JURY - TOBACCO COMPANIES LIABLE IN DEATHS

MIAMI - A year and a day after the trial began, a Miami jury on
Wednesday ruled that tobacco companies not only manufactured
"defective and unreasonably dangerous" cigarettes, but conspired to
shield their considerable knowledge about the perils of smoking from
the public.

The landmark decision, which returns Florida to ground zero of the
nation's tobacco wars, represents a largely symbolic but enormous
victory for health advocates and anti-smoking activists.

And the decision might not remain symbolic for long: The class-action
suit now moves into punitive phases that could bring billions of
dollars in awards against tobacco companies.

"It's a devastating blow for them," said Edward Sweda, a senior
attorney at the Tobacco Control Resource Center, a nonprofit
organization in Boston that encourages the use of litigation to fight
cigarette companies.

"What's so painful for them today is that an American jury is holding
them accountable for their actions. This jury, by their verdict, has
given a very resounding message that tobacco's conduct over the past
years has been reprehensible."

For decades, smokers who claimed they were beckoned to disease by
misleading advertisements and addictive chemicals were trounced in
court by Big Tobacco's brigade of attorneys.

Repeatedly, juries ruled that, while cigarettes are dangerous, smoking
was a matter of personal choice.

But the public's animosity toward cigarette companies has soared, a
movement that many believe began in 1994, when seven tobacco
executives stood, hands raised before Congress, and declared that they
had no reason to think smoking was dangerous, nor that nicotine was
addictive.

Those declarations, most now agree, were misleading at
best.

Lawsuits brought by government agencies and individual smokers have
uncovered hundreds of thousands of internal tobacco documents
suggesting that tobacco manufacturers not only had a better handle on
the perils of smoking than the government, but shielded that
information from the public.

One document described first-time smokers as "learners." Another
suggested that young smokers might be tempted by menthol cigarettes to
cool their throats after smoking marijuana.

In the past year, individual smokers have made headway in pursuing
legal claims against cigarette manufacturers. Analysts believe this, a
class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of Florida
smokers, is the next step. And they believe it could lead to an
outbreak of similar lawsuits across the nation.

All that's left to be discovered, said Clark Freshman, a law professor
at the University of Miami, is whether Wednesday's decision is "a
freak or whether it's a trend."

"That's going to be the real question for tobacco," he said. "It92s a
bad sign for the future of tobacco companies."

The courtroom in downtown Miami, rimmed with velvet curtains and
topped with ornate teak beams, was packed after the jury announced it
had reached a verdict following seven days of deliberations.

Their decision means that nine individual smokers, each representing a
different disease linked with smoking, can seek punitive damages in
coming months.

By Scott Gold

* Tobacco and health (transcribed text of graphic)

About 1.1 billion people in the world are smokers 96 one-third of the
global population age 15 and over

Who smokes:

Worldwide Developing Developed
countries countries

Men 47% 48% 42%
Women 12% 7% 24%

Tobacco and death toll estimates:

1996 3 million 2020 10 million

Tobacco and diseases in 1995:

Lung Cancer 514,000 killed
Heart, other 625,000 killed
vascular diseases

Tobacco is a risk factor for some 25 diseases.

Sources: WHO; news reports

* Effects of nicotine (transcribed text of graphic)

Brain

Nicotine triggers release of tranquilizing morphine-like amino acids
(endorphins) Spreads to nervous system within seconds

Lungs

Nicotine absorbed in blood

Heart

Heartbeat quickens

Blood Vessels

Vessels constrict, causing higher blood pressure

Sources: American Lung Association, American Medical Association

* Ingredients of cigarette smoke (transcribed text of
graphic)

Poisonous cigarette smoke

Cigarette smoke contains around 4,000 different kinds of Chemical
substances 96 more than 50 can cause cancer.

What cigarette smoke contains:

(sum) 25 kinds of alcoholic substances (sum) 55 acids (sum) Nitrogen
bases (sum) Cadmium (sum) Arsenic (sum) Dioxin (sum) Formaldehypde
(sum) Prussic acid (sum) Radium (sum) Thorium (sum) Polonium-210 (sum)
Potassium-40

Most of the dangerous substances come from tar.

Role of nicotine:

Addictive effect of smoke caused mainly by nicotine

Smoking of cigarettes without filter:

(sum) 14-20% of nicotine is inhaled (sum) 90% of this nicotine is
absorbed by body

Smoking of cigarettes with filter:

(sum) 5-12% of nicotine is inhaled (sum) 90% of this nicotine is
absorbed by body