A class action lawsuit filed last week claims the country’s largest producers of e-cigarettes concealed health risks and marketed to children. Lawyers for two Alabama college students filed the suit against Juul Labs Inc., Altria Group and Phillip Morris last week. University of Alabama student Elizabeth Ann Swearingen and Auburn student John Thomas Via Peavy both became addicted to Juul …
Central to some of the Juul lawsuits is the allegation that, particularly in its early days, Juul used young, attractive models in ads and promoted its products heavily on social networks such as Instagram, knowing that they are frequented by minors. “Not only has litigation against the tobacco industry resulted in tens of billions of dollars in settlements and verdicts, but it’s also cast a …
The cigarette makers eventually settled with the state for about $17.6 billion.
Big Tobacco is still paying that settlement and it hasn’t been too much of a burden. They just increased the price of cigarettes and went on to deal with other states and the federal government with the money forked over by millions of smokers. In the end, government and lawyers raked in the cash. The tobacco industry did have to change its marketing strategy a bit, but the same cigarettes are still available just about everywhere—selling well enough to generate record profits for the top tobacco companies—and smokers are still getting sick, still dying. …
A federal racketeering lawsuit brought by a cooperative of tobacco farmers against two Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) informants, Jason Carpenter and Christopher Small, is headed for trial in the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division. The complaint alleges that Carpenter and Small swindled the plaintiffs, US Tobacco Cooperative Inc, a co-op made of about …
The proposed $49 billion acquisition by British American Tobacco PLC (NYSEMKT: BTI) of the 58% of Reynolds American Inc. (NYSE: RAI) that it does not already own will, if approved, create the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company by both revenue and market cap. It will also create the biggest target for more lawsuits related to the harmful effects of tobacco use. Last May, the family …
The term “Big Soda” gets thrown around a lot to describe how soda companies have a tendency to act like the big, bad oil and tobacco companies who wield immense lobbying power and advertising budgets to match. It might sound like an exaggeration to compare the big three soda companies (The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group) to corporations like Philip Morris, but a …
Tobacco is a crop with many enemies, not all of them human. In the Coastal Plains region of eastern North Carolina, the heart of the state’s flue-cured tobacco production, growers deal with a leaf-damaging soil bacteria colorfully named Granville wilt. If you let them, various aphids will feast on tobacco leaves as they grow.
Recent findings reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine show that the sugar-sweetened beverage industry has financially backed scientific researchers to discard a link between sugary beverage consumption and metabolic outcomes such as obesity and diabetes. It is the latest in a series of related scandals to rock the public health world. This news, coupled with the revelation that two of …
The major film studios, their trade association and theater owners don’t want to be held hostage to any misguided morality play — not one that seeks to force them not to have any movies with tobacco imagery rated G, PG or PG-13. On Friday, they filed court papers asking a judge to reject a putative class action that blames them for children becoming addicted to nicotine. The lawsuit was filed …
A class-action lawsuit targeting a company behind a line of cigarettes touted as natural has moved to U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. Three men from California, New York and Florida are suing the maker of American Spirit cigarettes, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., and its parent company, Reynolds American Inc. The plaintiffs say the cigarette maker’s marketing deliberately tries to mislead…