Why Tobacco Companies Are Paying to Tell You Smoking Kills<br />Murray Garnick, the company’s general counsel, said in the statement<br />that “includes communicating openly about the health effects of our products, continuing to support cessation efforts, helping reduce underage tobacco use and developing potentially reduced-risk products.”<br />R. J. Reynolds, which is part of British American Tobacco with Lorillard, said in an email<br />that the company was “fully complying with its obligations under the court order.”<br />The initial order came from a 1,600-page civil racketeering judgment from Judge Gladys Kessler<br />that excoriated the tobacco industry for lying about and misrepresenting its products beginning in the 1950s.<br />“The original ruling was so that the American public would understand<br />that they had been deceived through multiple means about whether smoking caused disease, whether smoking killed people, whether secondhand smoke caused disease, whether nicotine was addictive,” she said.<br />We manipulated cigarettes to make them more addictive.”<br />Tobacco companies argued that the initially proposed statements were “forced public confessions” designed to “shame<br />and humiliate them.” They also said the statements were unnecessary after a 2009 law gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products
