CANADA ANTI-TOBACCO GROUPS SAY EVIDENCE DESTROYED

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canada's largest cigarette makers destroyed
scientific studies on the health effects of smoking, which could make
it more difficult for Canadians to sue tobacco companies, anti-tobacco
groups charged Tuesday.

At a news conference, the groups gave reporters copies of two letters
written in 1992 by Simon Potter, a Montreal lawyer and outside legal
counsel for Imperial Tobacco Ltd., which indicated that 60 documents
were destroyed.

``These documents that were destroyed suggest that tobacco was causing
various cancers and tumors in mice,'' Eric LeGresley, staff legal
counsel for the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, told the conference.

Potter's letters were addressed to officials at Brown & Williamson
Tobacco Corp., a Louisville, Kentucky, cigarette company, and
London-based B.A.T Industries Plc .

Brown & Williamson and Imperial's parent, Montreal-based Imasco Ltd.,
are units of B.A.T Industries.

The Canadian Non-Smokers' rights group said it obtained copies of
some, but not all, of the studies from the Internet site of Brown &
Williamson, which has been sued by anti-tobacco groups in the United
States.

The letter from the Imperial lawyer indicated that while the documents
were destroyed in Canada, copies may have been kept in other
countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

The anti-tobacco groups said the destruction of the documents in
Canada raised legal and ethical questions that should be examined by a
federal inquiry.

``These letters raise the most profound issues about the conduct of
lawyers and the conduct of an industry which it appears is engaged in
a pretty significant attempt to destroy evidence,'' said Gar Mahood,
head of the Canadian Non-Smokers rights group.

LeGresley said the destruction of such documents could make it more
difficult for those suing Canadian tobacco makers to obtain the
information they contained.

``That is an effort to get rid of these documents to keep them out of
court,'' he said.

At a separate press conference Tuesday, Imperial spokesman Michel
Descoteaux said the companies destroyed copies of the documents, but
not the originals.

``All that we did is that we destroyed documents whose originals are
available if needed, elsewhere in the world. It changes nothing. They
are neither more or less available,'' he said.

Last week, three residents of the Canadian province of Quebec filed a
class action suit against Imperial, which holds about 68 percent of
Canada's domestic cigarette market.

British Columbia is expected to file a lawsuit in the next few weeks
to recoup costs to the province's health care system from treating
smoking-related illnesses. The suit will be similar to those filed by
attorneys general in the U.S., and provincial officials have been
reviewing industry documents released in those cases.

Stan Shatenstein, a researcher for the nonsmoker's rights group, said
many of the documents Imperial had destroyed were scientific studies
relating to the health effects of tobacco and smoking. To provide an
example, Shatenstein read from one study entitled ``Experimental
tumorgenesis in the hamster larynx-the promoting activity of inhaled
smoke from cigarettes.''

``These data definitely suggest that inhaled tobacco smoke in hamsters
enhances the development of precancerous lesions in the larynx, which
could be interpreted as a promotion effect. Long-term inhalation
experiments demonstrate that tobacco smoke alone will eventually lead
to grade 5 lesions,'' Shatenstein said the report read.

A similar presentation on Potter's letters was to be made at the
International Bar Association conference in Vancouver Tuesday by
Thomas Sobol, co-lead counsel for Massachusetts in that state's
lawsuit against the U.S. tobacco industry.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry