. Arrangements to be announced by SCHOEDINGER NORTHWEST CHAPEL, 1740 Zollinger Rd.

THOMPSON Kenneth ”Duckie” Thompson, age 69, October 16, 1999 at Doctor’s Hospital West. U.S. Army Veteran of Korean War. Preceded in death by parents, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters. Survived by wife, Joann; sons, Rex (Debra) Thompson, Kenneth (Kathie) Thompson, Jr.; grandsons, Ray, Nick, Joshua, and Rex, Jr.; sister, Ruth Bentley; brother, Andrew ”Midge” Thompson; several nieces and nephews. Friends may call at JERRY SPEARS, 2693 W. Broad St., Monday, 7 to 9 p.m. and Tuesday 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. where service will be held 1:00 p.m. Wednesday. Rev. Roy Fisher officiating. Interment Obetz Cemetery.

VAUGHN Elva M. Vaughn, age 91, Saturday October 16, 1999 at her residence. Retired teacher, Dublin Public Schools. Member North Congregational Church; Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary, Unit 8. Preceded in death by husband Clyde M Vaughn. Survived by son & by son & daughter-in-law, Bruce and Desiree Vaughn; grandchildren, Curtis (Trishalana) Vaughn and Kelly Vaughn. Friends may call at the SOUTHWICK-GOOD FUNERAL CHAPEL, 3100 N. High St. Tuesday 2-4 & 7-9 p.m. Funeral service Wednesday, 1:00 p.m. at North Congregational Church 2040 W. Henderson Rd. Rev. Timothy Ahrens officiating. Interment Dublin Cemetery. Contributions if desired may be made to the Salvation Army or Hospice at Riverside/Grant.

WALTERS Kay Frances Walters, 61, of Somerset, went home to her Lord at 9:55 p.m. Sunday, October 17, 1999 after a long illness. Her beautiful smile, loving countenance and personality were a joy to all who knew her. Born December 1, 1937 in Zanesville, Kay was the daughter of Raymond M. Hill of Zanesville and the late Grace Roach Hill. She was a psychiatric nurse at Bethesda Hospital as well as Director of Nursing at Fairfield Care Center and Homestead-Lancaster. She retired from Mt. Aloysius. She was a member of Hopewell United Methodist Church. She is survived by Loren Walters, whom she married on September 25, 1959, and they have 3 children, Karen Walters of Newark, Jim (Marcia) Walters of Columbus and Jeff (Twila) Walters of Scranton, Pa.; as well as 5 grandchildren, Korey, Katie, Megan, Nicole and Stacey. She is also survived by a brother, William Hill of Zanesville. Friends may call from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, October 20, 1999 at the BOPE-THOMAS FUNERAL HOME, 203 S. Columbus St., Somerset. A Service of Resurrection will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, October 21, 1999 at the Somerset United Methodist Church with Rev. Ken Kirk officiating. Burial will be in Somerset Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the Hopewell United Methodist Church.

WESTLAKE Dorothy E. Westlake, age 82, Sunday at the residence. Retired teacher at Heyl Elementary School. Member Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church and former volunteer at Lutheran Village. Widow of John T. Westlake. Survived by sons and daughters-in-law, James A. & Margaret Westlake of Columbus, John R. & JoAnn Westlake of Carroll, Ohio, daughter and son-in-law, Suzanne & John Hsu of Roswell, GA., 8 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren, cousin, John Stukey of Lancaster, Ohio. Funeral service 10:00 a.m. Thursday, October 21, 1999 at the SCHOEDINGER MIDTOWN CHAPEL, 229 East State Street where friends may call Tuesday 6-8 p.m. and Wednesday 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. Interment Eastlawn Cemetery. Pastor Ronald Hagedorn officiating. Friends may, if they wish, contribute to Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4500 Refugee Road, Columbus, OH 43232

WILCOX Charles M. Wilcox, age 66, of Plain City, Monday at his residence. Arrangements pending at the FERGUSON FUNERAL HOME, Plain City.

WOLFE Margie E. Wolfe, Saturday, October 16, 1999. Grant Medical Center. Preceded in death by brother John Andreko. Survived by husband, Frank; sons, Mark, Scott (Peggy), Thomas, and Patrick; sisters, Lucille Benjock, Mildred Doughtery, and Mae Hagerman; grandchildren, Phillip, Mathew, and Rebecca. Friends may call Tuesday 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at MAEDER-QUINT-TIBERI FUNERAL HOME, 1068 S. High St. Mass of Christian burial 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Our Mother of Sorrows Chapel. Msgr. James P. Hanley, Celebrant. Burial to follow at St. Joseph Cemetery. FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO MEET AT OUR MOTHER OF SORROWS. NO PROCESSION FROM FUNERAL HOME.

WOODCOX Mabel E. Woodcox, age 87, of Columbus, passed away Sunday, October 17, 1999 at Franklin Wood Health Care Center. Member of Elks Ladies Auxiliary 37, Broad Street United Methodist Church and Women’s Board of Pilot Dog, Inc. Preceded in death by husband Keith, parents Charles and Mary (Lovinchimer) Throckmorton and grandson Duane Woodcox. Survived by sons, Walter (Lois) Woodcox of Orient, Wayne (Volaria) Woodcox of La.; grandchildren, Daphne, Denise, Matthew, David, Lee-Ann, Patricia, Jessica, Michelle; 12 great-grandchildren; 1 great-great-grandchild; sister-in-law, Lucile C. Ealy; nieces, Barbara, Murial Ann; nephew, Gene. Funeral service 2 p.m. Wednesday at MILLER FUNERAL HOME, 2697 Columbus St., Grove City. Visitation Tuesday from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the funeral home and from 1 p.m. until service time Wednesday. Pastor Billy Sharpston officiating. Interment in Forest Lawn Cemetery. Memorials may be given to the Lost Cord Group, P.O. Box 185, Columbus, Oh. 43216.

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`Safer cigarette’ efforts gain ground.(industry research and technologies)(Statistical Data Included)

JENNIFER KULPA
1,180 words
25 October 1999
Drug Store News
61
ISSN 0191-7587; Volume 21; Issue 17

Gale Group Inc.

With Accord and Eclipse on their way to the island of misfit consumer products, smoke scientists have shifted their energy from these super-engineered tobacco heating systems–which many users found cumbersome and unpalatable–to developing a less hazardous main ingredient.

The new effort–a curing technique that precludes the formation of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), widely known as the most carcinogenic compounds present in tobacco and its smoke–has generated applause from some public health groups. “It holds the promise of potentially reducing the mortality and morbidity associated with tobacco smoke,” explained Paul Perito, executive vice president and general counsel for Petersburg, Va.-based Star Scientific, the small discount cigarette company that discovered the technique.

Perito, former chief counsel and deputy director of the White House Special Action Office on Drug Abuse Prevention, is quick to explain that the technique can not create a “safe cigarette” because other dangerous chemicals are still present in the smoke. However, it does target the nastiest emissions. “Scientists are virtually [in agreement] that these [TSNAs] are among the most major toxic, pharmacologically active carcinogenic substances in both tobacco and tobacco smoke,” he said. In fact, last year, the Canadian Ministry of Health singled out TSNAs in proposed labeling regulations for all tobacco products sold within the country, that, if approved, will require packages to carry warnings such as, “Nitrosamines cause cancer. They are the most active cancer-causing agent in tobacco.”

Star will step up its harvest from 3 to 20 million pounds of treated tobacco next year, some of which is heading to Kentucky for processing at Brown & Williamson Tobacco. “We bought a million and a half pounds of it, and we’re trying to determine how best to use it,” said Mark Smith, a spokesman for the company, which is a unit of London’s British American Tobacco. “The objective is to produce a safer cigarette,” he emphasized, noting that no brand name, packaging or marketing strategy has yet been developed. “It’s a matter of doing the appropriate testing and analysis. … In any kind of improved cigarette you’ve got to make it consumer acceptable.”

That might be done by blending the treated leaf with other types of tobacco to better mimic the flavor of familiar brands. For example, Star research has achieved virtual elimination of TSNAs with flue-cured tobacco, grown mostly in Virginia and the Carolinas, as well as “strikingly similar results” in initial testing of another type, called burley, which is grown mainly in Kentucky. Most American cigarettes are a blend of flue-cured, burley and Oriental, tobacco, Smith explained, so further work will be done on the formula before any brand announcements are made. Still, he said, “we’re very encouraged by it.”

Rush to be first to market

It will be a race to market, though, as early indications point to competition from fellow cigarette giant R.J. Reynolds, which revealed recently that its own scientists are studying a similar process. While Star is in the midst of gaining patents for its technique, RJR senior vice president of research and development Gary Burger said in a statement that RJR has “discovered a simple, practical way to dramatically reduce TSNAs in fluecured tobacco” by 80 percent. The company’s initial test results were presented at the Joint Meeting of the Smoke and Technology Groups of the CORESTA Congress in early September. (CORESTA is an international organization dedicated to sharing scientific knowledge about tobacco) and at the 53rd Tobacco Science Research Conference later that month. “Reynolds Tobacco will study methods for potential use of reduced TSNA tobacco in all of our brands,” Burger noted.

Tip-toeing around sticky health claim wording, he was careful to add that “unfortunately, there is no scientific basis at this time to conclude that reducing nitrosamines or any other single class of compounds will reduce the risks associated with smoking. So even if we found a way to eliminate TSNAs from all tobacco, it would be impossible to conclude that there had been a potential reduction in health risks without substantiation from a comprehensive battery of appropriate toxicological and biological tests. With the available scientific information, not making health claims about low-nitrosamine tobacco is the responsible approach.”

Representatives from competitor Philip Morris were unable to comment.

Healthcare community’s response

Response from the healthcare community has been mostly positive, but reserved. Dr. Bridgett Garrett, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Smoking and Health, called the process a “fantastic public health breakthrough,” because “any reduction in carcinogens would serve a good purpose.

Others were skeptical of news that they said echoes previous attempts to make a safer cigarette. “Years ago they came out with the filter, and thought that was going to save people. You see what that has done. Maybe there are less nitrosamines, but what about all the other things in cigarettes that can kill you?” asked Ron Thompson, of the American Cancer Society, noting that research resources are of more benefit when directed at smoking cessation. “The public health community would like to see people quit smoking all types of cigarettes and prevent children from starting.”

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds and himself turned spokesman for tobaccofree.org, an antismoking advocacy group, worried that consumers might believe that no-nitrosamine cigarettes are entirely harmless and thus smoke even more. “The greatest danger here is the likely misperception by the public that the new tobacco is a great deal safer than it may actually be. We won’t know for years whether it is actually safer, and then it might be just 1 percent or 2 percent safer than the old.”

Star Tobacco acknowledges all of these concerns. Perito said the company expects to have real-world data in two to three years. For now, “scientifically, we can show that we have reduced a known toxin, perhaps the most known and abundant toxin … but we believe anyone buying our tobacco ought not to make any health claims directly or indirectly,” he explained.

Star has also received inquiries from British cigarette supplier Imperial Tobacco, Perito said, and will incorporate the new tobacco into its own Gunsmoke (soon to be renamed G-smoke), Vagas, Mainstreet and Sport discount cigarettes within the next three years. The company is, however, looking to spin off these businesses and convert completely to a research firm. Perito summed up the company’s hope for new products: “The first choice has to be cessation, but for those who can’t stop, we need to have reduced-risk products.”

Cigarette sales are smokin’ $ sales for the 52 weeks % change ended Aug. 7 (millions)Total drug/food/mass $9,403 9.0%Food 6,244 7.8Drug 1,669 14.1Mass 1,491 9.0Source: ACNielsen

FULL TEXT Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. THIS IS THE FULL TEXT: Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. Subscription: $95.00 per year. Published biweekly. 425 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

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NEWS

TOBACCO HEIR SNUBS SMOKING SMOKEOUT DRAWS R.J. REYNOLDS’ GRANDSON TO COLUMBUS

Kirk D. Richards
Dispatch Staff Reporter
545 words
18 November 1999
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Home Final
04C

Columbus Dispatch.

Patrick Reynolds wants people to boycott the business that made his family rich.

The grandson of R.J. Reynolds says the tobacco company’s advertisements that featured Joe Camel encouraged children to smoke.

“We’ve seen a 73 percent increase in teen smoking since Joe Camel was introduced” in 1988, Reynolds said by phone from his home yesterday in Los Angeles.

The R.J. Reynolds company no longer uses Joe Camel, but Reynolds takes along “Joe Chemo,” an image of a cancer-riddled camel, when he talks to groups to show the possible grim future of a smoker. One illustration places the camel in a hospital; another in a coffin.

Reynolds will bring his anti-tobacco message to central Ohio today for the American Cancer Society’s 23rd annual Great American Smokeout.

He will speak at 7 p.m. at the Bexley High School auditorium for a public event sponsored by the Mount Carmel Health System.

The Smokeout is designed to encourage smokers to quit for 24 hours — in hopes that it will be the beginning of a lifetime without smoking.

The cancer society gauges its success through random surveys conducted five days after a Smokeout.

Last year, 19 percent of the estimated 47 million adult smokers participated. Of those who responded to the survey, 10 percent reported smoking less or quitting entirely.

“This is basically an awareness campaign,” said Candi Rotolo, director of prevention and detection for the Franklin County unit of the American Cancer Society. “Awareness is how it starts.”

Reynolds first realized the effects of smoking after his father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., died of emphysema in 1964.

His mother died in 1985 from what Reynolds says were complications related to smoking.

Patrick Reynolds quit smoking in the 1980s. A former pack-a-day smoker, he said it took him 11 tries to quit.

“I tried acupuncture, hypnosis, deep breathing.”

Then he found a program specifically designed to help smokers stop.

“You’ve got to get in a program,” Reynolds said. “If you don’t, research shows you have a 95 percent chance of failing.”

He gave up his shares of stock in the R.J. Reynolds company when he quit smoking and established the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth.

He said he has donated more than half his $2.5 million inheritance to the cause.

Reynolds also has testified before Congress, asking that cigarette ads be banned.

He criticizes stores that display tobacco products at children’s eye level. And he’d like to see more sting operations to catch cashiers who sell tobacco to minors.

He says such measures are necessary because parents and “common sense” have failed to discourage children from using tobacco.

Sixty percent of smokers in the United States started at age 14 or earlier, Reynolds said.

And he thinks tobacco companies especially target children disillusioned about their potential.

“Kids have a keen sense of diminished expectations,” Reynolds said. “They’re worried they’re not going to live very long.”

He suggests that people be patient with friends and family who smoke.

“Don’t be a nag,” Reynolds said. “The more you do that, they become more stubborn.”

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No on Prop 28 Proponents Kiss Big Tobacco Goodbye

571 words
14 February 2000
03:53 am
PR Newswire

2000, PR Newswire)

Statewide Valentine’s Day Events Urge Voters to Keep Tobacco Tax

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 14 /PRNewswire/ — Hundreds of Stop Big Tobacco – No on Prop 28 supporters will organize outreach rallies and events today, Valentine’s Day, February 14th, to raise voter awareness of the coalition’s efforts to persuade Californians to vote No on Proposition 28. Politicians, community activists, costumed characters and others will join the efforts to urge voters to deny Big Tobacco a sweetheart deal. Proposition 28 is a March 7th ballot initiative that, if passed, would repeal the new voter-approved 50-cent tobacco tax. In 1999, tobacco sales in California were reduced 30 percent in the first six months after the tax’s enactment.

Proposition 28, backed by the Cigarettes Cheaper chain — a retailer with more than 500 stores — would increase tobacco sales and promote smoking in California. Revenue generated by the tax, some $670 million in 1999, is solely dedicated to early childhood development programs in California. Proposition 28 would eliminate this money. If this proposition passes, a University of California, San Francisco report predicts significant smoking-related disease and death increases. There would be an additional 114 million packs of cigarettes consumed annually, increasing tobacco industry revenues by $220 million and an increase in teen smoking between 7,800 to 46,500 new youth smokers. These events are planned in the following cities:

Los Angeles

Noon rally at the Hall of Administration downtown featuring Los AngelesCounty Supervisor Gloria Molina and anti-smoking advocate Patrick Reynolds,grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds. Contact Marc Fremed at 213-386-7660. San JoseCanvassing and mini-rally at Santa Clara University, free speech area, from10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Contact Terry Friedman 408-879- 1032 ext: 126. Orange CountyCanvassing at Irvine Spectrum, Laguna Beach, Orange County Regional CancerCenter and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital area. Contact Jane Tackett at 949-261-9446. OaklandDistributing window signs to downtown area businesses from 1 p.m. to 4:30p.m. and canvassing at City Center and 19th Street BART stations .from 4:30p.m. to 6 p.m. Contact Bob Cronbach at 510-452-5229. San Diego

Downtown San Diego at Broadway between 1st and Fourth streets from noon to 1 p.m. Laryngectomy (throat cancer survivors) will be distributing the No on 28 messages to workers.

Contact Lynda Barbour or Robin Brown at 619-682-7416.

Anti-smoking student advocates will meet with County Supervisors Ron Roberts, 9:45 a.m.; Pam Slater, 11 a.m.; and Greg Cox, 4 p.m.; to give them the “Kiss Big Tobacco Goodbye- No on Prop 28″ message.

Canvassing at San Diego State University from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Centennial Walkway. Students passing out suckers with the No on 28 message: “Don’t be a Sucker – No on 28.”

At the University of California, San Diego from noon to 1 p.m. in front of the Geisel Library, students will canvass the area distributing Hershey’s Kisses candy along with the “Kiss Big Tobacco Goodbye” message.

For more information about any of these events or the Stop Big Tobacco campaign contact Alonza Robertson at 510-710-7469 cellular or Ann Goure at 916-448-0500.

/CONTACT: Alonza Robertson of Alonza Robertson Stop Big Tobacco, 510-710-7469/ 03:45 EST

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LOCAL

Fallbrook students told of tobacco dangers

Bruce Lieberman
STAFF WRITER
951 words
18 February 2000
The San Diego Union-Tribune
1 2 7
B-2:7; B-1:1; B-12:2

FALLBROOK — Chad Marcott, a high school sophomore, says he is trying to quit Copenhagen, a popular brand of chewing tobacco.

During a break between classes yesterday, the 16-year-old said he has used the addictive tobacco for 2 1/2 years.

“I haven’t chewed for six days,” Marcott said as he stood with friends outside the Fallbrook High School gym, adding that today will be tough because he has to work on a Bonsall horse ranch and he’ll be surrounded by co-workers who chew.

Marcott’s struggles, and those of other teen-agers who smoke or chew tobacco, were the focus of a school assembly yesterday at Fallbrook High.

Students packed the gym to hear a well-known opponent of America’s tobacco industry: Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco king R.J. Reynolds.

The founder of the Foundation for a Tobaccofree Earth spoke to all of the school’s 2,750 students in two back-to-back assemblies. He began his one-hour talk by telling the story of how he lost his father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., to emphysema in 1964, when he was 15.

“Cigarettes took my father away from me,” he said about the driving force behind his personal crusade against smoking. The high school paid Reynolds $3,000 in state grant money for his appearance.

Reynold’s talks covered considerable ground. He touched on the addictive nature of tobacco, advertising and in-store displays that target young people, the dearth of congressional legislation to reduce adolescent smoking and the influence of tobacco industry donations to lawmakers. He also told the story of an Oklahoma high school student named Sean Marsee who died of cancer at 19 after chewing tobacco for years.

Reynolds captured the students’ attention most when he showed a gruesome photo of Marsee, disfigured from multiple surgeries to his face and neck, and rendered mute after doctors removed his tongue. The photo was taken just before his death.

“This is what chewing tobacco can do,” said Reynolds. “Take a look at Sean, and remember and think.”

Reynolds also told the students that advertising and the film industry have a tremendous influence on first-time smokers, even though they may not realize it.

Wynona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and other actors admired by young people should be held responsible for smoking on screen, he said.

“What I do believe in is giving these stars a healthy dose of shame.”

Once they had spilled out of the gym, several teen-agers said cigarette smoking is common among their crowd, chewing tobacco less so.

Several juniors gathered outside agreed that movies have a firm hold on the psyches of teen-agers — much more so than direct advertising.

The hero in an action movie often is shown smoking, and the intent behind putting a cigarette in the character’s mouth is not lost on young people, they said.

Oscar Meza, 16, said movie characters sometimes take a long drag from a cigarette and then crush the butt underfoot just before opening fire on an enemy.

David Espino, 16, said teen-agers may wonder whether cigarettes and alcohol — common staples for action heros — give them courage or make them stronger.

Many students said drinking alcohol is more of a problem among young people than smoking. At weekend “keggers,” drinking often leads to smoking cigarettes, marijuana and using drugs such as Ecstacy, they said.

“If you drink, you don’t know what you’re doing,” said Bianca Pascual, a 16-year-old freshman. Freshmen and sophomores are under tremendous peer pressure to drink, Pascual and others said.

Ruth Souza, who runs smoking-cessation groups on campus, said a school survey last spring indicated that 12 percent of freshmen have smoked within the last 30 days. Of the juniors surveyed, 23 percent said they had smoked a cigarette within the last 30 days.

The Fallbrook High statistics roughly mirror those from around the country. A 1999 survey of high school students nationwide found that about 28 percent smoked, according to the American Lung Association.

Each day in the United States, nearly 4,800 adolescents between 11 and 17 years old smoke their first cigarette, and 2,000 of these will become regular smokers, the association reported. About 90 percent of smokers begin the habit before they turn 21.

Souza said that some students in her smoking-cessation groups tell her they may smoke one to two cigarettes a day during the week. But on the weekend, when parties lead to drinking, they often smoke one or two packs a day.

The biggest challenge she faces, Souza said, is students whose parents smoke and sometimes buy cigarettes for their children.

“When they’re surrounded by smokers and all their friends are smokers, those are the ones who have the hardest time quitting,” she said.

Marcott, who says he wants to give up chewing tobacco, says his mother has shown him the photo of Marsee many times in an attempt to get him to stop.

“I’m trying,” he said.

Head varies | Editions vary

2 PICS; Caption: 1. Knows his subject: Patrick Reynolds (left), grandson of tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, talked to two Fallbrook High School student assemblies yesterday about the dangers of tobacco use. (Eds. 1,7) 2. Taking a drag: As Fallbrook High School student Mike Neglia watched, Patrick Reynolds took a drag from an imaginary cigarette after Reynolds spoke to two assemblies at the school on the dangers of tobacco. Reynolds’ talk was titled “The Tobacco Wars: The Battle for a Smokefree Society.” (B-3:1); Credit: 1,2. SCOTT LINNETTUnion-Tribune

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OPINION
Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

841 words
26 February 2000
The San Diego Union-Tribune
1 2 7
B-9:2,7; B-15:1

Prop. 28, tobacco tax repeal, reignites the smoking issue once again

As long as we’re so busy saving the children, why don’t we take time to listen to them? I was struck by two items in your paper: your endorsement of Proposition 28, which would repeal the tobacco tax (Editorial, Feb. 17), and the visit of Patrick Reynolds to Fallbrook High School (B-1, Feb. 18).

Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds, talked to the Fallbrook students about the evil of cigarettes. Afterward, the students told your reporter that movies featuring cigarette smoking have a significant influence on the psyches of teen-agers. We then see in your editorial that Rob Reiner, one of the leading moviemakers of our time and the designer of Prop. 10, has cleverly targeted smokers for taxation as a means of supporting his children’s programs.

How convenient that movies are left out of Reiner’s sources of taxation. What is going on here? If we as citizens are going to tax cigarettes because they are harmful to children, then why not movies? If you listen to the children, they will tell you what is going on. Did cigarettes cause the tragedy at Columbine High School? Why doesn’t Reiner tax the movie and TV industry? I think we know the answer. BEN STONE San Diego

Your editorial tried to convince voters to repeal the tobacco tax because it affects low-income individuals, because its proceeds aid a cause that should be paid for by all taxpayers (services for pre- school children) and because it was supported by a liberal non- smoker who played a character called “Meathead” on TV. The next day, a front-page article told the rest of the story.

Instituting tobacco taxes in California has dramatically cut smoking rates, prevented hundreds of deaths and saved billions of dollars in health-care costs. Low-income individuals are the ones who can least afford the devastating health-care costs of being smokers. Causing teen-agers to think twice before buying an expensive pack of cigarettes can prevent them from becoming nicotine addicts. SANFORD BERNSTEIN San Diego

Prop. 28 isn’t about promoting smoking; it’s about politics and how the money from tobacco taxes would be used. If the proposals being floated around on how to spend the windfall from the tobacco lawsuit settlement are an indicator, the money generated would be misused. Instead of going toward education about the ills of tobacco as well as combating those ills, the money just as likely would be used to cover budget shortfalls and to finance pet projects. DANNY JACOBS Mira Mesa

So now the Los Angeles Police Department wants to use money from the tobacco settlement to pay for its sins. In other words, government-embezzled money is now to pay for government misdeeds. Gee, why is this not a surprise?

I guess when the tobacco windfall is all used up, we will be called upon to tax another legal product. Let me guess, it won’t be Hollywood movies. JOHN BRIDGES San Diego

Certainly the tobacco companies buy more ad space than the preschool kids and infants that the tax supports. But it’s difficult for even the U-T to attack worthy beneficiaries like infants. So instead, you attack the author of the original initiative by referring to him as “meat- head.”

All one has to do is to look at the side of our roads littered with cigarette butts to know that taxes on this “oppressed minority” don’t begin to cover the toll smokers inflict on the rest of the citizens of California. I suggest that your support of Prop. 28 makes you a “butt-head.” CRAIG A. NELSON Cardiff by the Sea

As a pediatrician, I am outraged by your support of Prop. 28. The tobacco tax has decreased smoking by 30 percent. This rapid decline confirms that price increases in tobacco products discourage sales and smoking. The youth of San Diego deserve your support.

A cigarette price decrease means more teen-agers will smoke and that, in turn, means more pregnancies exposed to smoke. Pregnancies exposed to smoking are more likely to end prematurely and to produce a very low birth-weight baby.

Please start giving teens and our future generations the support they deserve. LAURA CLAPPER, M.D. San Diego

I always love reading editorials that are contradictory to how you rationalize positions in other editorials. Without having to recite your front-page story extolling the positive impact that Prop. 99 has had over 10 years in changing Californians’ smoking habits, as well as saving an estimated $3 billion in health costs and thousands of lives, I’d just like to ask: Wasn’t it the U-T editorial board that said we should move ahead on the downtown ballpark because the voters already had been heard on Prop. C?

Wasn’t the approval of Prop. 10 by Californians the same thing? JAN HEYING San Diego

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Area/State

AS MANY WORDS AS PUFFS OF SMOKE

Ray McAllister
Ray’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Write him at the Times-Dispatch, Box 85333, Richmond VA 23293; call (804) 649-6333; fax (804) 775-8059; or e-mail rmcallister@timesdispatch.com.
627 words
23 March 2000
Richmond Times-Dispatch
City
B-1

There probably are points of agreement on tobacco by now. “Smoking can kill.” “Tobacco should be kept from children.” A few others.

But not many.

Even Supreme Court justices disagree. Five ruled Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration has no authority to regulate tobacco products as drug carriers. The four others would have ruled otherwise.

But why should justices be any different?

The smoking fight is ageless, the words unending.

Sir Walter Raleigh took Virginia tobacco back to England. “I have seen many a man turn his gold into smoke,” Queen Elizabeth said, “but you are the first who has turned smoke into gold.”

Was it a blessing or a curse?

Nineteenth-century British historian Arthur Helps: “What a blessing this smoking is! – perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America.”

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg: “The tobacco business is a conspiracy against womanhood and manhood. It owes its origin to that scoundrel Sir Walter Raleigh, who was likewise the founder of American slavery.”

Smoking has been derided in poem and in gag.

Poet Philip Freneau wrote: “Tobacco was surely designed/To poison, and destroy mankind.”

Mary S. Ott: “Cigarettes are killers that travel in packs.”

King James I of England described smoking as “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

Yet Winston Churchill considered cigar smoking “an absolutely sacred rite.”

Seventeenth-century scholar and explorer Robert Burton wrote: “Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.”

The 17th-century French dramatist Moliere declared: “No matter what Aristotle and all philosophy may say, there’s nothing like tobacco. ‘Tis the passion of decent folk; he who lives without tobacco isn’t worthy of living.”

Oscar Wilde observed wryly: “A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”

Russell Hoban also caught the yin and the yang: “When I don’t smoke I scarcely feel as if I’m living. I don’t feel as if I’m living unless I’m killing myself.”

And, of course, there is the famous Mark Twain quote: “To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.”

British conductor Thomas Beecham was asked if he minded a smoker in his non-smoking compartment. “Certainly not,” he replied, “if you don’t object if I’m sick.”

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco king R.J. Reynolds, testified in 1986 on banning cigarette advertising: “Am I biting the hand that feeds me? If the hand that once fed me is the tobacco industry, then that hand has killed 10 million people and may kill millions more.”

Conversely, French emperor Napoleon III had refused any restriction. “This vice brings in one hundred million francs in taxes every year,” he said. “I will certainly forbid it at once – as soon as you can name a virtue that brings in as much revenue.”

Words, and figures, abound – meaning there’s maybe one other thing to agree on. Fletcher Knebel put it best in Reader’s Digest in 1961:

“It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking,” he wrote, “is one of the leading causes of statistics.”

NEWS
College Notes

CENTRAL STATE’S ENROLLMENT JUMPS 11 PERCENT SINCE FALL

Compiled by Alice Thomas
Of The Dispatch Staff
630 words
16 April 2000
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Home Final
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Columbus Dispatch.

Central State University, a historically black school in Wilberforce, Ohio, has 989 full-time and 141 part- time students — up 11 percent from the fall.

Central State fell on hard times in the late 1990s when years of mismanagement and neglect nearly shut down the school. A state bailout, tighter regulation and new leadership is credited with getting the school back on track.

In the early 1990s, the school had more than 3,000 students.

OU visiting journalists

among Pulitzer winners

Ohio University announced last week that visiting journalist Kevin Noblet, who is teaching, was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of killings of South Korean civilians by U.S. troops at the start of the Korean War.

Later in the week, the school learned that a second visiting journalist, Patrick Davison, was among 19 photographers who won a Pulitzer for pictures chronicling the shootings at Columbine High School last April 20 in Littleton, Colo.

Davison, who is on leave from the Denver Rocky Mountain News, said winning the prestigious prize was bittersweet.

“Covering the shootings was super emotional,” Davison said. “When I heard about the Pulitzer, it was really hard to celebrate. You don’t want to benefit from someone’s tragic loss of life.”

Davison, 40, grew up in Warren, Ohio. He is pursuing a master’s degree in photography and is teaching a class at Ohio University as part of his stay there as a Knight Fellow.

Muskingum gets $1.1 million

from Longaberger Foundation

The Longaberger Foundation has given $1.1 million to Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. The money will go toward creating the Dave Longaberger Endowed Chair in Teaching and Learning, in honor of the late founder of the basket company based in Dresden, Ohio.

Cedarville College to change

name to Cedarville University

Effective Sept. 1, the Christian college located in Cedarville, Ohio, will be known as Cedarville University, changing the name it has used since its founding in 1887.

Cedarville trustees said the decision to change from Cedarville College will better portray the school as an institution of higher education.

Wright State University

appoints senior vice president

Matthew V. Filipic, senior vice chancellor for the Ohio Board of Regents, has been named vice president for business and fiscal affairs and treasurer at Wright State University in Dayton.

Filipic is a graduate of John Carroll University and received a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science and human resources policy from Ohio State University. He is a certified public accountant.

Public events

* World Bank economist Abdo Yazbeck will lecture on “Listening to the Poor” at 7 p.m. Monday in Beeghly Library at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.

* Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco founder, will bring his anti-smoking campaign to Denison University’s Swasey Chapel in Granville, Ohio, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

* The College of Wooster will hold an Earth Day open house 9 a.m.-noon Saturday in Scovel Hall, 944 College Ave., Wooster, Ohio.

* Wright State University will celebrate Asian culture this month as part of its seventh annual Asian Heritage Month. Highlights include a “culture night” Saturday, featuring dance, music and a fashion show. Events begin at 7 p.m. in the student union. Admission is $5 in advance and $6 at the door. For tickets, call 937-775-5544.

* Columbus State Community College is offering two free concerts April 24. Artist-in-residence and off- Broadway vocalist Elizabeth Huling and local soloist Karla Archer will perform at noon and 5 p.m. near the Christopher Columbus statue in the center of the Downtown campus.

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News

TOBACCO LICENSING PLAN GETS OK FROM COUNCIL

Dominic Berbeo\ Staff Writer
824 words
27 April 2000
Los Angeles Daily News
VALLEY
N4

Los Angeles retailers who sell tobacco products will have to apply for licenses that can be revoked if they are caught selling to minors, under a new program tentatively approved Wednesday by the City Council.

City Attorney James Hahn, who designed the program to stem teen smoking, estimates there are 11,000 supermarkets, gas stations and other stores in the city that will need to apply annually for the free permits.

The city expects to send out license applications beginning in June for the program, which is expected to cost $750,000 a year.

The state conducts its own investigations and issues fines, but does not have a licensing system. But 14 other states and 258 cities and counties nationwide, including Chicago and New York, have tobacco license programs, according to the Public Health Institute. San Francisco is currently considering a similar law.

The Los Angeles program also incorporates a clause by Councilman Alex Padilla that bans self-help displays, requiring tobacco products to be placed behind the counter.

Two teams of inspectors, including teen-age customers working undercover, will conduct about 1,000 stings annually around the city, looking for retailers who sell to minors or do not have a permit, which is a misdemeanor under the ordinance.

Retailers will receive a warning letter on the first offense, a 30- day suspension of the license on the second offense, and a 12-month suspension on the next offense.

“We believe this will be the one-two punch to knock out illegal sales to minors,” Hahn said.

The state Department of Health Services last week released the results of an undercover survey of 455 retailers around the state, which found that sales to minors in supermarkets grew by 238 percent, from 5 percent in in 1998 to 17 percent last year.

In Denver, an ordinance setting fines for sales to minors has been effective in deterring illegal sales, said Kory Nelson, an assistant city attorney there.

“We’ve been doing stings for three years now, and the number of prosecutions have gone down by more than half because retailers are much more careful to check I.D.,” he said.

Marissa Jaimes, a student from Bravo Medical Magnet High School near downtown, was one of about 50 people at City Hall to urge passage of the licensing program.

“Kids as young as 14 go into stores and buy cigarettes as easy as buying candy,” said Jaimes, who heads her school’s chapter of the school district’s anti-vice Friday Night Live program. “We see it all the time and it has to stop.”

But retailer groups, including the California Grocer’s Association, the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America and local convenience store chains, expressed opposition to the program, arguing that it punishes store owners for the wrongdoing of one clerk.

“We’re asking our clerks, many of whom are students earning minimum wage, to be policemen,” said Joan Wilson, a spokeswoman for 7- Eleven stores. “Under our franchise contract, owners can lose their store if they lose their license, and that just goes too far.”

Bill Fader, a spokesman for the Baltimore-based Retail Tobacco Dealers of America, said there isn’t much stores can do to protest the licensing program and investigations, other than to “tell their people to always ask for identification, and beware of stings by agents that look older than they are.”

Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of tobacco giant founder R.J. Reynolds and now an anti-smoking activist, said that’s exactly the point of the new permit program.

“The best part about licensing programs is that they have real teeth that get the retailers’ attention,” Reynolds said. “We estimate that up to 20 percent of revenues at convenience stores come from tobacco sales, and they don’t want to lose that.”

Mayor Richard Riordan’s office had not seen the final proposal and had no comment. But in his proposed budget, Riordan called for unspecified funding for two additional positions in the City Attorney’s Office for administrative work related to an anti-smoking campaign. Funding for the program will come from tobacco settlement money received by the city.

The council next week will give final consideration to the ordinance in a second vote, which is required since one councilman, Nate Holden, voted against the program, wanting to make sure the state would not supersede the city’s power.

PROGRAM RENEWED

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to continue funding for the L.A. Bridges gang-prevention program for another year, despite recommendations from the city controller and mayor.

The council voted to continue funding the $10 million-a-year program in the new fiscal year, which will begin July 1.

A recent audit by Controller Rick Tuttle criticized the school- based anti-gang program as ineffective.

box; Caption: BOX: Program renewed (see text)

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Friday, May 26

524 words
26 May 2000
01:39 am
Associated Press Newswires

8:30 a.m., BURBANK – A dismissal hearing will be held in a lawsuit brought against the accused “Angel of Death” by a man suing on behalf of the estate of a 91-year-old whose death was allegedly hastened by former Glendale Adventist Medical Center technician Efren Saldivar. Burbank Superior Court, Dept. B, 300 E. Olive St. Contact: Court clerk, (818) 557-3472.

9 a.m., SANTA MONICA – Over 3,000 Los Angeles students will take part in Santa Monica BayKeeper’s “Bay Walk 2000” beach cleanup. Where Ocean Park Boulevard meets the beach, adjacent to the bike path. Contact: Christine Dzilvelis, BayKeeper, (310) 390-2930.

10 a.m., LOS ANGELES – Seventh and eighth grade students participating in the third annual “Brainworks” program will use a teaching tool developed by a manufacturer of computer-assisted surgical navigation equipment to perform simulated brain surgery. They will also role-play as patients and therapists, and use wheelchairs and other props to gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by patients who have suffered neurological illnesses or injuries. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, Morse Auditorium, 8700 Beverly Blvd. Contact: Toshia Johnson, Cedars-Sinai, (310) 423-4062, (310) 423-4767.

11 a.m., CIVIC CENTER – The Coalition for Police Accountability will hold a news conference to announce its support of federal intervention in the Rampart scandal and insist on community input in any negotiations. City Hall, south side terrace, 200 N. Main St. Contact: Jim Lafferty, (323) 653-4510.

1:30 p.m., LOS ANGELES – The Women’s Tobacco Control Coalition will host a luncheon to announce “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of magazines that contain tobacco advertising and are popular among women and girls. Persons attending will include Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R. J. Reynolds; City Councilman Mike Feuer; Aurora Flores, membership coordinator for the Hispanic Latino Tobacco Education Network; and Brenda Bell-Caffee, head of the African American Tobacco Education Network. Los Angeles Marriott Downtown, 333 S. Figueroa St. Contact: Christopher Terrell, (310) 815-8444.

2 p.m., LYNWOOD – California first lady Sharon Davis will visit a high school to honor Edurado Zuno, a student selected to take part in the “Take a Teen to Kennedy Space Center” program. Lynwood High School, Performing Arts Center, 12124 Bullis Road. Contact: Angelo Williams, Assemblyman Carl Washington’s office, (916) 319-2052.

7 p.m., LOS ANGELES – Attorney Leo Terrell will hold a news conference to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the May 21 police shooting death of homeless woman Margaret Laverne Mitchell. A candlelight memorial rally will also be held. Fourth Street and La Brea Avenue. Contact: Leo Terrell, (323) 655-6805.

7 p.m., SANTA MONICA – “The Jesse Helms Theory of Art” will be the topic of a lecture by Richard Meyer, an assistant professor of art history at USC, in an event held in conjunction with Robert Mapplethorpe’s “The Perfect Moment” exhibit. Santa Monica Museum of Art, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building G1. Contact: Susan Martin, Upaya, (310) 664-9014; Carole Ann Klonarides, Santa Monica Museum of Art, (310) 586-6488 ext. 16.

Rush

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Jury in landmark trial awards record $145 billion in punitive damages to smokers

By CATHERINE WILSON
AP Business Writer
1,277 words
14 July 2000
10:28 am
Associated Press Newswires

MIAMI (AP) – After a two-year trial, a jury took less than five hours Friday to decide that the tobacco industry should pay a record-shattering $145 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers – an amount industry lawyers predicted would break the industry.

Stock prices of the five companies were down moderately following the ruling.

Spectators gasped as the judge read the first dollar amount and, after the verdict was read, smokers’ attorney Stanley Rosenblatt hugged several clients.

“It was a day of reckoning,” Rosenblatt said. “This was never only about money. This was about showing these companies up for what they are.”

The companies plan to appeal, and the verdict will likely be tied up in the appeals process for years and is not expected to have any immediate impact on the industry.

Philip Morris Inc.’s attorney, Dan Webb, called the ruling “an unfair procedure, unheard-of in American history.”

“There’s probably not a country in the world that can withstand a verdict this size,” said Webb, whose company was ordered to pay $73.96 billion, or about half of the total.

The jury also ordered R.J. Reynolds to pay $36.28 billion; Brown & Williamson $17.59 billion; Lorillard Tobacco $16.25 billion; and Liggett Group Inc. $790 million.

“Lot of zeros,” Circuit Judge Robert Kaye said after reading the breakdown.

Frank Amodeo, one of three Florida smokers chosen to represented the entire class during the trial, said he hopes this will stop the tobacco companies from marketing cigarettes as if they are safe. The Orlando clock maker contracted throat cancer about 10 years ago after decades of smoking. He cannot swallow and must be fed through a tube.

“There is no amount of money in the world that will change the way I eat,” Amodeo said.

Another representative, Mary Farnan, a north Florida nurse who contracted lung and brain cancer after smoking for 29 years, called the verdict “absolute justice.”

“I’m sincerely happy for all of these people,” she said, pointing to the courtroom where several other ill former smokers sat. (The third representative, Angie Della Vecchia, died last year of lung cancer after smoking for 40 years.)

The six jurors, who heard testimony from 157 witnesses, began deliberating the punitive damages question Friday morning.

Alternate juror Jorge Lang said he was shocked by the size of the verdict.

“It probably sent a message. I don’t think anyone will see a penny ever,” Lang said. “It’s very unrealistic.”

The smokers wanted the tobacco companies to pay $196 billion as punishment for making a product that kills 430,000 Americans a year and for misleading the public since the 1950s, when internal research concluded smoking causes cancer.

Top executives from all five defendants made unusual appearances to testify they didn’t deserve to be punished because they have changed their ways and are already committed to paying billions of dollars to settle the lawsuits brought by the states.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the decision “an obscene symptom of a court system that is out of control.”

“Trial lawyers have subverted the legal system for their own financial gain,” said Bruce Josten, Chamber executive vice president. “Legitimate, but politically out-of-favor, businesses have been attacked by attorneys driven by the prospect of absurd punitive damage awards.”

The ruling was the largest jury damage award ever, far surpassing the $22 billion awarded in Hawaii in 1996 to a treasure hunter who sued former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos for the alleged theft of gold bullion. That verdict was later overturned.

The largest previous punitive-damage award was $5 billion against ExxonMobil for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The company is appealing. The previous record for punitive damages in a product-liability case was $4.8 billion against General Motors last year in a California car fire. A judge slashed the award to $1.09 billion.

After Friday’s verdict, Philip Morris share prices closed down 31.25 cents to $24.688 and shares of RJR were off 93.75 cents to $26.188, both on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Vector Group Ltd., the parent company of Liggett, were down 43.75 cents to $14.438, and Loews Corp., parent of Lorillard Tobacco, was down 43.75 cents at $63.063, also on the NYSE. British American Tobacco Industries, parent of Brown & Williamson Tobacco, was down 25 cents at $12.50 on the American Stock Exchange.

As the case wound down this week, lawyers for both sides spoke of death – the death of Big Tobacco and the deaths of millions of smokers.

Philip Morris’ Webb said the awarding of up to $196 billion would be a “death warrant” for the industry.

Rosenblatt turned the phrase around Thursday, saying it was the cigarette industry that had issued death warrants to millions of consumers.

Lawyers for the companies said the companies could afford to pay only $150 million to $375 million, and that they would be put out of business if the award went much higher. Under Florida law, a punitive verdict cannot bankrupt a defendant.

The range offered by the industry, which has never paid any damages to smokers, amounts to 1 percent to 3 percent of its $15.3 billion audited net worth – or one to four days in wholesale cigarette sales.

“You either destroy them or you don’t,” Brown & Williamson lawyer Gordon Smith told jurors. “Your verdict must reflect the current ability to pay. It must reflect reality, not fantasy.”

Rosenblatt told jurors this was “no time for timidity” and asked them to “wipe out 50 years of treachery” by the industry. He told panelists to send a message to the world.

Lowering the $196 billion request “in any substantial way would be a crushing blow to public health in this country,” he said in closing remarks Thursday.

The key tobacco defense was that the industry has changed its ways since states began suing in 1994, and that the $257 billion national settlement with the states is enough to pay.

Nationwide, juries have awarded damages to individual smokers only six times. Three verdicts were overturned, two are on appeal, and one was returned in March with $1.72 million in compensatory damages.

Joe Cherner, a former Wall Street executive who founded SmokeFree Educational Services 10 years ago, said that the tobacco industry can afford to pay the verdict because smokers are addicted and will pay no matter the price.

“All they will do is raise the price of cigarettes again,” said Cherner, who testified for the smokers during the trial. “What is unique and difficult to understand is that this industry may be the only one in America that can afford to pay more that its net worth.”

—

On the Net:

Tobacco links: http://www.umich.edu/(tilde)umtrn/websites.html

Urgent

AP Photos NY120-1; FLWL102; AP Graphic PUNITIVE DAMAGES

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Jury in landmark trial awards record $145 billion in punitive damages to smokers

By CATHERINE WILSON
AP Business Writer
1,277 words
14 July 2000
02:52 pm
Associated Press Newswires