Tobacco Documents Online

---------------------------------------- Text Inserted by LAUTENBERG (D-NJ) on S. 261 and S. 262 A Dying Smoker's Tale [CR page S-920, 31 lines] A Dying Smoker's Tale Belleville, IL, January 7.--A dying lung-cancer patient who is suing a tobacco company testified today that he began smoking in the fifth grade and continued for most of his life despite health warnings. The 51-year-old plaintiff, Charles Kueper, recalled that he had understood the dangers of smoking "to the point it stunted your growth, was harder to breathe." Mr. Kueper, a retired Army master sergeant and truck driver, is suing the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and the Tobacco Institute, which represents the industry, for unspecified damages in St. Clair County Circuit Court here. He claims the defendants concealed the dangers of smoking through misleading advertising. Mr. Kueper testified that he was already smoking as much as two packs of Winston cigarettes a day when, at the age of 18, he joined the Army in 1959. He did not quit, he said, until late 1990, when doctors told him not to smoke around his wife, who was recovering from surgery. A few months later, in March 1991, he was found to have cancer. Under questioning by his lawyer, Bruce Cook, Mr. Kueper said cigarettes had been an integral part of his life. In 1981, a doctor told him to quit smoking, he said, adding, 'I guess he didn't like what he was hearing" through a stethoscope. Still, the witness testified, he kept smoking. Mr. Kueper, who has said that his doctor does not expect him to live past spring, told the court he had been aware of warning labels on cigarette packs as early as the 1960's but had paid little heed. He said that he had tried to quit smoking several times but that "it's not that easy to quit." The longer he went without a cigarette, he said, "the worse it got."