Once upon a time people smoked cigarettes. Everyone smoked some sort of way: housewives and the proletariat smoked Virginia Slims or Marlboro Lights, Career women smoked Mores, and teenagers go for menthols and anyone who didn't smoke was usually a uptight square, ambiguously gay or a puritan. (or so I've heard)
That's part of the reason why the general populace was reluctant to heed the Surgeon General's 1964 announcement that smoking was bad. Nowadays it is accepted that, say, ingesting smoke while pregnant could mess up your baby, and smoking in much of America is taboo.
So After the 2009 U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit confirmed nearly all of the impositions a trial judge placed on tobacco businesses in 2006, which limited tobacco marketing and required potential health risks to be made known, the Tobacco industry decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. The main charge is whether the tobacco business is guilty of misleading the public on the adverse health risks involved with inhaling foreign substances.
RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was also invoked. I admit I am a bit confused because RICO targets criminal organizations that are involved with stuff, not corrupt businesses who bend the morality line trying to make money.
(And that's Kurt Vonnegut acting all cool up there, folks. At least he admitted it was "A classy way to commit suicide" Ironically, he died of brain injuries when he fell in his apartment. At age 84.)
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