Say no to Big Tobacco money

IT WAS an unprecedented reparation when a Suffolk Superior Court jury this week awarded $152 million in total damages to the family of Marie Evans. The jury decided that Lorillard illegally gave away free Newport cigarettes to children in a black Boston housing project in Roxbury a half-century ago. Evans was one of those children, and she died of lung cancer in 2002 at age 54. The suit was the first of its kind to focus on the free samples to underage youth. Documents showed Lorillard blatantly targeted inner cities and said “the base of our business is the high school student.’’


Tweet 1 person Tweeted this
Yahoo! BuzzShareThis
The award “can’t bring my mother back, but it was good to see the company held responsible for what they did,’’ Evans’s son Willie said to the Globe yesterday.

But we should not kid ourselves. The tobacco companies are still trying to buy a good image with our kids. This singular victory for the Evans family would mean so much more if leaders stood up and held themselves responsible to hold the line against the death peddlers. But while Willie Evans savors a victory against the exploitation of the inner city by a cigarette company, it is shameful that the most elite of African American organizations continue to wallow in the cash thrown at them by Big Tobacco.

Of course African American organizations are not alone. Big tobacco buys off any organization it can. The 2009 list of charitable contributions by Altria, the corporate cover for Philip Morris USA, includes many Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs and YWCAs, Boy Scout, Girl Scout, 4-H, Junior Achievement, and Camp Fire councils, Big Brothers and Big Sisters chapters, and United Way chapters. The R.J. Reynolds Foundation boasts of similar contributions. The national presidents and CEOs of all those organizations need to say no more to tobacco money.

But the Evans suit, which focused on Lorillard specifically targeting low-income black children, is a riveting reminder that African-Americans are disproportionately likely to develop and die from lung cancer. That makes it incumbent on highly influential organizations to tell Big Tobacco that they will not be exploited anymore. But there is little sign of that, when Lorillard is one of the top political action committee contributors to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Prominent on Altria’s list are the national offices of the CBC, the Urban League, the United Negro College Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. There is a parallel list for Latinos. Among local chapters on Altria’s contribution list is the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.

Local Urban League President and CEO Darnell Williams said in an email that Altria is one of the sponsors of its charity golf tournament. “We use the proceeds from the tournament to fund youth activities in Boston,’’ Williams wrote. “Football teams, basketball teams, youth scholarships to college, and youth civic engagement have all benefited.’’ Williams described Altria as “solid and responsible partners’’ that “we have not hesitated in working with to carry out our mission to empower people and change their lives.’’

It is time to hesitate. Big Tobacco is working to disempower people all over the world, fighting efforts from here to Uruguay to limit or prevent graphic warnings on cigarette packs. No matter how wonderful is the work of civic organizations, and our local Urban League is indeed a vital part of Boston, the goal of empowering people and changing their lives is tragically diminished when organizations take money from forces that steal decades from those lives.