The US justice department told a judge on Monday it had shown cigarette makers engaged in a 50-year scheme to deceive consumers about smoking's dangers and sanctions were needed to prevent future wrongdoing.

Tobacco companies countered that the government's case ignored restrictions placed on the industry in a 1998 settlement with state attorneys general and had failed to show the formation of a unlawful enterprise, as required to prove racketeering.
Both sides filed proposed findings of fact with US district judge Gladys Kessler, who held nearly nine months of hearings in the landmark case.
Targeted in the lawsuit, filed in 1999, are Altria Group and its Philip Morris USA unit; Loews Corp's Lorillard Tobacco unit, Carolina Group; Vector Group's Liggett Group; Reynolds American's RJ Reynolds Tobacco unit and British American Tobacco unit British American Tobacco Investments.
The companies said industry groups allegedly used to deflect scrutiny of smoking's harmful effects had all been dissolved, they have made explicit admissions of smoking's harmful effects, and no company still denies that smoking is addictive. "No current enterprise means no (racketeering) case," they argued.
The government charges the defendants launched a coordinated scheme in the 1950s to reassure the public there was no evidence smoking caused lung cancer in response to a growing body of evidence that it did.
If Ms Kessler finds the companies guilty, the government has asked that cigarette makers be required to fund a US$ 10 billion quit-smoking programme and provide US$ 4 billion for anti-smoking education.
The companies told Ms Kessler that any remedy must be designed solely to prevent and restrain future racketeering violations. Instead. the government had tried to impose "draconian" measures that were designed to threaten their survival.
An appeals court in February denied the government its biggest potential weapon in the case – disgorgement of US$ 280 billion in past tobacco profits. (pi)