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Witness in Minnesota tobacco suit criticizes industry
February 3, 1998
Web posted at: 8:22 p.m. EST (0122 GMT)ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- After four days of heated discussion punctuated by dozens of legal objections, the first witness against the tobacco industry in the first attorney general's case to go to trial testified Monday about tobacco's potential addictiveness.
The state of Minnesota and Blue Cross & Blue Shield are suing the industry for $1.77 billion to recover their costs of treating smoking-related illnesses, plus an unspecified amount for punitive damages.
Brown & Williamson attorney David Bernick questioned Mayo Clinic nicotine expert Richard Hurt about how difficult it is to quit smoking, pointing out that the vast majority of quitters do so cold turkey.
Bernick introduced documents he said show that nicotine's addictive powers have long been known and had not been hidden, even citing Mark Twain's comment that quitting smoking was easy -- he'd done it a thousand times.
Bernick also cited a 1942 study in the journal The Lancet saying "smokers show the same attitude to tobacco as addicts do to their drug."
He then tried to compare nicotine cravings and withdrawal symptoms with caffeine cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
Hurt responded that the industry itself has long contended that nicotine is not addictive.
As evidence of the drug's strong grip on many people, Hurt cited data from his own quit-smoking clinic, where only about 22 percent of smokers are able to abstain for a year.
Hurt said only half of heart attack patients -- the people who presumably would be among those most motivated to quit -- do so. He said the comparison with caffeine is not a fair one, since caffeine does not kill 400,000 Americans per year.
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