IRISH anti-smoking groups were jubilant yesterday following the admission by the US cigarette-maker, the Liggett Group, that smoking can cause cancer and is addictive.
The climbdown is predicted to open the way for an avalanche of legal actions against the tobacco industry throughout the world.
The admission and undertaking to pay massive compensation prompted calls for the Department of Health to initiate legal action against the Irish tobacco industry to recover many millions of pounds spent on treating people with smoking-related illness, which accounts for 6,000 deaths a year in the State.
Both ASH Ireland - Action on Smoking and Health - and the Irish Cancer Society claimed the admission by the makers of Chesterfield cigarettes made the case for a total ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in Ireland undeniable.
The Department said it would be examining the development, which has sent the US tobacco industry into convulsions with share prices taking a tumble among larger cigarette-manufacturers which steadfastly refused to acknowledge the toll caused on health services by smokers and those exposed to passive smoking.
A spokesman for the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee (ITMAC), which represents the industry in the Republic, said it would be making no comment on the outcome or the possibility of legal action in Ireland.
Both P.J. Carroll & Co and John Player and Sons referred The Irish Times to ITMAC, while Gallaher (Dublin) Ltd did not have a spokesperson available.
Liggett broke ranks by agreeing to settle law suits initiated by 22 US states. Under the agreement, it was prepared to make a token initial payment of $25 million and pay out 25 per cent of its pre-tax profits to the states for 25 years.
Dr Fenton Howell of ASH said the Minister for Health and health boards "must seriously consider legal action against Irish tobacco interests", given the probably billions of pounds spent on smoking-related illness. "We would like to think it's the beginning of the end of the tobacco industry as we know it, but it won't give up without a long and difficult fight."
The Liggett concession and changes in attitudes, Dr Howell said, had altered the agenda irrevocably. That said, he believed the fight would be won on the world's stock exchanges, by people divesting themselves of shares likely to be "high-risk" with litigation looming.
The admission was cause for delight, according to a consultant respiratory physician, Dr Luke Clancy, of St James's Hospital, Dublin. But confirmation that the company was targeting young people was "really upsetting".
"We have always suspected this. It is very disturbing, the portrayal of smoking as sexy and life-enhancing by association with young people, when it's harmful and addictive."
He was "uncomfortable" with the settlement terms given the tobacco industry's record and hoped it would not compromise the rights of individuals harmed by smoke.
