Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco today filed suit against the nation's tobacco companies, claiming that the industry deceived New Yorkers about the health effects of smoking, and illegally lured millions of teenagers to take up the deadly smoking habit.

The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, names as defendants the nation's "big six" tobacco giants -- Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, American Tobacco, Liggett, and Brown & Williamson -- as well as a non-profit trade association and a second research group controlled by the industry which were supposed to conduct impartial studies of tobacco's effects.

The suit seeks to dissolve the two "independent" groups for fraud.

"For decades, tobacco companies have engaged in a conspiracy to mislead, deceive and confuse New Yorkers about the harmful, debilitating health effects of their powerfully addictive products," Attorney General Vacco charged.

"Their scheme knowingly targeted children and adolescents with slick, multi-million dollar advertising and public relations campaigns to encourage them to begin smoking early and stay hooked for life," Attorney General Vacco said.

The Medical Society of the State of New York today hailed the Attorney General's action.

"The Medical Society of the State of New York enthusiastically supports the bold action announced today by Attorney General Vacco," said MSSNY President Stanley L. Grossman, M.D., M.P.H.

"As physicians we see the lethal effects of tobacco on a daily basis. The action taken by the Attorney General sends the message loud and clear to the tobacco manufacturers that we will not stand by idly as 32,000 New Yorkers lose their lives each year due to tobacco use," Dr. Grossman said.

The Attorney General charged the companies with conspiracy and racketeering in suppressing information about health and addiction, manipulating nicotine content, derailing development of "safer" cigarettes, and marketing tobacco products to minors.

New York also charged the companies under the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The RICO charges stem from the tobacco industry's use of the mail to promote the alleged conspiracy.

Attorney General Vacco's lawsuit seeks to recoup the billions of dollars spent to treat smoking-related illnesses, including expenditures by private insurers and the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program.

Smoking is the primary cause of premature death in the United States, annually claiming 400,000 lives nationwide and 30,000 in New York.

Smoking is estimated to cost New Yorkers as much as $2.6 billion each year, including costs to private health insurers and the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program, according to state health officials.

New York is the 20th state to file suit against the tobacco companies, but New York's claim opened a new front in the battle against smoking by seeking to dissolve the two non-profit research entities that are alleged to have been part of the industry's long-running conspiracy to deceive smokers.

The "research" groups, Washington-based Tobacco Institute and New York-based Council for Tobacco Research-USA Inc., both are incorporated in New York State and subject to the Attorney General's jurisdiction under the Not-for-Profit Corporations Law.

The lawsuit charged that tobacco companies, facing mounting evidence of smoking's harmful effects, created the research affiliates in 1954 as part of a carefully planned strategy to deceive New Yorkers with false claims concerning the safety and healthfulness of their products.

The supposedly independent research entities were in fact controlled by the tobacco companies through their public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton, which is also named as a defendant in the Attorney General's suit.

The companies used the false health claims of the research groups to confuse and deceive smokers about the harmful health effects of tobacco, the suit charged.

Attorney General Vacco contends that the industry had a "special duty" to protect the public from the harmful effects of its products, in part, because of health and safety claims that the companies and their research organs repeatedly made.

"Tobacco manufacturers promised New Yorkers over 42 years ago that they would lead the effort to research, discover and disclose the effects of tobacco products on health. Instead, they routinely suppressed and concealed material information and waged an aggressive campaign of disinformation about the health consequences of smoking," Attorney General Vacco said.

The lawsuit also targets tobacco industry practices that promote the use of tobacco products by minors.

Although New York and the other states ban the sale of tobacco products to children, over half billion packs of cigarettes and 26 million containers of chewing tobacco are sold nationally each year to children under the age of 18.

Between 1990 and 1994, tobacco use among seventh through twelfth graders jumped from 46 percent to 55 percent, according to the state Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.

"If we are to put a halt to this epidemic we must stop our young people from beginning the deadly smoking habit," said Dr. Grossman of the Medical Society.

According to federal studies, the average teenage smoker starts the habit at 14-1/2 and is smoking daily before the age of 18. More than 80 percent of all adult smokers tried smoking by the time they were 18. More than half are regular smokers at that age.

The full text of the Attorney General's over 120-page complaint is available on the Internet by accessing the Attorney General's website at http://www.oag.state.ny.us.

• The number of deaths from tobacco related illnesses exceeds the combined death caused by automobile accidents, AIDS, alcohol use, use of illegal drugs, homicide, suicide and fires.
  
• Smoking-related illnesses account for one of every five deaths each year in the United States.
  
• At least 43 chemicals in tobacco smoke have been determined to be carcinogenic.
  
• Cigarette smoking causes as much as 85 percent of all lung cancer and 30 percent of other cancers, including cancers of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, uterus, cervix, kidney and colon.
  
• Smoking is the cause of more than 80 percent of deaths from pulmonary diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis.
  
• Smoking is responsible for thousands of deaths from cardiovascular diseases, including stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease and aortic aneurysm.
  
• Smoking reduces fertility, increases the rate of miscarriages and stillbirths, retards fetal growth, and results in lower birth-weight babies.
  
• Cigarettes and other tobacco products result in devastating illness and even death when used as intended and designed. There is no known level of safe consumption.
  
• The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates health care costs for tobacco-related diseases are $50 billion annually, and have doubled between 1987 and 1993.
  
• The annual medical cost to treat tobacco related illnesses in New York is $2.6 billion -- at least $650 million of which is Medicaid costs.
  
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  Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, American Tobacco, Lorillard, and Liggett control virtually 100% of the market in the United States, making the tobacco industry the most highly concentrated industry in America.