Here's how several media reported on the first day of trial.

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Excerpts from MINNESOTA SAYS TOBACCO PAPERS PROVE DECEPTION BY THE INDUSTRY

by New York Times [01/27/09]

Minnesota has documents to prove that tobacco companies deceived the public for decades about the dangers of smoking, a lawyer for the state said today as Minnesota's lawsuit against the industry went to trial.

In his opening statement, the lawyer, Michael Ciresi, said the state would introduce evidence from formerly secret company documents to prove that the industry conspired as early as the 1950's to conceal what it knew about the hazards of smoking.

"The evidence will show this is a renegade industry, which has placed profit ahead of the health of its customers," Mr. Ciresi said.

"Marlboro has risen to its No. 1 position on the backs of America's youth," he said. Cigarette companies, he said, "treated America's youth as a commodity, as a source of replacement smokers."

Both sides in the Minnesota case have remained silent on settlement possibilities. Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey 3d has not ruled out a settlement but has said any deal must include the release of all internal tobacco industry documents.

The state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield say tobacco companies committed fraud by suppressing information on the dangers of smoking while publicly denying that tobacco was a health hazard.

Just before opening statements began today, Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick of Ramsey County District Court denied the industry's request to dismiss the jurors on the ground of bias. The request, filed last week before the final 12 jurors were chosen from a pool of 24, said some members of the pool had said they thought cigarettes were addictive and that smoking caused disease.

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Excerpts from AD ALLEGATIONS OPEN MINN. TOBACCO TRIAL

by Kevin V. Johnson, USA Today

Cigarette makers targeted teen-age and young adult smokers with advertising so specialized it segmented the group by race, the state of Minnesota charged in its lawsuit against tobacco companies Monday.

But cigarette manufacturers had complied with warning labels and other regulations involving their "lawful product, lawfully sold," said Peter Bleakley, the tobacco companies' chief lawyer. He added that young people had been exposed to plenty of information warning them of the dangers of smoking for years.

Minnesota and Blue Cross/Blue Shield are seeking to recoup $ 1.77 billion for treating smoking-related illnesses, charging that tobacco companies fraudulently hid the dangers of smoking. The state's chief litigator, Michael Ciresi, said some of the more than 33 million pages of documents that Minnesota has obtained from tobacco companies would show the firms ignored information indicating a link between smoking and lung cancer as far back as 1950 and had a "gentlemen's agreement" not to conduct research into the harmful effects of smoking.

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Excerpts from TOBACCO TRIAL OPENS IN MINNESOTA

Chicago Tribune [01/27/98]

Minnesota's $1.77 billion-plus lawsuit against the tobacco industry went to trial Monday with a promise from the state's lawyers to prove their case from a cache of 33 million pages of formerly secret corporate documents.

"The evidence will show this is a renegade industry which has placed profit ahead of the health of its customers," lawyer Michael Ciresi said in his opening statement.

"Marlboro has risen to its No. 1 position on the backs of America's youth," he said. Cigarette companies "treated America's youth as a commodity, as a source of replacement smokers."

Ciresi said industry documents will prove that the tobacco industry conspired to conceal what it knew about the hazards of smoking as early as the 1950s. He charged the companies with suppressing for decades their own research into the harmful effects of smoking and running a "smear campaign" against those who derided their products.

"They blamed lung cancer on anything but cigarettes . . . (and) abdicated scientific research to the lawyers," Ciresi said. "The tobacco companies didn't want to do research that could be used against them."

The state and Blue Cross claim the tobacco corporations committed fraud by suppressing information on the dangers of smoking and publicly denying that tobacco is a health hazard.

"To this day all of the defendants save one, Liggett, publicly deny that smoking is addictive and causes disease," Ciresi said.

Defendants include Philip Morris Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.; B.A.T. Industries PLC; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; and the Tobacco Institute.

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Excerpts from MINNESOTA SUIT AGAINST CIGARETTE MAKERS OPENS WITH CHARGES OF DECEIT

by John Schwartz, Washington Post [01/27/98]

The tobacco industry "waged a decades-long campaign" to protect its profits by deceiving the American public about the dangers of smoking, a lawyer charged today as he opened the state of Minnesota's closely watched lawsuit against cigarette makers.

The state has gathered an unprecedented collection of 33 million pages of internal industry documents that would prove, in "their own secret words," that "the companies waged a decades-long campaign of deceit and misrepresentation . . . in the name of profit," said Michael Ciresi, representing Minnesota and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance company.

After Ciresi's more than two-hour presentation, attorneys for the tobacco companies disputed his claims and said the state and insurer were making arguments that didn't address the issues the jury would actually have to decide.

During his opening remarks, Ciresi quietly laid out the documents and evidence that he planned to use to make his case. Ciresi wove the contents of previously released and never-before- seen documents into a narrative that he said would show "what these defendants knew about the harm of smoking, when they knew it and what they did with that information."

The industry, he said, often argues that it manufactures a legal product. Ciresi said, however, that "this case is about the illegal sale of a legal product," illegal because the companies lied about the risks and about nicotine's addictiveness, and marketed their products to minors.

With the courtroom overflowing with spectators, journalists and industry analysts, the jury, made up of three smokers, seven former smokers and two people who have never smoked, listened attentively, carefully reading the documents that popped up before them on strategically placed video screens.

Ciresi cited a document from Hill & Knowlton, the public relations firm that helped the companies formulate their strategy to "reassure the public" that the science on smoking and health was still not settled. The industry, Ciresi said, "chose darkness while their publicists proclaimed they were pursuing truth." By 1964, the companies had entered into what a Philip Morris Inc. top scientist would later call a "gentlemen's agreement" to avoid in-house research linking smoking to disease.

The companies had a deep understanding of the addictive nature of nicotine and how to maximize its effects in tobacco products, Ciresi said. As an attorney for the Kansas City law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon wrote in one document, "We can't defend smoking as a free choice if the person was addicted."

While the youth marketing efforts of R.J. Reynolds have come to light in recent weeks, Ciresi laid out documents showing similar efforts on the part of Philip Morris and Lorillard. The documents showed research on teenagers as young as 14, and a 1981 Philip Morris document said, "Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer."



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