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Below are excerpts from a time line of important events in the war on smoking and selected by the Associated Press.

Those events in which ASH was a significant factor are shown in bold faced type.

Excerpts from: Timeline of Tobacco Fight

Associated Press [07/15/00]

      1954 - Industry faces first liability lawsuit by lung cancer victim alleging
     negligence and breach of warranty. Suit dropped 13 years later.

     1964 - Surgeon General Luther Terry releases reports concluding smoking
     causes lung cancer.

     1965 - Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requires surgeon
     general's warnings on cigarette packs.

     1967 - Government requires one antismoking advertisement for every three
     cigarette ads. [ASH's FIRST MAJOR LEGAL VICTORY]

     1971 - Broadcast ads for cigarettes are banned. [ANOTHER MAJOR ASH VICTORY]

     1972 - Officials rule all airlines must create nonsmoking sections. [THE RESULT OF AN ASH LEGAL ACTION]

     1981 - Insurers begin offering discounts on life insurance premiums to nonsmokers.

     1984 - Warnings strengthened on cigarette packages and ads. Nicotine-based chewing gum approved as
     quitting aid. San Francisco requires businesses to accommodate nonsmokers.

     1988 - Government bans smoking on short domestic airline flights. Surgeon general concludes nicotine is an
     addictive drug.

     1990 - Smoking banned on interstate buses and all domestic airline flights of six hours or less.

     1992 - Nicotine patches introduced.

     1993 - Vermont bans smoking in indoor public places.

     April 1994 - Executives of seven largest U.S. tobacco companies swear in congressional testimony that
     nicotine isn't addictive and deny manipulating nicotine levels in cigarettes.

     May 1994 - Amtrak bans smoking on short and medium-distance trips. Brown & Williamson documents show
     tobacco executives discovered smoking's risks before the surgeon general did. Mississippi files first of 24 state
     lawsuits seeking to recoup millions from tobacco companies for smokers' Medicaid bills.

     March 1996 - Liggett Group, smallest of major tobacco companies, settles claims with five state attorneys
     general and promises to help them against other companies.

     April 1997 - Federal judge rules government can regulate tobacco as a drug. But industry is allowed to
     continue advertising.

     June 1997 - Landmark settlement, subject to congressional approval, calls for unprecedented restrictions on
     cigarettes and on tobacco makers' liability in lawsuits. Industry to spend $368 billion over 25 years, mainly on
     anti-smoking campaigns, use bold health warning on packs, curb advertising and face fines if youth smoking
     doesn't drop enough.

     July 1997 - First state to settle with tobacco, Mississippi agrees to $3.6 billion deal with companies including
     Brown & Williamson, R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and Lorillard Tobacco.

     August 1997 - Florida reaches settlement reported to be $11.3 billion.

     January 1998 - Texas settles with the tobacco industry for $15.3 billion over 25 years. Tobacco executives
     testify before Congress that nicotine is addictive under current definitions of the word and smoking may cause
     cancer.

     May 1998 - Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota reach a $6.6 billion settlement with
     tobacco industry. Despite pressure from President Clinton, Senate rejects a proposed $1.50-per-pack tax
     increase on cigarettes.

     June 1998 - After lengthy debate, the Senate effectively kills settlement bill that would have cost tobacco
     companies at least $516 billion over 25 years. [BUT ALSO WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEM VIRTUAL IMMUNITY FROM LAW SUITS, ESPECIALLY THOSE LIKE ENGLE]

     November 1998 - Forty-six states embrace a $206 billion settlement with cigarette makers over health costs
     for treating sick smokers. Cigarette prices expected to rise 35 cents to 40 cents a pack to fund settlement.

     Feburary 1999 - Patricia Henley is awarded $51.5 million in damages against Philip Morris Cos. A state judge
     later cuts the verdict to $26.5 million. Philip Morris is appealing the award.

     March 1999 - A jury in Portland, Ore. awards the family of Jesse Williams $79.5 million against Philip Morris
     in punitive damages plus $821,485 in compensatory damages for medical costs and pain and suffering. The
     judge later reduces the punitive damages to $32 million. Philip Morris is appealing.

     May 1999 - A Tennessee jury clears three tobacco companies of liability in the deaths of three smokers.

     July 1999 - In the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to go to trial, a Florida jury says five tobacco companies
     engaged in ``extreme and outrageous conduct'' in making a defective product that causes emphysema, lung
     cancer and other illnesses. Meanwhile, two tobacco companies are cleared of wrongdoing in the death of a
     smoker from lung cancer by a Louisiana jury.

     September 1999 - The Justice Department sues the tobacco industry to recover billions of government dollars
     spent on smoking-related health care, accusing cigarette-makers of a ``coordinated campaign of fraud and
     deceit.''

     March 2000 - A San Francisco jury orders Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Corp., the two largest tobacco
     companies in the U.S., to pay $20 million in punitive damages. This followed a $1.7 million compensatory
     damage award on March 20 to Leslie Whiteley for medical costs and pain and suffering. Her husband,
     Leonard, is awarded $250,000 for lost of companionship. Both companies are appealing.

     April 2000 - In the second phase of the landmark Florida class-action trial, the jury awards two smokers $6.9
     million in compensatory damages. The jury awards a third smoker $5.8 million, but determines that he cannot
     collect because the four-year statue of limitations had run out.

     July 2000 - A Mississippi jury rejects a $102 million wrongful death suit Wednesday filed against a R.J.
     Reynolds Tobacco by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer.

     July 2000 - A jury ordered the tobacco industry Friday to pay $145 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida
     smokers, a record-shattering verdict. [ASH ALSO ASSISTED IN THIS CASE]