Tobacco Marketing Restrictions

The following is a summary of the extensive restrictions on the sale and promotion of cigarettes and tobacco products included in the November 16, 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement:

Bans use of cartoons in advertising, marketing and packaging
Restricts brand name sponsorships
Bans all outdoor advertising, including billboard ads, and restricts the size of outdoor signs at retail establishments
Bans payment for product placement (in addition to movies) in television shows, theatrical performances, live theater, recorded performances, and video games
Restricts distribution of free samples to adult only facilities
Requires proof of age for distribution of free gifts
Restricts the third party use of brand names in ways that violate the Agreement and requires industry to enforce their trademark
Bans the use of nationally recognized brand names as names of future tobacco products
Establishes a minimum pack size of 20 cigarettes until December 31, 2001
Corporate culture changes including commitment to assist in the reduction of youth smoking
Dissolves the Tobacco Institute
Restricts lobbying against laws that limit non-tobacco products that look like tobacco products (bubble gum)
Mandates that future trade associations do not act like those of the past
Establishes a user-friendly searchable website of all industry produced documents
Establishes a National Foundation to study youth smoking ($250 million) and a counter advertising fund of at least $1.45 billion
Establishes a $50 million enforcement fund with National Association of Attorneys General

The Project SCUM Marketing Campaign

In 1997 in the California tobacco litigation, Lieff Cabraser served document requests on R.J. Reynolds seeking their current marketing data for Red Kamel. After months of litigation, R.J. Reynolds finally produced the documents. Inside the scores of boxes of documents produced and reviewed was the Project SCUM document.

The document showed that R.J. Reynolds targeted San Francisco area gay and homeless communities for special marketing efforts in the mid-1990s. The plan was labeled "Project SCUM" for "Subculture Urban Marketing."

Not only is the document offensive because it reveals targeting of the homeless and gay communities, it also used the code words "rebellious" and "Generation X" which allegedly referred to youth targeting. In late 2002, the American Legacy Foundation launched a public awareness campaign concerning Project SCUM, and set up a website for the campaign: www.projectscum.org.

Read a copy of the Project SCUM document (in Adobe Acrobat format).

About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is a sixty-plus attorney law firm that has represented plaintiffs nationwide since 1972. We have offices in San Francisco, New York and Nashville. We represent plaintiffs in class and group actions and in individual lawsuits in cases involving substantial losses. For the last seven years, the National Law Journal has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the top plaintiffs' law firms in the nation.

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