FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, January 26, 1996

Sworn testimony in a sealed deposition provides the strongest direct evidence to date that at least one tobacco industry CEO lied under oath when he denied to a congressional committee that nicotine is addictive.

This evidence could not only help send a former tobacco industry executive to jail. It could also help pressure other current and former employees facing the threat of prosecution as a result of this testimony to further implicate the industry and add to the already-growing flood of previously-secret documents from the files of cigarette makers.

This in turn could provide crucial support for the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) proposal to regulate cigarettes.

It would also be compelling evidence in more than half-a-dozen cases brought by states and class action attorneys seeking in excess of one hundred billion dollars from the tobacco industry for allegedly promoting a known addictive drug while actively concealing this information from the public.

These are the assessments of law professor John Banzhaf, who is largely responsible for the end of cigarette commercials, as well as the growing bans on smoking on airlines, in workplaces, and in many public places.

Banzhaf serves as Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national legal action antismoking organization which also supports and encourages law suits against the tobacco industry.

In their own law suit filed against the FDA for proposing to regulate cigarettes, the six major tobacco companies charge that ASH's "threats," "pressure," and "a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign" were behind the FDA's proposal to regulate the sale of tobacco products to children.

Banzhaf is referring to hours of testimony by Jeffrey S. Wigand, formerly head of research for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. [B&W], provided in a suit being brought by the State of Mississippi to force cigarette makers to pay the costs of tobacco-caused diseases.

ASH - ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH 2013 H Street, NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310