Posted on: Sunday, June 12, 2005

EDITORIAL
Feds must seek justice — but not for tobacco

The Justice Department has proposed an indefensibly weak penalty for Big Tobacco as the nine-month trial of the racketeering charges against the industry wound down last week. That appalling 11th-hour move demonstrated a dreadful lack of concern for the public well-being, given that smoking lies at the root of some of the nation's deadliest diseases.

In closing arguments, federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler that they were seeking a $10 billion, five-year nationwide smoking cessation program as a penalty against the tobacco industry for its role in deceiving the public about the health risks of smoking. That amounts to a shadow of the $130 billion, 25-year program that had been on the table.

Quite correctly, Kessler questioned whether there might be influences — political and otherwise — behind the decision to water down the plan. And there might be: Some Democratic members of Congress called on Justice's inspector general to investigate such influences, pointing as an example to some professional associations between a leading government attorney and tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. The inspector general should do exactly that.

Federal prosecutors have defended their decision, saying their proposed allotment for the stop-smoking program is based on an estimate of the number of future smokers who might become addicted under current marketing schemes.

But it's impossible to reasonably arrive at such an estimate. Even if the program is extended beyond its $10 billion limit, as federal attorneys say it could be, that expansion would be based on continued misrepresentations by the industry about the health risks. In fact, cigarette makers owe the public an adequate payback for the misdeeds already committed, and the revised penalty is simply insufficient.

It falls to the judge to decide whether the evidence against the industry is strong enough to merit the originally proposed penalty. But the fact that the government attorneys now seem to be pleading the case of Big Tobacco is unconscion-able. The well-paid private lawyers surely can defend their corporate clients. The government's job is to look after our interests, not theirs.