For translation, click on
English Español Français Deutsch Italiano Portuguese

PROSECUTING GOVERNMENT
AND CORPORATE OFFICIALS
EXPORTING GENOCIDAL LEVELS OF
TOBACCO TO OVERSEAS TARGETS

                 Outline of Subjects Covered Herein
    Introduction
1. Fact Basis for Prosecuting the Killing of People Overseas
2. Legal Basis for Prosecuting Tobacco Exporters
3. Examples of Case Law On Which To Base Prosecutions
4. Foreign Governments Can Extradite Pursuant to 18 USC § 3184 to
    Prosecute Cigarette Exporters Causing Death in Target Countries
5. Benefits of Prosecutions, Extraditions, Convictions

Introduction

             The concept of having an international system for dealing with international problems has been progressively developing since ancient times. Enforcement of long dormant laws against tobacco and

"the public's growing anti-smoking sentiments have translated into . . . stagnation of cigarette sales in the United States." So "the U.S. tobacco industry has aggressively stepped up its exportation of cigarettes . . . overseas,"
causing 3,000,000 deaths per year. The subject of "Exporting tobacco addiction from the USA," has appeared repeatedly, e.g., in

  • John Britton, "Tobacco: The Epidemic We Could All Avoid," 52 Thorax 1021-1022 (1997)
  • Editorial, "Exporting tobacco addiction from the USA," 351 Lancet (#9116) 1597 (30 May 1998)
  • John Britton, Reply Letter, "Exporting tobacco addiction from the USA," 352 Lancet (#9122) 152 (11 July 1998)
  • Prof. John I. D. Hinds, The Use of Tobacco (Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Pub House, 1882), p 49.

    • This U.S. exporting of the tobacco addiction epidemic of an "ultrahazardous" nature, concerns secular and religious groups, e.g., INFACT, a Boston-based group campaigning to promote corporate accountability; Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, Chicago, who opposes "killing people overseas with cigarettes"; and the Nation of Islam. Its minister of health and human resources, Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, urges Muslims to be more vigilant against cigarettes, and says "Many Muslim countries are now declaring that smoking is bad." See Rosalind Muhammad, "With sales declining in America, tobacco companies seek to make a killing overseas," The Final Call On-Line Edition (7-29-97). See also Muhammad al-Jibaly, "Smoking: A Social Poison" (1996), and "The US is the biggest drug pusher in the world!" (Video, 2011), and International Human Rights Law Context (21 June 2013). .

    1. Fact Basis for Prosecuting the Killing of People Overseas

              A. Cigarettes Kill At A Genocidal Rate. A cigarette-caused "annual death toll of some 27,500" was deemed a "holocaust" by the Royal College of Physicians, Smoking and Health Now (London: Pitman Medical and Scientific Pub Co, 1971), p 9.

    And in the U.S., "Over 37 million people (one of every six Americans alive today) will die from cigarette smoking years before they otherwise would."—William Pollin, M.D., Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Research on Smoking Behavior, Research Monograph 17, DHEW Publication ADM 78-581, Foreword, page v (Dec 1977).

    Britain and the U.S. have only a tiny portion of the world's smokers. When tobacco companies target overseas victims, with far higher numbers, genocidal level numbers, the death rate overseas is far above even the U.S.'s genocidal level.

    “The tobacco industry is the greatest killing organization in the world. The harm done by all the armies in the world combined, will not begin to equal the damage inflicted upon the human race by the combined activity of the cultivators, manufacturers, and distributors of tobacco.”—Dr. Jesse M. Gehman, Smoke Over America (East Aurora, N.Y: The Roycrofters, 1943), p 216.

    "Tobacco alone is predicted to kill a billion people this [21st] century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, if current trends hold," says the Associated Press article, "Tobacco could kill 1B this century," The Detroit News, p 4A (11 July 2006). Details are at "American Cancer Society CEO Urges United States to Do More to Win Global War Against Cancer in Address to National Press Club" (26 June 2006).

    "Tobacco producers are "terrorists", Seffrin tells Israel Cancer Association," The Jerusalem Post (31 March 2005): "All those involved in the production and marketing of tobacco products are 'terrorists', declared Dr John Seffrin, president of the American Cancer Society and elected president of Geneva-based International Union Against Cancer (UICC)."

               Cigarettes kill as a "natural and probable consequence" because, in the breathing zone, cigarette smoke contains vast quantities of poisons in excess of standard engineering maximum exposure limits on toxic substances. Such standard limits are typically promulgated by law (in the U.S. by 29 CFR § 1910.1000.) Rules define what is reasonable, notwithstanding some lay jury verdicts made in ignorance of said rule's legal definition of reasonableness.

               For example, 29 CFR § 1910.1000 sets non-protracted carbon monoxide exposure at NTE 50 ppm average, whereas cigarette smoking involves repeated exposure to 500 - 1500 ppm. See G. H. Miller, "The filter cigarette controversy," 72 J Indiana St Med Assn (#12) 903-905 (Dec 1979), cited in L. J. Pletten [Letter], "Smoking as hazardous conduct," 86 New York St J Med (#9) 493 (Sep 1986). Cigarettes are like driving 500 - 1,500 mph in a 50 mph zone; it's easy to see why they kill people!

               For prosecution purposes, the danger cigarettes pose as a "natural and probable consequence" is also evidenced by

  • (1) a vast body of laws premised upon the hazard, e.g., Michigan's decades old law stating that only safe cigarettes can be manufactured, given away, and sold, MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216,

  • (2) our analysis of pertinent law,

  • (3) our narrative on pertinent legal definitions,

  • (4) U.S. regulations such as 21 CFR § 897 pursuant to analyses of the hazard and tobacco company conduct in 60 Federal Register 41313-41787 (11 Aug 1995) and 61 Fed Reg 44396-45318 (28 Aug 1996);

  • (5) case law including State v Austin, 101 Tenn 563, 566-567; 48 SW 305, 306; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) aff'd 179 US 343 (1900); Grusendorf v City of Oklahoma City, 816 F2d 539, 543 (CA 10, 1987) (the Surgeon General warning label suffices to show "foreseeable" hazard); and

  • (6) the many cases concerning injury from dangerous cigarettes due to their "ultrahazardous" nature and impact.

    •            B. Gateway Drug To Other Drugs. Tobacco causes abulia and suffering leading to self-medication, thus is the gateway drug on which children are first hooked (average age 12). Alcohol follows, average age 12.6; then marijuana, average age 14. See DHEW NIDA Research Monograph 17, Foreword, p vi, supra; Fleming, R., Levanthal, H., Glynn, K., and Ershler, J. "The Role of Cigarettes in The Initiation And Progression Of Early Substance Use," 14 Addictive Behaviors pp 261-272 (1989); and. Department of Health and Human Services, Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People: A Report of the Surgeon General (1994). Chapter 2 notes tobacco sellers' pattern of criminal lawlessness: "Illegal sales of tobacco products are common." After the gateway drug stage, other later stage drugs follow.

    The U.S. Supreme Court said this officially approaching four decades ago: "The first step toward addiction may be as innocent as a boy's puff on a cigarette in an alleyway," in Robinson v California, 370 US 660; 82 S Ct 1417; 8 L Ed 2d 758 (1962).

               C. Alcoholism. Cigarettes' toxic chemicals cause abulia and suffering, thus self-medication via alcohol. "Smoking prevalence among active alcoholics approaches 90%." Source: Hayes, et al. "Alcoholism and Nicotine Dependence Treatment," 15 Journal of Addictive Diseases 135 (1996). (See standard medical references for why, medically, physiologically, this cause and effect relationship exists).

               D. Crime. Cigarettes' toxic chemicals lead to abulia, then in turn foreseeably to crime.

  • "Nowhere is the practice of smoking more imbedded than in the nation's prisons and jails, where the proportion of smokers to nonsmokers is many times higher than that of society in general." Doughty v Board, 731 F Supp 423, 424 (D Col, 1989).

  • "Nationwide, the [ratio] of smokers [to non-smokers] in prisons is 90 percent." McKinney v Anderson, 924 F2d 1500, 1507 n 21 (CA 9, 1991), affirmed and remanded, 509 US 25; 113 S Ct 2475; 125 L Ed 2d 22 (1993).
    • Such data existed as long ago as in the 1830's. In addition, "Maternal prenatal smoking predicts persistent criminal outcome in male offspring." See Brennan, et al., 56 Arch Gen Psychiatry 215-219 (March 1999).

    2. Legal Basis for Prosecuting Tobacco Exporters

               Tobacco's fatal effects are "natural and probable consequences." See standard legal references for definition of the terms "natural and probable consequence," an event happening "so frequently as [to be] expected [intended] to happen again, and "murder." See Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed (St. Paul: West Pub Co, 1990), pages 1019 ("murder") and 1026 ("natural and probable consequence"). Instead of giving tobacco pushers the benefit of the doubt, pages 789-790 have the pertinent legal phrase, in odium spoliatoris omnia praesumuntur; every presumption is made against a wrongdoer.

    Tobacco-caused deaths occur so frequently as to be expected to happen again. The U.S.'s own body count (37,000,000) is prima facie evidence of such deaths happening again and again, millions of times, far above the death rate from any other "ultrahazardous activity."

    Cigarette-smoking-caused deaths are clearly foreseeable and so are not "accidents" ("unexpected," "unusual," "fortuitous" events), Black's Law Dict, supra, p 15.

               A classic example of murder is killing people by poisoning them. Poisoning inherently involves a series of acts, i.e., involves deliberateness and premeditation, so constitutes first degree murder. Thus, the series of acts constituting tobacco exporting, which has as its "natural and probable consequence," genocidal numbers, millions, of killings, involves first degree murder.

    People have been prosecuted on poisoning charges for far less, e.g., slipping a few drops of poison into someone's beverage container. Such a single short-term act is far less than the multiple series of premeditated acts, over a protracted period, which is the case with tobacco.

    3. Examples of Case Law On Which To Base Prosecutions

               Murder is of course illegal in all jurisdictions, for example, the United States and its law, 18 USC § 1111. There is a vast body of criminal case law against killing or poisoning people whether or not death immediately ensures. See, e.g., People v Carmichael, 5 Mich 10; 71 Am Dec 769 (1858); People v Stevenson, 416 Mich 383; 331 NW2d 143 (1982); and People v Kevorkian, 447 Mich 436; 527 NW2d 714 (1994).

    The concept of using criminal law to prosecute in this context is referenced in L. J. Pletten, [Letter] "Alternative Models for Controlling Smoking Among Adolescents," 87 Am J Public Health 869-870 (May 1997). See also Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H., "Cigarette Makers Get Away With Murder," The Detroit News, p 4B (14 March 1993).

               The Carmichael case is especially apt as it bans providing a person a mind-altering drug impacting behavior. Tobacco is a classic mind-altering drug impacting behavior. Cigarettes' vast combination of poisons including nicotine, carbon monoxide, and rat poison, increase blood pressure, constrict blood vessels, make capillaries fragile, and inhibit clotting. (Think of a garden hose that has been (1) made leaky and (2) had pressure increased).

    With tobacco, there is oxygen loss and hemorrhaging into the brain leading to abulia (impairment of ethical and impulse controls), destruction of the self-defense reflex, disorientation, impaired judgment and disordered thinking, including due to the suffering tobacco causes. Tobacco kills because it
  • (1) addicts,

  • (2) produces abulia, acalculia and destruction of the pertinent self-defense reflex, thus

  • (3) protracts exposure to mass quantities of poisons.
    • For more information, see standard medical references on the substances.

               Such basic criminal law precedents as People v Carmichael, 5 Mich 10, supra; People v Stevenson, 416 Mich 383, supra; and People v Kevorkian, 447 Mich 436, supra, establish the basis for prosecuting tobacco officials for deaths they cause.

               Cigarettes emit vast quantities of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide are the gas chamber poisons that Nazis used to kill about six million people. Those genocidal officials (who killed far fewer than 37 million) were criminally prosecuted, and many executed. See The Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69 (1946), The Genocide Treaty, Twentieth Century Examples of Genocide, and the Armenian Massacre Website. These other holocausts, even accepting their worst case allegations, have typically killed fewer people than does tobacco. Enforcing the laws referenced herein, which have no statute of limitations, would save many lives.

    4. Foreign Governments Can Extradite
    Pursuant to 18 USC § 3184
    to Prosecute Cigarette Exporters
    Causing Death in Target Countries

               The prosecution process has certain steps: Foreign countries can issue arrest warrants for government and corporate officials involved in exporting tobacco, the gateway drug. Charges would include a count alleging that tobacco's "natural and probable consequences" are genocidal levels of death in targeted countries. The charged individuals are here in the U.S. where their crime planning process and series of acts to carry out the killings occurs.

    Any nation, jurisdiction, or "state may impose liabilities, even upon persons not within its allegiance, for conduct outside its borders . . . which the state reprehends." United States v Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), 148 F2d 416, 443 (CA 2, 1945). This includes tobacco manufacturers and sellers and their aiders and abettors in government.

               Extradition of such accused individuals would utilize the procedures in U.S. law 18 USC § 3184. (Extraditing gateway drug [tobacco] exporters from the U.S. is a standard law enforcement action process. Activities in one country can violate laws of another country and/or international law, see, e.g., the cases of

    All nations have laws against poisoning, torturing, and murdering their own and other nation's citizens, and aiding and abetting same. Cigarettes contain toxic chemicals (poisons). There are laws against poisoning people, but they are generally unenforced in tobacco-poisonings context. Enforcement such as criminal-law prosecutions including via extradition is recommended. See, e.g., L. J. Pletten, "Comprehensively Solving the Tobacco Problem," 324 eBrit Med J (#7335) 442 (26 Feb 2002).

    Once extradited, criminal trials for the resultant poisonings and deaths can occur, pursuant to standard criminal law on murder. Once guilt is established, penalties imposed--prison or execution (in death penalty countries).

               In World War II trials such as The Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69, 161-163 (1946), prosecution included Julius Streicher and William Joyce, Nazi propagandists convicted and hanged for their pro-death media words. The Joyce transcript is in the book edited by J. W. Hall, M.A., B.C.L. (Oxon), Trial of William Joyce (London: William Hodge and Co, Ltd, Notable British Trials Series, 1946). So prosecutions for tobacco deaths must also include aiders and abettors in the media.

    Too many in the media censor anti-tobacco data, and actively promote tobacco use, aiding and abetting the killings. Even as a mere civil law matter, when writings, books, newspaper ads, commercials, etc., aid and abet the killings, the publishers and advertisers are liable, as nothing in freedom of the press allows aiding and abetting murder and genocide, pursuant to case law such as Paladin Enterprises, Inc v Rice, 128 F3d 233 (CA 4, 1997) cert den 523 US 1074; 118 S Ct 1515; 140 L Ed 2d 668 (1998).

              Once one successful prosecution occurs, there will likely be a series of criminal cases on government and corporate officials involved in exporting tobacco killing overseas' victims.

    Pursuant to the Nuremberg era precedents, government officials including judges can be prosecuted as well for aiding and abetting such criminal acitivity. See, e.g., U. S. v Alstötter et al. ("The Justice Case") 3 T.W.C. 1; 6 L.R.T.W.C. 1; 14 Ann. Dig. 278 (1948) (these are cases holding judges liable). See also Application of Yamashita, 327 US 1; 66 S Ct 340-379; 90 L Ed 499 (1946), and Application of Honmo, 327 US 759; 66 S Ct 515-517; 90 L Ed 992 (1946) (these are cases holding government officials liable for acts of subordinates, and imposing death penalty for those acts). (Ramifications of these cases are discussed in some depth by David Bergamini (1928-1983), Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (New York: Morrow, 1971), pp 1349-1354).

    A similar culpability concept applies to private sector perpetrators, United States v Park, 421 US 658, 672; 95 S Ct 1903; 44 L Ed 2d 489 (1975) (holding private sector official, the company president, criminally liable for subordinates' acts). Related cases include United States v Y. Hata & Co, Ltd., 535 F2d 508 (CA 9, 1976) cert den 429 US 828; 97 S Ct 87; 50 L Ed 2d 92 (1976), and United States v Starr, 535 F 2d 512, especially 515 (CA 9, 1976). This applies rules of law making higher officials responsible, even corporate president, United States v Dotterweich, 320 US 277; 64 SCt 134; 88 LEd 48 (1943).

    Note analyses of U.S. law establishing that it is NOT necessary to capture suspects solely via treaty extradition processes. The U.S. also allows
  • non-violent trickery, U.S. v Wilson, 721 F2d 967, 972 (CA 4, 1983); Frisbie v Collins, 342 US 519, 522; 72 S Ct 509, 511; 96 L Ed 541 (1952); and

  • abduction without normal process of law, without invoking treaty provisos. References: Edmund S. McAlister, "Hydraulic Pressure of Vengeance: United States v Alvarez-Machain and The Case for a Justifiable Abduction," 43 DePaul Law Rev 449-522 (Winter 1994), citing the U.S. Supreme Court upholding abduction as distinct from extradition, United States v Alvarez-Machain, 504 US 655; 112 S Ct 2188; 119 L Ed 2d 441 (1992). That case followed an older precedent, Ker v Illinois, 119 US 436, 444; 7 S Ct 225, 229; 30 L Ed 421 (1886).

  • "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator" (PBS, 28 June 2012) ("In January 2012, after 30 years of legal impunity, former Guatemalan general and dictator Efraín Ríos Montt found himself indicted by a Guatemalan court for crimes against humanity. Against all odds, he was charged with committing genocide in the 1980s.")

    • 5. Benefits of Prosecutions, Extraditions, Convictions

               While U.S. and state law and case law warrant prosecuting tobacco officials with respect to the "natural and probable consequences" (millions of deaths) constituting murder that they are causing, such prosecutions are not occurring. See Pletten, [Letter], "Alternative Models," 87 Am J Pub Health 869-870 (May 1997), supra. This non-enforcement is due to certain U.S. political officials aiding and abetting the killings, obstructing justice. So many deaths constituting murder result. See, e.g.,

               Although both articles also contain pro-tobacco disinformation, thus enhancing the probative value of the admissions of widespread bribery, the criminal prosecution and conviction of a sheriff for taking bribes to not enforce another cigarette-related law is purely objective fact without pro-tobacco hype, United States v Sheriff Goins, 593 F2d 88 (CA 8, 1979).

    The fundamental fact is that due to multiple governmental officials involving in committing obstruction of justice, many deaths are the "natural and probable consequence." This mass governmental complicity in murder is clearly a Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69, supra, situation.

              U.S. government officials rarely prosecute each other for crimes. However, foreign governmental and judicial systems may not be so disdainful of the rule of law. It only takes one honest prosecutor in one nation to prosecute, one honest adjudicative body to convict. Once tobacco pushers are convicted and in prison (or executed, in death penalty countries), benefits are clear

  • (1) a halt to the many murders constituting genocidal levels of killings, saving lives not only in the U.S. but around the world.

  • (2) prevention of all other tobacco effects, including but not limited to reducing the smoker population, the market for other abused drugs. Society will benefit from that and resultant reduced alcoholism and crime, and, of course, all other tobacco effects, examples at our homepage.

    • Recommended Websites for Background Data
    Crime Prevention Genocide Government Confession Government Crime International Human Rights Law Context
    Medical Statistics Michigan Law Prosecuting Non-Enforcers Tobacco Murder Toxic Chemicals

    Discussion Group: More Participants Welcome

    This site is sponsored as a public service by
    The Crime Prevention Group

    Please read our tobacco effects page.

    Email@TCPG

    Copyright © 1997, 1999 TCPG