text: OUR OPINION: Battle against Big Tobacco far from over - CentralMaine.com
  OUR OPINION: Battle against Big Tobacco far from over
  The courts should continue to hold cigarette companies accountable for years of fraud and deception.
  Unfortunately, the tobacco companies are still fighting that ruling. As oral arguments began Monday at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., the companies say the ruling goes too far.
  The ads will highlight the adverse health effects of cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke. They'll counteract past industry claims that "low-tar" and "light" cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes. And they'll detail how cigarettes were designed specifically to deliver highly-addictive nicotine in the most effective way possible.
  The ads will be placed in cigarette packs and newspapers, on television, and at some retail stores. The preamble to each ad will say that the tobacco companies "deliberately deceived the American public."
  The companies — R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and Philip Morris USA — argue that the statement and subsequent messages are inflammatory and humiliating, instead of factual and constructive.
  Those industry-funded price reductions are designed to attract new, young smokers to a certain brand — nearly 9 out of 10 smokers start smoking by age 18, and more than 80 percent of underage smokers choose from among the top three most heavily advertisted brands.
  Anti-smoking initiatives have cut smoking considerably among teens. However, those rates of decline have slowed in the last 10 years, and smoking rates among young adults have remained stubbornly high.
  It is also a reminder that the battle against tobacco use is far from over, and that tobacco companies are still benefitting from past deceptions.