(CNN) – The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld an incontestable verdict on the conduct of the major cigarette companies over four decades: They are racketeers who carried out a conspiracy to deceive the public and target children with their deadly and addictive products.

The court on Monday declined to accept appeals from either side in the massive case that began when the Department of Justice filed suit against the tobacco companies in 1999.

Although the Obama administration and public health groups failed to persuade the justices to reconsider earlier rulings that limited the financial penalties and remedial measures the trial court ordered, the Supreme Court left intact the trial court’s damning judgment: The tobacco industry has illegally profited from selling products that cause disease and death.

The Supreme Court’s decision puts the responsibility squarely on elected officials to eliminate the tobacco industry’s harmful influence and take effective action to protect the nation’s health.

Congress and the Obama administration should fund a national public education and stop-smoking campaign, and the Food and Drug Administration must effectively exercise its new authority to regulate tobacco products.

State officials must redouble efforts to implement proven tobacco-control measures, including higher tobacco taxes, comprehensive smoke-free workplace laws and well-funded prevention programs.

The case stemmed from U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler’s landmark 2006 decision that found the cigarette makers guilty of violating civil provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Kessler found that they had acted illegally when they “lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as ‘replacement’ smokers, about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke.”

The companies, Kessler concluded, “have marketed and sold their lethal products with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted.”

In short, they perpetrated the deadliest consumer fraud in history. And, Kessler found, they continue their deceptions to this day. The tobacco industry spends nearly $13 billion annually — $35 million every single day — to market its deadly and addictive products, often in ways that appeal to kids…

Have you been mislead into believing smoking is cool?

Your smarter than that!!!

Read full article @ http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/29/myers.big.tobacco/