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Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, in October at an Oakland, Calif., church forum about the impact of banning menthol cigarettes. (Photo by Rachel Loyd/Oakland North) Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the top seller of the menthol cigarettes favored by most black smokers, is seizing on the hot button [...]
Kool, introduced in the 1930s by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., was one of the early menthol brands, and until the 1950s the most popular. This 1937 ad was one of many that promoted Kool as soothing to the throat. (Cigarette ads courtesy of the Stanford University collection) [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
