Conclusions

Conclusions

¶1359. For approximately forty years, Defendants publicly, vehemently, and repeatedly denied the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine's central role in smoking. They made these denials out of fear that public acknowledgment of what was so well documented and widely accepted internally within their corporate offices and scientific laboratories could result in governmental (i.e., FDA) regulation, adverse liability judgments from addicted smokers suffering the adverse health effects of smoking, loss of social acceptability of smoking, and the ultimate loss of corporate profits.

¶The evidence spelled out above is simply overwhelming that Defendants knew that smoking is addictive and knew that nicotine is the agent creating and sustaining that addiction. There is also overwhelming evidence that even though Defendants have known internally about addiction for decades, they have endeavored to keep the extensive research and data they had accumulated out of the public domain and out of the hands of the public health community by denying that such data existed, by refusing to disclose it, and by shutting down or censoring laboratories and research projects which were investigating the mechanisms of nicotine.

¶1360. Defendants assert that the public health community and the public itself has known for decades that nicotine produced dependence. For example, Defendants cite to the 1962 publication of the well respected Larson, Haag and Silvette compendium, Tobacco Experimental and Clinical Studies, which described nicotine's effects on the human nervous system and summarized existing research suggesting that people smoke to obtain nicotine, that nicotine has pharmacological effects, and that nicotine is addictive or habituating. (no bates) (JD-000500). Defendants also cite to the United States Supreme Court comment that, when Congress enacted the Federal Cigarette Labeling Act in 1965, "the adverse health consequences of tobacco were well known, as were nicotine's pharmacological effects." Food and Drug Admin. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 138 (2000). Even if there is truth to Defendants' speculation that "everyone knew" of nicotine's addictiveness, there is no question that the public health community lacked the substantial and sophisticated understanding of nicotine's effects and role that Defendants possessed. Put quite simply, if the Surgeon General of the United States possessed the information and data Defendants possessed prior to publication of his 1964 Report, it is simply not possible that he would have ignored it.

¶1361. Moreover, there is a basic inconsistency in Defendants' position. If, in fact, "everybody knew" that smoking and nicotine were addictive, then why were Defendants publicly, vehemently, and repeatedly denying it?

¶1362. Defendants' denials misled the public about why quitting smoking is so difficult, exactly how difficult it is, and about why failure to quit is not simply a function of personal weakness or lack of willpower. In short, after reassuring the smoker that smoking was not bad for her health, and was not addictive, Defendants then blamed her for being unable to stop using the product they had so successfully marketed with false information.

¶1363. Defendants did not simply deny that smoking warranted the label "addiction"; they denied the entire concept of physiological dependence. The semantic battle Defendants have waged in the public realm and at trial is a distraction from the fact that, whether using the word "dependence" or "addiction," the core concept is the compulsive and uncontrollable use of nicotine reflected in drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior, all of which Defendants deny exist.

¶1364. Based on the extensive individual Findings of Fact set forth in this Section, the Court finds that Defendants have known for decades that cigarette smoking was addictive, and that nicotine is the addicting element in smoking behavior. Defendants' false and misleading statements relating to addiction continue even today.

¶1365. Moreover, Defendants deliberately and intentionally hid this information from the public and closed down research laboratories and on-going projects in order to ensure secrecy. Time and time again, Defendants falsely denied these facts to smokers and potential smokers, to government regulatory authorities, to the public health community and to the American public.