My prediction? Movie producers will invent fake cigarette brands for action heroes to blatantly smoke. They'll then contract with some foreign tobacco company to make the fake cigarettes and sell them with other movie merchandise. This will no doubt be followed by movie brand booze and condoms, and the next generation of "cool kids" will show how cool they are by buying made-up temporary brands. Hell, I've got a bar of "Fight Club" soap and "Scooby Snacks" cookies, and I'd buy "Soylent Green" beef jerky in a heartbeat.

Why the "Wink! Wink!"? Philip Morris is doing precisely what anti-tobacco activists have asked it (and movie producers) to do. The only difference is that a plaintiffs' lawyer can't take credit and demand that smokers pay him tribute. Is there any action PM can take that wouldn't get sardonic commentary?

"Is there any action PM can take that wouldn't get sardonic commentary?"

Admit their products cause cancer and are designed to be addictive, and that they've been concealing it for years?

Voluntarily quit selling the deadliest products in the world?

Stop spending millions of dollars to dismantle the court system by setting up fake grassroots movements?

Cease all advertising?

End their effort to make cigarettes regulated by the FDA to immunize themselves from product liability lawsuits?

Quit manufacturing chewing tobacco because it causes mouth cancer and because no one likes to see others spit chaw?

Yeah, any of those actions would probably be met with praise.