Canada won't rule out suing tobacco firms (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Canada won't    rule out suing    tobacco firms
Local manufacturers no different than U.S. cousins, Rock says
by  Tim Harper / Toronto Star  Ottawa Bureau
Source: Toronto Star, Tuesday, 11/23/99

 OTTAWA - Armed with a load of new, formerly secret tobacco industry
documents, Allan Rock has raised the spectre of an aggressive
American-style court assault against Canadian tobacco manufacturers.

 The federal health minister, when repeatedly asked yesterday about a
potential lawsuit against Canada's cigarette giants, specifically refused
to rule out the option.

 He was speaking after the release by his department of some 1,200 pages
of documents dealing with marketing strategies from Imperial Tobacco Ltd.,
Canada's leading cigarette-maker and manufacturer of such popular brands
as Player's, du Maurier and Matinée.

 The documents indicate the company was worried that cigarette smoking
would gradually fall out of favour.

 It grappled with ways of holding on to the youth market and attracting
``starters'' - company jargon for new recruits.

 It also spent the better part of a generation seeking ways to ``fortify''
the nicotine in cigarettes and experimented with tobacco blending to
maximize the nicotine level, the documents indicate.

 ``The documents demonstrate that, although the Canadian tobacco industry
has been saying they are different from their American cousins, they're
not,'' Rock said.

 ``We see the same pattern - focusing on kids, focusing on people trying
to quit, trying to keep and build a market. Things being said by their
highly-paid lobbyists and spokespeople haven't been right.''

 Rock said he would rule out no anti-tobacco measure, including
litigation.

 Today, he meets with Jeffrey Wigand, the celebrated former tobacco
executive whose inside information buttressed court challenges throughout
the U.S.

 More than 40 states have settled with tobacco manufacturers for some $249
billion (U.S.) In some states, much of that money has been funnelled back
into anti-smoking education and publicity programs.

 Rock said the provinces that have paid for health care associated with
smoking-related illnesses likely have the best legal case. So far, only
British Columbia has moved in that direction.

 ``That's not to say the government of Canada doesn't have a causative
action,'' he said.

 The documents became available following a court settlement between the
state of Minnesota and British-American Tobacco Co. (BAT).

 While the bulk of the documents are stored in Minnesota, the documents at
the Guildford, England, depository deal with BAT's Canadian subsidiary,
Imperial Tobacco.

 Michel Descôteaux, spokesperson for Imperial Tobacco, yesterday accused
``the anti-tobacco lobby'' of targeting the industry, Canadian Press
reported. ``There is definitely an effort to demonize the tobacco industry
in Canada,'' he said.

 Descôteaux said the ``starters'' term ``only ever meant youths of legal
age to smoke.'' That meant those 16 and up prior to 1989 when the smoking
age was bumped to 18.

 Imperial also denied it ``spiked'' its products to provide more nicotine
than indicated on the package.

 Said Descôteaux: ``These accusations are wrong, wrong, a thousand times
wrong.''

 The documents released by Health Canada investigators come hard on the
heels of similar documents obtained from the same depository and released
earlier this month by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada.

 ``We've both dipped our bucket in the same well and you don't need too
many buckets to know you've got water,'' said Cynthia Callard of the
physicians group. ``In this case, you don't need too many buckets to know
the water is polluted.''

 Callard said there is enough information now in the public domain to
support government litigation.

 Meanwhile, Rock said he will soon introduce new regulations on cigarette
packaging.