Minnesota Suits

The former research director of Philip Morris, the nation's largest cigarette maker, invoked the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination more than 100 times in videotaped testimony played for a Minnesota jury on Tuesday. Thomas S.

When tobacco lawyers checked into their hotels for the state's anti-tobacco mega-trial, they were greeted by in-room copies of Minnesota Monthly with a beaming Jeanne Weigum on its cover. The magazine had named Weigum its 1997 Minnesotan of the Year, which must have given the tobacco folks pause. Unlike most people saluted in such a manner, Weigum is not an industrialist, philanthropist or cultural icon. She is a veteran anti-smoking activist.

During the first week of Minnesota's massive case against the tobacco industry, attorneys for the state started unveiling some of the "smoking howitzer" documents that Minnesota Atty. Gen. Hubert H. Humphrey III told members of Congress they needed to see before making a decision on the proposed $368.5-billion national tobacco settlement.

A Stanford University professor testifying Tuesday in Minnesota's landmark anti-tobacco case said internal documents spanning five decades show that tobacco firms have long understood that nicotine is addictive and that without it "there would be no cigarette business." On a day in which nearly 30 documents were put before jurors, Channing R.

If a kinder, gentler tobacco industry appeared in the persons of the chief executives who recently told Congress that yes, smoking is harmful and addictive, then the veteran industry spinmeister who testified Friday in Minnesota's landmark anti-tobacco case is a colorful remnant of the old guard.

Over heated defense objections, portions of some of the most scathing articles ever published about the tobacco industry in a scholarly medical journal were read to the jury in the massive case filed against the nation's cigarette companies by the state of Minnesota and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota. Michael Ciresi, the lead plaintiff's attorney, read excerpts of a July 19, 1995, editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. and two related articles.

Attempting to neutralize charges that they are keeping damaging material secret, the tobacco industry began posting a staggering 27 million pages of internal documents on the Internet on Friday. The massive disclosure of internal documents was, as the industry put it, "unprecedented in the history of American business" and may be the largest amount of material ever posted on the Internet in one day.

In a public relations embarrassment for the tobacco industry that could reverberate to Washington, jurors in Minnesota's big tobacco trial Friday began viewing a videotaped deposition in which the former top scientist for Philip Morris Cos. invoked the 5th Amendment 135 times. Despite extraordinary pressure from Philip Morris, Thomas S.

Less than two weeks after tobacco chief executives told Congress that nicotine is addictive, a top industry spokesman testifying in Minnesota's anti-tobacco trial disputed whether industry leaders had made that admission. "I don't believe they testified that nicotine is addictive," Walker Merryman, vice president and chief spokesman for the Tobacco Institute, told jurors in the landmark tobacco case, which began its fourth week Monday.

Tobacco industry lawyers have been meeting with representatives of the Minnesota attorney general's office in an attempt to negotiate a settlement of the state's massive case against the cigarette companies, according to several sources familiar with the talks. However, the sources cautioned that no deal is imminent in the case, which may go to the jury as early as the end of next week. Several sources, including Eric Johnson, chief aide to Minnesota Atty. Gen. Hubert H.