Times have changed
December 20th 2010 06:24
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Vyoos news
Fifty years ago in Boston, American cigarette maker Lorillard Inc promoted its products, and sought to secure future profits, by giving away cigarettes to children.
Lorillard did this outside tenement housing estates in lower-income areas, often in black-dominated areas.
That's where young Marie Evans got her first cigarettes, from a smiling and benevolent dispenser of Lorillard largesse.
Evans is said to have received her first free cigarettes at age 9. They were Newport brand. She didn't start smoking them until age 13, but from then on it was Newport every day all the way until she was 54. That was in 2002, when Evans died of lung cancer.
Early last week a US court awarded the estate of Marie Evans, and Evans' son William, US$71million in compensatory damages. Late last week the court awarded the estate and William a further $81 million in punitive damages.
The jury said it found Lorillard Inc had enticed the woman and other black children to smoke by distributing free cigarettes outside low-income housing projects in Boston in the early 1960s. Evans vs. Lorillard was the first case to claim the cigarette maker targeted minorities, including young children, with samples of Newport menthol-flavoured cigarettes.
Lorillard has said it intends to appeal the decision. Times have changed, but cigarette company attitudes haven't.
boston.com/bostonglobe, bostonherald.com
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