By Myron Levin on February 9, 2017
Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the top seller of the menthol cigarettes favored by most black smokers, is seizing on the hot button issue of police harassment of blacks to counter efforts by public health advocates to restrict menthol sales. In recent months, the company has quietly enlisted black groups and leaders, including civil rights activist…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Consumer Protection, Product Hazards and Recalls, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
By Myron Levin on November 17, 2015
Lorillard Tobacco donated nearly four times as much to Republican candidates as to Democrats in the 2014 congressional elections. No surprise there — most businesses count on Republicans to hold the line on regulations and taxes. But Lorillard made a striking exception for one set of Democrats: African Americans. It gave campaign cash to half…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Product Hazards and Recalls, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
By Stuart Silverstein on September 21, 2010
Black market sales of cigarettes are costing states millions in tax revenue, and ruthless criminal gangs are orchestrating the illicit trade, according to a report by NPR. In California alone, an estimated $182 million a year is lost in unpaid excise taxes on cigarettes. The trade is fueled by wide gaps among the states in…
Posted in Warning Wire | Tagged Cigarette Smuggling |
By the Los Angeles Times on November 23, 2003
Why British American released papers showing possible links to contraband sales remains a mystery. GUILDFORD, England — This handsome town south of London is steeped in history. An 11th-century castle built by William the Conqueror overlooks the village center from a lovely hilltop park. The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, is…
| Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
By the Los Angeles Times on November 10, 2002
Rogue employee or Big Tobacco fall guy? Les Thompson tells tales from the vortex of the Canadian smuggling scandal. Les Thompson was a self-made man. He grew up poor in a small town in Ontario and got no further than high school. Still, he fashioned a nice career in the cigarette business, rising through the…
| Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
By the Los Angeles Times on September 9, 2002
Courts: Legal experts say Lewis Kaplan was not required to disclose his background or to disqualify himself in cigarette smuggling suit. Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan was part of the 2-1 majority that gave the tobacco industry one of its biggest legal victories in recent years–a ruling upholding dismissal of Canada’s cigarette smuggling case against…
| Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
By the Los Angeles Times on September 17, 1998
Tobacco Memos Show Overseas Price Fixing Philip Morris and British-American Tobacco, the world’s two biggest tobacco companies, secretly joined forces to fix cigarette prices and divide markets in Argentina, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, according to internal documents that explicitly describe the deals and the involvement of some of the firms’ most senior executives….
| Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
