Some good (but not great) news:

“A federal judge ruled yesterday that tobacco companies have violated civil racketeering laws, concluding that cigarette makers conspired for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of their product and ordering the companies to make landmark changes in the way cigarettes are marketed.”

“But U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said that under a 2005 appellate court ruling, she could not impose billions of dollars in penalties that had been sought by the Justice Department in its civil racketeering suit against the eight defendant tobacco companies.”

“All she could do, she said, was try to deter future illegal acts by the companies, and to that end, she ordered them to stop using terms such as ‘low tar,’ ‘light’ and ‘mild’ and to undertake a massive media campaign in an effort to correct years of misrepresentations.”

“It is a penalty that will cost the industry millions of dollars — a fraction of the cost of sanctions the companies faced at the outset of the case, when the Justice Department sought $280 billion from the industry.”

Meanwhile, Big Tobacco is still trying to make cigarettes more addictive than heroin.

“The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10 percent from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content, according to a new study.”

“Nicotine is highly addictive, and while no one has studied the effect of the increases on smokers, the higher levels theoretically could make new smokers more easily addicted and make it harder for established smokers to quit.”