Tobacco’s new drug

As several of the nation’s top tobacco executives take the stand in a Florida courtroom this week, this remains sure: The one thing the court won’t get is the full truth, and many states will be happy if it does not.

True, the tobacco companies have been forced to admit science has demonstrated that tobacco is dangerous to health. And they have been forced to admit that nicotine is an addictive drug, just a few years after several tobacco company chief executives denied that, under oath, before Congress. But the bottom line remains the bottom line — in the form of tobacco company profits. And nothing is more threatening to Big Tobacco’s profits than the possibility that they will be forced to pay the huge health costs surrounding their deadly, crippling products.

So the denials, obfuscation and avoidance will start anew in Miami, as tobacco executives attempt to reduce the amount of punitive damages placed against them. Having already suffered a $12.7 million compensatory loss for adversely damaging the health of as many as 500,000 Floridians, punitive damages could reach past $150 billion — a crippling sum, even to the huge tobacco companies. And if they are crippled, so is the settlement that state attorneys general worked out a couple of years ago with the industry. That settlement is worth billions of dollars and sends Maine $55 million annually, which it is spending on smoking cessation, health-care coverage and related programs. No wonder some state AGs are quietly cheering for their former adversary.

The chief executive officers of Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard and Liggett Group are all expected to offer evidence that they have changed their ways, and thus do not deserve hefty punitive levies. But it’s unlikely they are going to be forthcoming about just how dangerous their products are, especially since several other class-action lawsuits against the industry are either outstanding or planned.

Consider: Even though Philip Morris’ Web site admits that overwhelming scientific and medical consensus has concluded that smoking is dangerous, CEO Michael Szymanczyk will admit only that smoking is bad for your health, refusing to elaborate on exactly how it is bad.

Odd, therefore, that an industry may attempt, if past practice is a guide, to mitigate its punishment by engaging in the very behaviors — hiding the truth, refusing to answer questions — that helped so many Floridians to become sick and brought these tobacco executives to a courtroom. Odder still, that Big Tobacco’s new friends are government officials in state capitals, who’ve become hooked on a Big Tobacco drug of a different sort.