Big Tobacco Claims 1st Amendment Right to Lie, Deceive and Kill

Printer-friendly versionSend by email"The Justice Department is demanding that the nation's biggest cigarette makers be ordered to forfeit $289 billion in profits derived from a half-century of fraudulent and dangerous marketing practices. Citing new evidence, the Justice Department asserts ... the major cigarette companies are running what amounts to a criminal enterprise by manipulating nicotine levels, lying to their customers about the dangers of tobacco and directing their multibillion-dollar advertising campaigns at children. ... The tobacco industry said the charges were without merit, asserting in new filings of its own that its public pronouncements about cigarettes were free speech protected by the First Amendment. ... [Attorney General] Ashcroft, who opposed the lawsuit when he was in the Senate, has demonstrated occasional resistance to it since becoming attorney general in 2001. ... But with the Justice Department's senior officials preoccupied with terrorism for the last 18 months, Mr. Ashcroft let it go forward ... ."