‘Smoking kills,’ tobacco firms warn in court-ordered ads

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Smoking kills an average of 1,200 Americans daily, US tobacco companies admitted on Sunday in court-ordered “corrective statements” published in newspapers.

The ads began appearing 11 years after District Judge Gladys Kessler, in a 1,682-page opinion, ruled in 2006 that the companies violated racketeering laws by deceiving the public for decades on the health dangers of smoking.

Kessler ordered them to publish corrective statements on five health topics, but the exact wording of those statements was held up pending tobacco company litigation.

In 2014, the companies and the government reportedly reached agreement that the ads would be published in major Sunday newspapers as well as on prime-time television for a year, and elsewhere, including on cigarette packages.

“A Federal Court has ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Philip Morris USA, Altria and Lorillard to make this statement about the health effects of smoking,” said the full-page newspaper ad, consisting simply of plain black type on an otherwise bare newspaper page.

“Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day,” it said.

The ad continued that “more people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol, combined,” with the last word highlighted.

It also listed various diseases and health conditions that “smoking also causes.”

Kessler’s ruling was part of a government racketeering case against major cigarette companies originally brought in September 1999.