By CATHERINE WILSON
AP Business Writer
MIAMI (AP) - Hundreds of thousands of sick smokers slated to receive a share of the colossal $145 billion punitive damage award levied against the tobacco industry may die before ever getting a penny from the tobacco companies.
Moments after Friday's devastating verdict, tobacco companies promised to appeal.
The companies had sought a verdict of less than $400 million and claim the historic damage award would put their industry out of business. They also say no final order can be signed for decades until all smokers have their individual compensation claims heard.
Although the two-year-old trial officially concluded with the damage award, lawyers get only a weekend break before returning to court Monday to discuss the next steps. Attorneys representing the 300,000 to 700,000 sick Florida smokers plan to request a speedy process once the industry appeals.
Meanwhile, some officials who negotiated the states' $257 billion national settlement with the industry expressed concerns that Friday's jury award could threaten their ability to collect on that settlement.
Louisiana state Treasurer John Kennedy fears the jury decision could effect annual payments on the state's $4.6 billion share of the settlement, and he wants to build security for the programs the settlement money is financing by selling bonds. The Florida Legislature set up bonding mechanism for its $13 billion share last spring, with the bonds to be paid off as the tobacco settlement payments come in.
''This is just another reason why we can't afford to gamble with money dedicated to health care and education on the future of the tobacco industry,'' Kennedy said. Among other things, the state uses those payments to fund college scholarships and make up budget shortfalls in the Department of Health and Hospitals, which administers Medicaid.
But other attorneys general who negotiated the national tobacco deal show less concern about the flow of funds.
''I don't think it will have any effect on it, at least at this point,'' said Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, a leader in the efforts by state to sue to tobacco industry. Though he said he agrees with Big Tobacco that the verdict is financially beyond the reach of the nation's five biggest cigarette makers. ''It wouldn't be even a question of bankruptcy. They would be out of existence,'' he said.
Joe Cherner, a witness for smokers as a former Wall Street trader and founder of Smokefree Educational Services, expects smokers to see the first financial impact in higher prices.
Cigarette makers ''can raise the price of cigarettes tomorrow and take in as much money as they need to pay,'' he said. ''They have the luxury that smokers are addicted.''
Ahron Leichtman, head of Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society, hopes other attorneys will add to the 1,000 lawsuits pending against Big Tobacco and ''peck the industry to death.''
But he also expects heavy tobacco lobbying in Washington.
''This industry will go to the U.S. Congress and try to get immunity from future class-action suits,'' Leichtman said. ''That's what they fear the most.''
Anti-tobacco activist Richard Daynard, a Northeastern University law professor, believes any federal concessions to tobacco will come at a price.
Tobacco companies ''are really in big trouble now, and they are really going to have to change their ways,'' Daynard predicted. ''They are going to come begging to Congress for any kind of consideration.''
Meanwhile, the courtroom battles are not over in Miami. The state Legislature imposed a $100 million appeal bond during the case, a measure designed specially for the tobacco industry. The smokers' attorneys will challenge the constitutionality of the mid-trial measure and push the industry to post a bond under the old 115 percent law - $167 billion.
Tobacco lawyers insist they don't have to pay any bond until the last of the smokers' compensatory claims is decided in 75 years or so, and they're counting on mistrial motions that the judge left undecided to make the entire trial go away.
Asked how much longer the case would remain before Circuit Judge Robert Kaye, Philip Morris Inc. associate general counsel Gregory Little said, ''I couldn't even make a wild guess at this point.''
If, and when, any monies are distributed to the plaintiffs, it will be too late for Angie Della Vecchia. Her videotape was played to the jury after she died of lung cancer to support her husband Ralph's claim for damages as her survivor.
''She's looking down on us,'' Ralph Della Vecchia said, looking skyward from the courthouse steps after hearing the verdict. ''I think she'd be happy.''

By KIA SHANT'E BREAUX
Associated Press Writer
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Virginia's tobacco supporters were appalled by a Florida jury's verdict ordering the tobacco industry to pay $145 billion to that state's sick smokers and wondered how the decision would affect Virginia in the long run.
But smoking opponents said the tobacco industry is getting its just due.
''I was staggered by the amount of the jury award,'' said U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, an independent who represents much of Virginia's tobacco-growing region. ''We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.''
Tobacco growers were concerned about the verdict possibly having a negative impact on prices.
''It scares the heck out of people like us who are trying to make a living growing tobacco,'' said C.D. Bryant, a Pittsylvania County tobacco grower and executive director of Concerned Friends for Tobacco.
''All of us have been fearful. You can't push the industry but so far.''
Tobacco growers already were concerned by lower-than-average prices they received this year as a result of the national tobacco settlement. Reduction in quotas - the amount of tobacco the government allows farmers to grow - also cut into growers' profits this year.
''I feel like a whipping boy, I really do,'' Bryant said.
Bobby Wilkerson of Ringold is growing 26 acres of flue-cured tobacco this year on land that has been in his family since his great-grandfather farmed it. That is just under half the acreage he farmed a year before.
''I am the end of the tobacco generation,'' Wilkerson said after he heard the verdict in Florida. ''We've been fighting this tobacco fight now for seven years, and it looks like it's just getting worse and worse every year,'' he said. ''What was that amount, $145 billion? I will be darn.''

Goode said the verdict could eventually lead to increased competition abroad.
''My fear is that the shortsightedness of that decision is going to result in Chinese farmers being the producers of tobacco for this country.''
Aggie Cavender, who has owned and operated The Cigarette Store in Richmond for four years, blasted the decision.
''It's crazy. It's ridiculous,'' said Cavender, 41, who said she quit smoking about four years ago because of health reasons. ''Nobody twisted these people's arms to smoke. This is unfair.''
But Hilton Oliver, the executive director of the Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public - or GASP - said the tobacco industry ''conspired to kill people and lied about it.''

''They deserved this,'' Oliver, of Virginia Beach, said. ''They were so arrogant and they thought they were bullet proof and that this would never happen.''
He said he has no sympathy for tobacco farmers.
''It's their choice to grow something they know addicts and kills people,'' he said. ''They try to distance themselves from the tobacco companies, but they know Philip Morris and RJR are down there at the warehouses buying their product.''
Bryant said the hazards of tobacco are so well known that he can't believe any smoker fails to understand the risks.
''You have to not even live on this planet to think, 'If I smoke this cigarette, it's absolutely safe.'''
Bruce Jones, a tobacco extension agent in Pittsylvania County, said the verdict was depressing news.
''What worries me is that the Florida case is just concerning one state,'' Jones said. ''This may open the door for similar suits to arise in the remainder of the states.''

Joint consolidation study committee reports are among items on the agenda when county supervisors and the South Boston and the Town of Halifax councils meet tonight.
The E-911 Dispatch Center, library consolidation, water and sewer and industrial development are on the agenda.
The regular joint session will meet at 6 p.m. in the Mary Bethune Office Complex in Halifax.
Supervisor James Edmunds' proposed 100-acre gift to be developed as a park is also expected to be addressed. Supervisors have proposed a joint South Boston/Halifax County study committee be formed to investigate park development at the site off U.S. Route 360. The land is within South Boston's boundaries.

Also on the Monday night agenda, the Halifax County Educational Foundation bond issue, courthouse perimeter parking, information regarding the Roanoke Summit, to be held here Tuesday, July 25. The Roanoke Summit is expected to draw citizens from regions both in Virginia and North Carolina interested in preserving local water rights.

Halifax Town Council will hold two separate public hearings on zoning issues Tuesday night at the Halifax County Career Center on Main Street.
The first public hearing begins at 7 p.m. in the conference room.
During the first hearing, council will hear public comment on its planning commission's recommendations for amendments to the town zoning ordinance and zoning map.
The commission presented its proposed comprehensive zoning map for the town's Five-Year Plan - one including the newly incorporated areas of the town - during a June 26 public hearing.
Town of Halifax zoning includes R-1, single family residential, R-2, multifamily residential, and C-1, commercial zones, but not A-1, agricultural.
The second public hearing, scheduled for 7:45 p.m., will address the planning commission's recommendation to council to deny a request from Allen Stevens to have eight lots in the Houston Springs Subdivision rezoned to allow the placement of multi-sectional manufactured homes.

Houston Springs Subdivision fronts approximately 1,184 feet on the western side of Route 652 (Crawford Road) and starts approximately 100 feet southeasterly from the intersection of Highway 360 and Route 652.

Lowell David Miller, a 23-year-old South Boston man, was found guilty on Friday of a robbery at the Hilltop Motel in South Boston on December 3, 1999.
Judge William L. Wellons also found Miller guilty of use of a firearm to commit the robbery after the bench trial in 10th District Circuit Court in Halifax.
In the incident, a clerk at the motel was confronted by a masked individual carrying a long gun.
The clerk was told to place an undisclosed amount of cash on the counter and lie on the floor.
The suspect then took the money and fled the scene.
Miller was also found guilty of attempted robberies at the Riverdale Food Lion and Pizza Hut Restaurant in South Boston on December 10, as well as use of a firearm to commit robbery in both incidents.
Miller was additionally found guilty of a merged count of conspiracy to commit a felony relating to the attempted holdups, as well as misdemeanor assault and battery against a Food Lion employee in that incident.
According to commonwealth evidence, eyewitnesses in both incidents described the color and type of vehicle driven from the scene by the suspects.
After a description of the vehicle was circulated, it was spotted early the next morning at a local residence.
The descriptions were similar to that given by a witness in the Hilltop Motel robbery a week earlier, when a car was seen leaving the motel about the same time as the robbery was reported.
The residence was placed under surveillance, and Miller was taken into custody early the next day.
Miller was remanded to custody following the verdicts.
The other suspect, 42-year-old Jay Francis Anderson, of South Boston, is awaiting trial.

The Person County, N.C. sheriff has gone on record protesting the impending release of convicted killer Noel Hamlett who has been in a North Carolina prison since January, 1984 for the murder of an elderly woman whose body was found in Turbeville.
"I believe he will kill again," Sheriff Dennis Oakley said in a recent interview with the Roxboro, N.C., Courier Times.
"I have written a nasty letter to the parole commission telling them that I believe he will kill again and the blood will be on their hands," he said.
The North Carolina Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission has set an August 6 release date for Hamlett, who at the time of his arrest was 26 and gave an address of Route 1, Milton, N.C.
He was originally sentenced to 50 years in prison following a plea of no contest.
Under North Carolina's old parole laws, he is now eligible for release.
Sixty-nine-year-old retired school teacher Regina Johnson's body was found in Turbeville in November 1983 after she disappeared from her Semora, N.C., home in mid-November.
She had died of multiple stab wounds.
Oakley, a detective with the Sheriff's Department at the time, found the body after a systematic search of farm roads between Semora and Turbeville, a distance of about six miles.
In recent days Oakley has said he has heard from residents of the Cunningham Township who are afraid of Hamlett's release.
"The people of Cunningham are contacting me and they are afraid of him," he said.
Copies of the sheriff's letter have also been forwarded to both North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt and Attorney General Mike Easley.

A 24-year-old South Boston man was arrested Friday by sheriff's deputies on multiple charges stemming from a malicious shooting.
Gregory Tryone Venable, 24, of Love Shop Mobile Home Park, was charged with the felonious assault of Veronica J. Robertson, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and the possession of a firearm after being a convicted felon.
The alleged offenses occurred on June 24.
In other police reports:
A report given by a 22-year-old female has led to an investigation by the South Boston Police Department into an 11:14 a.m. accident Tuesday, after the female entered the Emergency Room of Halifax Regional Hospital for treatment of injuries.
While further information was unavailable Sunday afternoon at press time, it was reported that Officer D. Snead and Sgt. D.L. Blanks are conducting the investigation.
· Charles Edward Williams, 28, of Clover, faces multiple charges after a single-vehicle crash Saturday afternoon in the eastern part of Halifax County.
Trooper S.M. Krantz said a charge of driving under the influence resulted after the 1982 Dodge driven by Williams ran off of the left shoulder of Falkland Road (Route 716) and struck a tree.
The 12:45 p.m. crash occurred one mile south of MacDonald Road (Route 344) and totalled the vehicle, according to Krantz.
Williams was injured but refused medical treatment, said the trooper.
Besides the DUI charge, which was the second in a year, Williams also was charged with possession of marijuana, driving with a suspended license, driving without a seatbelt, no state registration on the vehicle, no insurance on the vehicle and no inspection sticker on the vehicle.
· A two-vehicle crash involving a beer truck occurred Wednesday afternoon on River Road (Route 659), one-half of a mile east of Birch Creek.
Trooper M.S. Roark said Sherry Henderson Eggleston, 31, of South Boston, was driving a 1996 Nissan on the wrong side of the road and struck a 1992 International tractor-trailer, belonging to the Blue Ridge Beverage Company and driven by Tracy Hedrick, 33, of Halifax.
After striking the truck, Eggleston lost control of her vehicle and overturned, said Roark.
The trooper estimated $10,000 in damages to the Eggleston vehicle and $500 to the truck.
Eggleston was charged with failing to drive on the right side of the highway.

Ester Coleman Morton, age 83, of South Boston, died July 12 at Woodview Nursing Home.
Mrs. Morton was born in Halifax County on April 12, 1917.

Survivors include her nieces and nephews.
Funeral services for Mrs. Morton were held July 15 at 11 a.m. at Womack Chapel Holiness Church with burial in the Coleman Family Cemetery. Elder Joseph Dixon officiated.

John Thomas Lester Jr., age 91, of 212 Cherry Street, South Boston, died July 15 at Berry Hill Nursing Home.
Mr. Lester was born in Halifax County on July 5, 1909 the son of John Thomas Lester Sr. and Mary "Mamie" Susan Dickens Lester and was married to Helen Howard Lester. He was a member of Center United Church of Christ and a retired tobacco buyer for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company.
Graveside services were held July 16 at 2 p.m. at Halifax Memorial Gardens with the Rev. Tom D. Walker conducting the service.
Survivors of Mr. Lester include his wife; one son, Thomas Howard Lester Sr. of Culpeper; one daughter, Martha H. Lester of South Boston; one grandson, Thomas Howard Lester Jr. of Culpeper; two granddaughters, Vicki Lester Mercadante of Forest and Valeri Lester Meza of Rhoadesville; three great-grandchildren, Alyssa and Kelsey Mercadante of Forest and Andrew Thomas Lester of Culpeper; and one brother, James Edward Lester Sr. of Columbus, Ga.

Elner Carr (Shinn), age 72, of Philadelphia, Pa. died July 11 at Cooper Hospital in Camden, N.J.
Ms. Carr was born in Halifax County on July 14, 1927.
Survivors include her mother, Gaynell Carr of Philadelphia; one daughter, Lois Rolax of Camben; one son, Alfred Carr of Philadelphia; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren; and one sister, Julia Carr-Hill of Camden.
Funeral services were held July 16 at 2 p.m. at Sunflower Baptist Church with burial in the church cemetery. The Rev. Robert Tucker officiated.

Willie Lee (Billy) Moss Jr., age 63, of 2165 Cowford Road, Halifax, died July 16 at his home.
Mr. Moss was born in Halifax County on February 8, 1937, the son of Willie Lee Moss Sr. and Lizzie Mae Dunkley Moss and was married to Julia Anderson Moss. He was a member of Mt. Laurel United Methodist Church, a member of Mt. Laurel Ruritan Club, and the National Guard.
Survivors include his wife; one daughter, Sheila Garmon and her husband, Clayton of Clover; one son, Chad Moss of Clover; two sisters, Carolyn Riddle of Richmond and Barbara Lepkowicz of Oak Creek, Wis.
Funeral services for Mr. Moss will be held at Mount Laurel United Methodist Church with the Revs. Ann Tang and H.V. Conner officiating. Burial will take place in Clover Cemetery. The date and time of the service was not available at press time, but will be announced later.
The family will receive friends at Powell Funeral Home and other times at the home.