Boy don't get me started on Phillip Morris. Two-faced SOB's. They put that big fancy ad on TV about how smoking is SO bad for us and don't start SMOKING! Yet the pukes won't stop making and selling cigarettes, will they? It's BS at the extreme.
I'm like you - I could on for ohours and hours about the perfidy of PM.
An interesting aside....It has actually been easier here in Virginia, where PM is king, to get folks to understand how bad they are and switch brands than it ever was in Delaware. More and more folks I know are switching from PM brands to one of the newer "upstart" non-MSA company's brands.
I hate big tobacco too, because they sold us out to protect themselves and their stockholders in the Master Settlement Agreement with our government.
You probably already know this, but I'm going to repeat what they did to us in that agreement. Every penny of that over $200 billion dollar penalty/settlement was passed on to smokers in an retail cost increase of about $.60 per pack, with our government's blessing. It was like a new federal tax without the benefit of any legislation. For betraying smokers, big tobacco bargained to protect themselves from many types of future prosecution and were guaranteed that new smaller tobacco companies would not be able to sell their products for less. With the gigantic tax increases imposed on cigarettes since, PM and the other major tobacco companies have been able to increase their profit margins by price increases hardly noticed by consumers.
Through the MSA, Big Tobacco has created a pact with our government and special interest groups, and couldn't care less about the people who purchase their products. They have every reason to sound just like their Anti partners. It's to their benefit. I am ecstatic about the Federal court decision in favor of the tobacco companies through the dismissal of racketeering conspiracy (RICO) charges, but only because it will ultimately save us money.
Phillip Morris negotiated the perfect example of "C.Y.A." Big Tobacco and our government are sounding more and more like "Animal Farm" in real life...remember, at the end of the book, when the farm animals noticed that they were having difficulty distinguishing between the farmers and the pigs, sitting inside at the table playing cards together?