The Shuster Project

Tobacco Industry Fraud & False Claims Issues

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To: Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco

1015 15th Street, NW,Suite 409, Washington, DC 20005
Contact: Jeannette Noltenius, PhD, Executive Director
Phone: 202-371-1186 * Fax: 202-371-0243

From: Robert X. Shuster – Executive Director – The Shuster Project / The New Dance Project

          177 Andrew Avenue – Naugatuck – Connecticut – 06770-4359

Telephone: 1-203-723-1690     -     1-203-723-9266

Fax: 1-801-705-3078

Web Site: http://www.RXShuster.org

Email Address: Rshus177@aol.com

Date: 8/31/99

Re: Fraudulent tobacco industry policies, practices, procedures and false claims and it’s negative impact upon ethnic minority-owned retail stores selling cigarettes and tobacco products. Specifically, “Redlining” and “contract payment” discrimination based upon ethnicity and store location(s).

Dear Madam Executive Director Noltenius,

On May 14^th of this year, after considerable preparation, I launched a Web site that for the first time ever is dealing with NON-health related tobacco industry issues.

I was employed by the former American Tobacco Company from 1974 – 1991.

During this time, I was witness to an incredible array of fraudulent policies, practices and procedures employed by the tobacco industry that negatively and financially impacted many ethnic community retail storeowners, including those of Latino, Spanish and Puerto Rican ethnicity, among others.

The remaining tobacco companies employ the practice of “redlining” to this day.

“Redlining” denies mostly ethnic minority storeowners the “perks” and advantages of cigarette package and carton “display contracts.”

This discrimination is further “intensified” by applying a “prerequisite” of non-“ratioed” carton volumes (the number of cartons of cigarettes of all tobacco companies manufacture sold in an average week) to further deny “display contracts” to ethnic minority stores.

This includes stores of Puerto Rican and oriental ethnicity ownership, which traditionally service low-income areas.

I am in the process of communicating with the Attorneys General of the 50 states to provide them with detailed information regarding the most egregious of the tobacco industry’s fraudulent policies, practices and procedures, therefore I am limited, at this time, in what information I can supply to you.

However, if you visit my Web site, http://www.RXShuster.org, I have already begun to place tobacco company forms, documents and guides there.

Your membership that owns retail stores that sell cigarettes and tobacco products might find some of these useful, including the Manufacturers’ Code Dating guide.

The issue(s) you may wish to involve yourself in directly, as a representative organization of Latino citizens, among them storeowners that sell cigarettes and tobacco products, is the issue of “redlining.”

If you review the “Contract Payment” guide posted on my site, you will see the significant moneys being denied stores of all ethnic minority ownership.

This adds up to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in payments enjoyed by NON-redlined stores.

This includes losses of customers and moneys to those stores of Latino, Puerto Rican and other minority ownership based merely upon the stores location, carton “volume” sales or merely the ethnicity of the stores owner or avoided merely because of language/communication difficulties and similar stereotypical discriminations.

Another critical issue is the loss of huge Income streams for the states that can and will be created by “corrections” of present tobacco industry fraud.

These total Billions of dollars annually, collectively, within the 50 states.

These are Income streams that would have and should have been generating revenues for the states for decades now but, instead, were denied the states by the fraudulent policies, practices, procedures and false claims of the tobacco industry; something my Project is now endeavoring to engage directly.

These are also Income streams which, in part, would have found their way into various funding of social programs which could have only benefited the Latino community and the other ethnic minority communities.

If you have any questions or, upon review of my site, would like my assistance in addressing any of the discriminatory areas I have been able to reveal thusfar on my Web site, there are several “contact” mechanisms provided within my site by which you can contact me.

If you would like to be informed by Email of future Press Releases that I send to various organizations, media outlets and politicians, please let me know and I will be more than happy to keep you updated as I add more documentation and information to my Web site.

It is presently at just above approximately 1/16 of 1% of planned content.

Please feel free to distribute the Web site address of The Shuster Project / The New Dance Project, http://RXShuster.org, to your membership.

There are General Public electronic Feedback forms, there, for their use.

As importantly, there are business response forms available within the site for storeowners who sell cigarettes and tobacco products to utilize that can give them the means to communicate with us.

This has been specifically provided to allow these storeowners the ability to have a voice to further illustrate the denial of these “Contract Payments” and other tobacco industry promotions being denied to them based upon the corporate discrimination practices of the tobacco industry.

Specifically, being denied “Special Offers” (Buy one-Get one Free, Premium offers, etc.) from the tobacco companies based upon tobacco industry “Redlining” and ethnic discrimination policies and practices.

These Latino and other minority storeowners can also indicate to us, via our forms, if they also believe they are the victims of tobacco company field employee embezzlement…an example of which is detailed in The Shuster Project Web site relative to a wholesale store’s losses.

Your membership might also wish to click on the “Correspondence” button on the left on the main page, go the “Public Invitation for Grassroots Effort” letter and participate in that effort, as well.

Because my Web site is the very first of its kind, it is also a “teaching” site.

As such, I am available three (3) days a week for an hour each day in a chat room I have established within my site for contact with both the media and the public.

The schedules are posted on the main page of the Web site and on the chat room page itself.

If you have any questions relative to this letter or the present content of my Web site, the chat room is a good place to get immediate and direct contact with me relative to those questions.

I look forward to hearing from you sometime in the near future.

Sincerely,

RXShuster

P.S.

This letter will be posted on my Web site.

As more people, organizations, politicians and Media access my Web site, it is important that the following is made known:

1.)    Who has been contacted and informed as to these NON-health related tobacco industry issues.

2.)    That their invitation to participate and be updated relative to my Web site and these NON-health related tobacco industry issues has been sent to them and displayed on my Web site.

3.)    How the recipients of these notifications have responded for the good of their memberships, readers, viewers and listeners.

This web site is equipped with the "Get 1 on 1" guest response system.
If I am in my office, you can contact me in "real time."
If I am out of my office you will be prompted to send me an e-mail.
I will get back to you as quickly as I can.