FLORIDA DO-OR-DIE CASE GOES TO JURY [05/02]

The do-or-die Connor case in Florida is going to the jury today [Friday]. Below are excerpts from an AP article:

Jean Connor, who smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day for more than 30 years and died of lung cancer in 1995, told her story from the grave.

In a videotape played for a jury, an ailing, bone-thin Mrs. Connor told how, as a teen-ager, she thought smoking was glamorous.

Her family's effort to hold R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. liable for her death comes as the legal and regulatory tide has turned against the industry. A verdict against the nation's No. 2 cigarette maker could weaken the industry's hand in negotiations toward a multibillion-dollar settlement with state governments around the country.

The case is a test of the use of RJR internal documents, which Wilner introduced for the first time to show that the company was aware of links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1940s and early '50s.

But the trial comes as the industry faces lawsuits by more than 20 states and countless individuals and increasing regulatory pressure. A federal judge in Greensboro, N.C., ruled last week that the Food and Drug Administration could regulate tobacco as a drug. And the Supreme Court this week refused to hear a challenge of a Baltimore ordinance restricting cigarette billboards near schools.

"This is must-win, do-or-die, for the tobacco industry,'' said Dr. John Banzhaf III, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health in Washington. ``If they lose this one, it would be a strong omen that they may lose to one or more of the states or one or more of the class-action suits, where the stakes are much higher."

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