(FORTUNE Magazine) – Just two weeks after the tobacco industry lost its first case in court -- a New Jersey federal jury awarded the widower of a cancer victim $400,000 in damages -- Philip Morris took the offensive. The No. 1 cigarette company launched an advertising campaign asserting that the political and economic clout of America's smokers can no longer be underrated. They command 55.8 million votes; their wallets ripple with $1 trillion in purchasing power. Merchants who treat them like second-class citizens do so at their peril. If smokers are so powerful, how come it's almost impossible to puff in public? Philip Morris vice president Guy Smith has an answer: Up to now smokers haven't exercised their clout. ''They've been shunted away, ignored,'' he says. The company hopes its $5 million advertising campaign will change that and boost smokers' self-esteem at the same time. One ad, for instance, reminds Detroit that smokers and their families bought more than five million new cars last year.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen grass-roots organizations -- working without benefit of tobacco industry sponsorship -- have sprung up to represent disgruntled smokers. In May they convened in Nashville to compose a charter that would let them speak with a unified political voice. ''We're a minority being discriminated against,'' says Dave Brenton, president of Arizona's Smoker's Rights Alliance. ''One percent of U.S. corporations won't hire a smoker; another 50% are free to discriminate in other ways.'' Entrepreneurs offer products and services just for smokers. Kay Cohlmia, president of both Great American Smokers Club in Dallas and his own air transport company, is struggling to get a smokers-only charter airline off the ground. In Beverly Hills, Rick Hacker has sold 2,500 copies (at $50 each) of what must be the first-ever pipe-smoking video, which celebrates the pleasures of puffing. - A.F.