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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: md1derful who wrote (4026)	6/23/1999 5:19:00 PM
From: Duker	Respond to of 6439

Tobacco in Florida case says smokers smoke by choice By Patricia Zengerle MIAMI, June 23 (Reuters) - Smokers know what they are doing when they light up and should bear responsibility for health risks they take, a tobacco attorney said as he wrapped up the defense in a landmark multibillion-dollar lawsuit on Wednesday. ''Nobody forced smokers to smoke,'' Robert Heim, an attorney for Philip Morris (NYSE:MO - news) Cos. Inc. told jurors in the industry's closing argument in a case expected to go the jury by early next week. ''There's overwhelming evidence ... that smokers have been aware of the serious health risks of smoking for much, much longer than any of us in this courtroom have been alive,'' he said. The case, Engle et al vs. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. et al, is the first class action suit against the tobacco industry brought by smokers to go to trial. And it could result in a massive payout by cigarette firms. The plaintiffs claim that between 40,000 and one million Floridians may have been sickened by smoking. They say the state's sick smokers, and those who lost loved ones who smoke, may be entitled to $200 billion to $500 billion in damages if the jury is convinced by their argument that cigarette makers sell a dangerous, defective, addictive product and for decades conspired to hide smoking's harmful effects. Lawyers for cigarette firms have repeatedly denied any conspiracy during the long trial, one of the longest civil cases ever in the United States. Jury selection began last July; opening statements began on Oct. 19. Heim spoke at length about the warning labels on cigarette packages since 1969. He also told the jurors to reject the contention that nicotine is an addictive drug like heroin or cocaine. ''Smoking is a behavior. People smoke because they like to smoke. They like the way it tastes, they like the way it feels. They like to look at the smoke,'' he said. ''Smokers quit when they want to quit.'' He also urged jurors to reject what he termed ''reprehensible, vicious'' charges by plaintiffs' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt that cigarette makers advertise to persuade teenagers to start smoking and that they ''spike'' cigarettes with nicotine to make them more addictive. He attacked Rosenblatt's use of cigarette industry documents, saying he had picked a handful of papers that seemed incriminating out of all those the industry made available. ''Out of countless thousands of documents if there weren't some documents like that, anyone might be suspicious,'' he said. In his closing arguments earlier, Rosenblatt had called tobacco ''an industry without a conscience'' and likened the cost of cigarette smoking to the Holocaust and slavery. If the jury found the cigarette makers liable in the class action, a suit in which a handful of people represent the interests of many others, a second series of trials would be held to determine damages for victims of lung cancer, emphysema and related diseases. The lawsuit was brought as a class action by Dr. Howard Engle, a Miami Beach doctor who suffers from emphysema, on behalf of as many as 1 million sick smokers in Florida. The defendants include RJ Reynolds Tobacco (NYSE:RJR - news), Philip Morris, Loews Corp (NYSE:LTR - news).'s Lorillard Tobacco Company Inc., and the Brown & Williamson unit of British American Tobacco Plc. (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BATS.L). Wall Street has watched the case. Rosenblatt and his wife, Susan, scored a longshot victory in October 1997 by forcing a $350 million settlement mid-trial in a class action suit against tobacco makers on behalf of nonsmoking airline flight attendants who claimed they were sickened by secondhand smoke.

To: md1derful who wrote (4026)	6/23/1999 6:22:00 PM
From: S. M. SAIFEE	Respond to of 6439

1.9 mill block @ close at 42 5/16

To: md1derful who wrote (4026)	6/24/1999 6:09:00 AM
From: Racso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6439

From today's WSJ. Although the article focuses on the growing prospects of tech companies due to Asia's recovery, it also makes reference to MO's Kraft unit comeback. QUOTE No Asian country was hit harder by economic and fiscal crisis than Indonesia, but a surprising number of U.S. companies say their local operations are recovering -- if not thriving -- as the turmoil ebbs. Take the local units of Philip Morris Cos.' Kraft Foods Inc. and Johnson & Johnson Inc. The collapse of Indonesia's currency, the rupiah, against the dollar drasticall cut Indonesian exports in 1998, and cut into Kraft's imported coffee, cheese and candy sales. Now, Kraft says sales are picking up as the rupiah strengthens and its distributio network improves. END OF QUOTE