Pubdate: Thu, 02 Oct 2014
Source: Alberni Valley Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Glacier Community Media
Contact:  http://www.avtimes.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4043
Author: Les Leyne
Page: 6A

TOBACCO, MARIJUANA ARE TRADING PLACES

So much work and money have been put into two separate epic campaigns,
it's hard not to think they will both eventually be successful.

On one hand, a popular movement to relax prohibitive laws is chipping
away at restrictions on the use of one relatively benign substance.

On the other, monumental lawsuits and education campaigns have
penalized the producers and shamed the users of a toxic product.

Some time in the next several years, both movements will arrive at
their destinations. Marijuana and tobacco will change places.

Tokers will eventually be free to consume government-sanctioned and
taxed marijuana with only minor restrictions. And smokers will be
driven underground, forced to buy baggies of tobacco on the black
market, after the industry is driven out of business by the weight of
legal campaigns against it.

This week is another milestone on the latter front, as closing
arguments begin in a Quebec class-action suit against tobacco companies.

Lawyers rounded up about a million Quebec smokers and created a bloc
of plaintiffs who have been pursuing a case for the past 16 years.
They got to trial two years ago and have been arguing since then.
Their claim for $20 billion in damages will be in the judge's hands
shortly.

The Quebec case is the furthest advanced in Canada, but there are
similar assaults on the tobacco industry in almost every other
province. Just last week, there was a fresh update from the bench on
the progress - or non-progress - of the B.C. suit.

The NDP government laid the groundwork for the case in 1997 by passing
a law that set the table for a slam-dunk win over tobacco companies in
a damages suit. The companies challenged the validity and won on some
key points, forcing several rewrites of the bill.

The government's actual lawsuit against the companies started a few
years after that, spurred by the mega-billion-dollar settlement in the
U.S. The 14-year history of the case has been marked by challenges and
counter-challenges every step of the way.

The B.C. government lost one such skirmish last week. It wanted two
specific legal issues to be determined by the judge in advance of the
trial. Justice Nathan Smith declined to do so, saying they will have
to be argued in court with the rest of the evidence.

When that will be is anyone's guess. The judge noted: "Almost 14 years
after the litigation began, there have still been no examinations for
discovery nor has a trial date been set."

Two earlier preliminary applications on various matters were appealed
all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada and each one took about
five years.

The judge said: "I have no doubt that any decision made now on a point
of law will follow a similar appellate path."

Nonetheless, he agreed with the defendants on one point they made:
"That after almost 14 years, the interests of efficient and timely
resolution will be best served if the parties simply get on with
moving this matter toward a trial in which all legal and factual
issues can be decided on their merits."

If they ever get to trial, it will take years more.

The government claims the companies knew the risks from smoking and
ignored them, sold cigarettes knowing they were addictive and
hazardous, and made false representations to minimize the risks.

The defendant companies, most of the national and multinational firms,
claim the government knew all those risks yet continued to supervise
and tax what was always a legally marketed product. They claim the
government makes more from tobacco than it pays in health-care costs
of smokers, and shouldn't be allowed to profit from its own wrongdoing.

The anti-tobacco push is as strong as the pro-marijuana thrust. Slowly
but surely, the switch is underway.

Some day, Big Marijuana will be sponsoring curling bonspiels, just as
the cigarette companies did in the old days.

And motorcycle gangs will be busted for selling cigarettes on street
corners.
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MAP posted-by: Matt