If you smoke is it your fault?

[Marisa]

Look, you may be a smoking hot brunette with great legs and a beautiful smile that really shows off your high cheekbones and wonderfully electric hazel eyes, wearing a form fitting yet elegant ivory dress with cupric highlights that accentuates every curve of your amazing, lush.... what the Hell was I talking about?

How you doin'?

 

[Marisa]

I think blame is a useful thing to determine.
It's useful in determining if one party owes another damages.
In the case of adult smokers in the year 2015, I blame the smokers for choosing to smoke.

I despise tobacco companies, but smokers are responsible for their own plight.

I think it's more productive to address why people smoke, and since it's been recently acceptably proven to be harmful, what measures can be helpful in curbing the number of people who will choose to smoke going forward. With that in mind, I approve of legal decisions that acknowledge tobacco manufacturers history of complicity in covering this danger up, and it would really float my boat to see some significant portion of monetary resources awarded to prevention mitigation.

 

[Revoltingest]

I think it's more productive to address why people smoke, and since it's been recently acceptably proven to be harmful, what measures can be helpful in curbing the number of people who will choose to smoke going forward. With that in mind, I approve of legal decisions that acknowledge tobacco manufacturers history of complicity in covering this danger up, and it would really float my boat to see some significant portion of monetary resources awarded to prevention mitigation.

Certainly, if a tobacco company committed fraud by hiding dangers from a consumer, then that consumer would be entitled to compensation for a consequent loss. We've already recognized that this case is different from people who choose to smoke despite the dangers. Prior sins of the tobacco companies do not extend that liability to new smokers.

 

[Marisa]

Certainly, if a tobacco company committed fraud by hiding damages from a consumer, then that consumer would be entitled to compensation for a consequent loss. We've already recognized that this case is different from people who choose to smoke despite the dangers. Prior sins of the tobacco companies do not extend that liability to new smokers.

Perhaps. I'm unwilling to commit, as I feel myself ill equipped to judge matters of legality.

ETA: What I do know is that despite legal rulings, here in the US at least tobacco companies still fought against fully compliance. So there's that to consider. Additionally, the warning on cigarette labels, as I understand it, is not the product of the tobacco companies. From the article I posted earlier, dated a mere year prior:

"The agreement was reached the day before the 50th anniversary of the surgeon general warning on tobacco and lung cancer, released Jan. 11, 1964.

The long-awaited advertising campaign was ordered in 2006 by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler, who found tobacco companies guilty of violating civil racketeering laws and lying to the public about the dangers of smoking and their marketing to children. Kessler must approve the agreement.

That verdict was the culmination of a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice in 1999, when it sued tobacco companies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)."

 

[Revoltingest]

Perhaps. I'm unwilling to commit, as I feel myself ill equipped to judge matters of legality.

I stand ready to pass judgement.
It's fun!

 

[Marisa]

I stand ready to pass judgement.
It's fun!

Not me. Too much responsibility.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Certainly, if a tobacco company committed fraud by hiding dangers from a consumer, then that consumer would be entitled to compensation for a consequent loss. We've already recognized that this case is different from people who choose to smoke despite the dangers. Prior sins of the tobacco companies do not extend that liability to new smokers.

Tobacco companies are known for hitting up places they haven't devastated, doing what they can while they can, and milking as much money as they can before people realize they need regulations on the tobacco companies, such as advertising.
But, even in America, many of us are old enough to remember Marlboro Man and Camel Joe when we were kids. And still yet the tobacco companies push the research--research that they themselves funded--that downplay the risks of second hand smoke.

 

[Paranoid Android]

Face it: The Government is HYPOCRITES. Yes, they'll lock you up if they catch you smoking pot, but do NOTHING if you want to smoke a ciggarete or drink alcohol'Yet, smoking and alcohol kills

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

It's not about having deliberately chosen to engage in dangerous behavior. It's about how long and to what extend tobacco companies when to cover up the dangers of the product they were selling. If you don't have all the information or the correct information, you can't call yourself informed.
Tobacco companies will say they lied, via advertising

For smokers who started before the consequences of smoking were exposed, I agree.l But the consequences of smoking has been well known and well documented for over 50 years now. I'm only 47. I knew what it would do to me; but for my own stupid reasons, I started anyway. For someone who started smoking in 1925; that's a different story. Those who knew from within the industry weren't talking.

We are talking about a product that is ingested via the lungs, with no ingredients on it, but containing hundreds of toxic materials. I mean, I don't dissolve all responsibility of people who smoke cigarettes. But to feel sympathy for a company whenever it practices such horrendous sales practices in Asia, I find it difficult.

You misunderstand. I feel no sympathy for the tobacco companies. I hate them. Their horrendous sales practices in Asia, Mexico, and other areas of the world continue without recourse. That's an injustice. But it's a different situation than the teenager or adult in a 1st world country who is well equipped with the foreknowledge of the consequences ... and does it anyway.

I think blame is a useful thing to determine.
It's useful in determining if one party owes another damages.
In the case of adult smokers in the year 2015, I blame the smokers for choosing to smoke.

I despise tobacco companies, but smokers are responsible for their own plight.

^^^ This ^^^

 

[Curious George]

I started at age 10 (first cigarette at age 8). Am I to blame? Yes. Should a company who profits but also causes damage help negate that damage? Yes. Should tobacco ever pay me? No. But if you are a company that makes large amounts of money and your product is destructive, then you should have to spend a portion of your profits on restoring that which you have helped destroy. Logging companies should be forced to spend money on planting trees, oil companies should be forced to spend money on cleaning air, and tobacco companies should be forced to spend money on health care. Hell, fast-food companies should spend money on reducing obesity or health care.

 

[AnnaCzereda]

I'm just curious, but what exactly do you think the government gains from scaring people into not smoking by fabrication?

I'm not saying the study has been fabricated but I also know that there is a tendency to blame all illnesses on smoking, junk food, obesity and lack of exercise. While I agree that smoking, junk food, obesity and lack of exercise are definitely not healthy, they are not alone responsible for all the illnesses out there. It's also obvious that we still know very little about the causes of cancer.

Anyway, I don't smoke and nobody has to convince me it's not beneficial to my health. And I also think that those who smoke are solely responsible for the consequences of their smoking habits. Nobody forces people to smoke. If they make a choice to smoke, then it's their responsibility.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm not saying the study has been fabricated but I also know that there is a tendency to blame all illnesses on smoking, junk food, obesity and lack of exercise.

I'm not aware of anyone who claims that. I suppose they are out there, but I strongly suspect they are a very slim minority.

 

[psychoslice]

No

Probably they should ?.

 

[Revoltingest]

Tobacco companies are known for hitting up places they haven't devastated, doing what they can while they can, and milking as much money as they can before people realize they need regulations on the tobacco companies, such as advertising.
But, even in America, many of us are old enough to remember Marlboro Man and Camel Joe when we were kids. And still yet the tobacco companies push the research--research that they themselves funded--that downplay the risks of second hand smoke.

Let's agree that tobacky companies are dirtbags.
(Let's also ignore that this might be unfair to dirtbags, which are at least useful.)
But their being horrible doesn't necessarily create liability.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But their being horrible doesn't necessarily create liability.

Trying to downplay the risks of second hand smoke should indeed create liability.

 

[Revoltingest]

Trying to downplay the risks of second hand smoke should indeed create liability.

If they misrepresent the danger, & someone suffers harm as a result, then of course this creates liability.

 

[McBell]

Tobacco companies are known for hitting up places they haven't devastated, doing what they can while they can, and milking as much money as they can before people realize they need regulations on the tobacco companies, such as advertising.
But, even in America, many of us are old enough to remember Marlboro Man and Camel Joe when we were kids. And still yet the tobacco companies push the research--research that they themselves funded--that downplay the risks of second hand smoke.

Sounds like an apt description of oil companies.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Sounds like an apt description of oil companies.

Ya know, know that you mention it, it does.

It's hard to see, but it's a kids book with a cartoon dinosaur that tries to teach kids of all the wonderful benefits of fracking.

 

[Harmonious]

At this late date, I don't understand how anyone who isn't being forced to put a cigarette in their mouth can blame anyone but themselves.

Don't blame the tobacco companies. They sell a product people want. Tobacco, in its many forms, isn't the first or the only self-destructive habit humans choose to have. (I've never smoked. And no amount of advertising is going to change that.)

Yes. The companies make money off of a destructive habit. However, who, on this planet, HASN'T heard of the dangers of smoking?

And Joe Camel has been out of circulation for decades. Don't blame today's smokers on an ad campaign that hasn't existed for longer than some of the smokers have been alive.

You buy it, though you know you shouldn't. You light up. You smoke it. It's your fault.

Why is this a question?

 

[Nakosis]

If you don't smoke is it your fault?

I'd like to think so.