Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Well, if the kind of judicial reasoning that applies to tobacco companies also applied to stop-sign cases, then the three witless young vandals would have faced a stiff fine and been forced to downsize the cowboy and put the camel out to pasture. But there would be no talk about prison terms; in fact, Congress would be considering legislation to bar any such vengefulness on the part of the courts. If the youths were fortunate enough to be a tobacco company, they might even find themselves rewarded for their crime with immunity from future class-action suits brought...
...have to be a Floridian to find instructive contrasts to the proposed tobacco settlement. In Oklahoma earlier this year, a 38-year-old father of three was sentenced to 93 years for growing marijuana in his basement. (That's 70 years for possession alone.) Which suggests that the best strategy for legalizing marijuana might be to criminalize tobacco--and then just wait for the sentences for possession of smokable substances to drop, say, from 93 years in prison to 10 minutes of community service...
...fair, there are some big differences between the stop-sign case and the tobacco settlement. Smokers know they're risking their life and their health; it says so on the cigarette pack, right near "tasteful/low tar" or some similarly enticing inscription. In contrast, the three teens killed at the intersection didn't have a clue about the missing sign. No one has ever declared a willingness to "walk a mile" to go through an unmarked intersection or congratulated herself for having "come a long way" when she got to one. But to continue in the vein of fairness...
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Former FDA head David Kessler went to the White House today to press his recommendation the Administration reject the $368.5 billion settlement between Big Tobacco and the state attorneys general because the deal would limit the government's power to regulate nicotine as an addictive drug. A Congressional commission headed by Kessler and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, which had indicated its serious misgivings about the settlement two weeks ago, presented Al Gore with its recommendations for making the deal work. Especially upsetting to the Koop-Kessler commission is a provision forbidding a nicotine...
JACKSON, Miss: "I'm leaving Washington shortly to bring home some mighty good news," said a very pleased Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore, announcing a $3 billion settlement with the tobacco industry to defray his state's costs in treating smokers. The settlement came just days before Moore was to set to take the cigarette industry to trial in Mississippi. The deal is separate from the $368.5 billion national settlement reached with the industry July 20, in which Moore acted as lead negotiator for several states. In his original lawsuit, filed in 1994, Moore sought $940 million for tax funds...