ASH Daily News for 20/12/2002
HEADLINES
ASH, 102 Clifton Street, LONDON, EC2A 4HW.
Tel 020 7739 5902 Fax 020 7613 0531
ASH Daily News
20 December 2002
HEADLINES
Smokers award cut from $28bn to $28m
New York adopts indoor smoking ban
Don’t smoke that cigarette, son - it’ll melt
FULL TEXT
Smokers award cut from $28bn to $28m
A record verdict of punitive damages for an American smoker with lung and
liver cancer who won her case against the tobacco giant Philip Morris has
been slashed to $28m from the $28bn ordered by a jury.
Declaring October's award to 64-year-old Betty Bullock "legally excessive",
the superior court judge Warren Ettinger in Los Angeles ruled that $28m
(£17.5m) was "a reasonable sum to be awarded against Philip Morris in these
circumstances".
The initial figure had marked the latest leap in so-called damages
inflation, far exceeding the previous record of $3bn awarded by another Los
Angeles jury last year to a smoker who later died. A judge eventually
reduced it to $100m.
Full Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,863293,00.html
Source: The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, Evening Standard, 20
December 2002
New York adopts indoor smoking ban
The New York Times reports that after months of negotiations, more than 20
hours of testimony and some of the most intense and heated debates of this
administration, the City Council approved Mayor Bloomberg’s anti smoking
bill at the last of its voting sessions this year.
The bill passed Wednesday, 42 to 7, with to abstentions, a large number of
negative votes for a council that tends to vote with its leaders. It could
become law at the end of March, depending on when Bloomberg signs it.
The bill essentially bans indoor smoking, covering most bars and restaurants
and buildings, but includes a host of controversial exemptions. Among the
places exempted are a handful of cigar bars already in operation, bars with
no employees except the owners, non-profit membership clubs with no
employees, and bars or certain healthcare facilities with enclosed smoking
rooms.
Source: International Herald Tribune, 20 December 2002
Don’t smoke that cigarette, son - it’ll melt
A little publicised vote at last month’s Strasbourg plenary saw MEPs call
for a ban on chocolate cigarettes, with the aim of deterring youngsters from
switching to the real stuff.
Dutch MP Geert Wilders has now tabled a question in the Hague asking if the
EU will step up its efforts to combat “chocolate cigarette smuggling” and
asking what the EU is going to do about the problem of “passive eating”.
Source: European Voice, 12 December 2002
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Public subscribers: http://www.ash.org.uk/html/about/subscribe.php
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----------------------------------
Naj Dehlavi
Action on Smoking and Health
102 Clifton Street
London EC2A 4HW
http://www.ash.org.uk
Tel 020 7739 5902 Fax 020 7613 0531
ASH Daily News
20 December 2002
HEADLINES
Smokers award cut from $28bn to $28m
New York adopts indoor smoking ban
Don’t smoke that cigarette, son - it’ll melt
FULL TEXT
Smokers award cut from $28bn to $28m
A record verdict of punitive damages for an American smoker with lung and
liver cancer who won her case against the tobacco giant Philip Morris has
been slashed to $28m from the $28bn ordered by a jury.
Declaring October's award to 64-year-old Betty Bullock "legally excessive",
the superior court judge Warren Ettinger in Los Angeles ruled that $28m
(£17.5m) was "a reasonable sum to be awarded against Philip Morris in these
circumstances".
The initial figure had marked the latest leap in so-called damages
inflation, far exceeding the previous record of $3bn awarded by another Los
Angeles jury last year to a smoker who later died. A judge eventually
reduced it to $100m.
Full Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,863293,00.html
Source: The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, Evening Standard, 20
December 2002
New York adopts indoor smoking ban
The New York Times reports that after months of negotiations, more than 20
hours of testimony and some of the most intense and heated debates of this
administration, the City Council approved Mayor Bloomberg’s anti smoking
bill at the last of its voting sessions this year.
The bill passed Wednesday, 42 to 7, with to abstentions, a large number of
negative votes for a council that tends to vote with its leaders. It could
become law at the end of March, depending on when Bloomberg signs it.
The bill essentially bans indoor smoking, covering most bars and restaurants
and buildings, but includes a host of controversial exemptions. Among the
places exempted are a handful of cigar bars already in operation, bars with
no employees except the owners, non-profit membership clubs with no
employees, and bars or certain healthcare facilities with enclosed smoking
rooms.
Source: International Herald Tribune, 20 December 2002
Don’t smoke that cigarette, son - it’ll melt
A little publicised vote at last month’s Strasbourg plenary saw MEPs call
for a ban on chocolate cigarettes, with the aim of deterring youngsters from
switching to the real stuff.
Dutch MP Geert Wilders has now tabled a question in the Hague asking if the
EU will step up its efforts to combat “chocolate cigarette smuggling” and
asking what the EU is going to do about the problem of “passive eating”.
Source: European Voice, 12 December 2002
----------------------------------
Unsubscribe:
Public subscribers: http://www.ash.org.uk/html/about/subscribe.php
Globalink members: http://member.globalink.org
----------------------------------
Naj Dehlavi
Action on Smoking and Health
102 Clifton Street
London EC2A 4HW
http://www.ash.org.uk
