Ciggyfree Blog

Senior counsel Sharon Eubanks, a 22-year veteran attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, quit her job on the cusp of the most significant legal victory of her career. She left in December 2005, just eight months before a judge would decide the huge tobacco case she had devoted six years to prosecuting.

She was not the only lawyer to leave a Justice post abruptly, citing interference from politicians in the Bush administration. Echoes of Eubanks’ allegations reverberated in this year’s scandal involving accusations that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and his top deputies fired nine U.S. attorneys for failing to follow the administration’s political line. Gonzales has apologized for the manner in which the attorneys were fired, but insists that “nothing improper occurred,” according to CNN.

Eubanks’ decision to leave such a high-profile case could not have been easy. She led the largest civil racketeering and conspiracy case in U.S. history: United States of America v. Philip Morris Inc. et al. (Civil No. 99-CV-02496).

The massive litigation included three years of discovery and trial preparations. Both parties processed millions of documents and generated thousands of exhibits, including complex animations.

“It appears that smokers have an altered opioid flow all the time, when compared with non-smokers, and that smoking a cigarette further alters that flow by 20 to 30 percent in regions of the brain important to emotions and craving”

Smokers enjoy their habit because it stimulates the flow of “feel good” chemicals in the brain, according to a new study involving just a handful of test subjects.