Actually, before y’all mentioned the “wet floor” sign, it had crossed my mind–while I was at work and couldn’t post it here. Think of it this way.
If a store fails to post a “wet floor” sing, even if the floor is obviously wet, and somebody gets hurt, they will get sued, right? The plaintiff will most likely win. And in this case they didn’t even lie to you–they just didn’t make a statement either way. What the tobacco companies did for a long time was the equivalent of putting a “nice dry floor. Yup, it’s safe to walk here” sign out.
Although, now I’m imagining the second wave of shoppers to hit the oil. Then the third. Then the fourth. Soon the bodies are piled so high you can’t even get to the Jell-O. And without Jell-O, you can’t have naked Jell-O wrestling. And that’s bad. And all because they didn’t clean up the oil
I agree completely with Myrr21. As far as I can see, the benedictions sprinkled on the tobacco companies in this thread are predicated on the following ideas:
The addictive properties of nicotine are irrelevant, because people manage to quit all the time (insert personal anecdote here).
My response - Do a little research. Five minutes in PubMed turns up the following articles, all of which refer to individual variations in the physiological predisposition to addiction. In fact they all came up on the very first page when I searched for “nicotine” and “addiction”.
Personally, I found the last one the most intersting since it mentions one of the probable molecular mechanism for these variations: Polymorphisms in the cytochrome P450 system. But they all refer to differences in the nature of nicotine addiction; diffferences based on dopamine levels, diabetes, familial background, and just plain individual variations. So you people who keep insisting that you quit, ot know people who quit, and therefore you understand just how tough it is for everyone else, need to realize that you are not the sole determinant of human experience.
(By the way, could the guy who asserted that tobacco is not more addictive than crack please provide a cite? I think you mistated the quote; the active ingredient in tobacco is nicotine, and my understanding was that it is more addictive than crack, by weight. But I’m going by memory there.)
Because there are government-mandated warning labels on the packs, cigarette manufacturers are not responsible for the deaths of people hooked on their product either before or since those labels were created. (Two different assertions, actually; I’ll respond to both.)
My response - you may have a point with adults who’ve started smoking since the labels were mandated in the late sixties. Except, of course, that most of them were hooked as teenagers (or earlier!), and the tobacco companies specifically targeted this group with their marketing. I disagree with your implication that kids be held to the same standards of discernment as adults, and if they err too bad for them.
Furthermore, many people have died from smoking habits acquired before that warning label was put in place, and those effects are still being played out. If you are sixteen and cannot conceive that the world was ever different than it is now, this may not persuade you, but I remember when that label first came out. It wasn’t before the dawn of time for many of the people in my life.
We are willing, even today, to force Swiss banks to make good on accounts held by Jews killed in the holocaust (and rightly so); why is criminal corporate behavior from the sixties so easily washed away? After all, it’s not the banks who killed anyone by their actions; you can’t say that for tobacco. So why the expiration date on the latter’s misdeeds?
If a product is not specifically made illegal by our shining representatives in Washington, the manufacturer has no obligation to ensure it is not harmful to its users.
My response - Huh? The unique history of this drug has given its makers enough political clout to buy protection for itself. How can you translate that into the notion that they have no responsibility for their actions? Does your insistence that people are responsible for what they choose to do NOT carry over to the men and women who make up Philip Morris? Why not?
Because smokers are complicit in their smoking, they alone bear responsibility for it; the cigarette suppliers are merely meeting a market demand.
My response - I stand by my objection that cig makers target kids, but for the purposes of argument let’s say we’re talking about someone who became hooked on cigarettes as an adult. The idea that smokers bear responsibility and the idea that cig manufacturers bear responsibility are NOT mutually exclusive. If you don’t believe this is true, please explain your reasoning. I don’t know how else to say it, yet the silly assertion keeps cropping up that the tobacco companies are blameless because the smokers are culpable.
The rest of the defense of the tobacco companies seems to me to be red herrings - a general condemnation of litigiousness (which I agree with), a statement that it’s possible to get cancer without smoking (which I acknowledge - of course), and an insinuation that this dispute is all a marijuana-addled plot by hippie-dippie longhairs (like, I suppose the AMA and the surgeon general). Okay, that last one was hyperbole, but really I think the consistent points have been the ones numbered above.
Yes, in my opinion, but it is certainly a minority one, it is irrelevant.
And yes, I’m the “gal”, not “guy” who posted the quote about crack and tobacco. Whether or not on a “per pound” basis it is true, it is a blatant lie of advertising to claim that smoking cigarettes is as addictive as smoking crack. Period.
Not necessarily. My point is that people certainly can’t argue that it wasn’t until “just recently” that the risks of cigarette smoking were known. These labels have been on for decades, and the “widely known facts” that cigarette smoking was risky were known long before that, and were a part of popular culture. The fact that smokers will go into court and claim with a straight face that they were “unaware” of the risks is truly interesting.
And a warning in todays lawyer-driven culture apparantly has no bearing whatsoever on the actual ability to sue and win in frivilous product liability cases.
This is just an aside - I was wondering how long it would take before someone would try to draw parallels between the Holocaust and big tobacco. I’m very sorry, but everything in life does NOT relate to the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust.
The above example was a blatant criminal action. Tell me how the Jews whose accounts were stolen from them contributed to this? They bear NO responsibility for the unilateral criminal actions of the banks. Trying to draw a parallel between this and the tobacco issue is an ethnic red herring that you should be ashamed of using.
Nope, didn’t assert that, or if I did then I mis-spoke. I merely remind people that this product which is killing people willy-nilly is still legal in all 50 states, and (I believe) all countries of the world. Even Clinton himself refused to try and remove tobacco subsidies for farmers, showing a severe case of political schizophrenia.
Wow - so tobacco is bad because it’s bought political clout for itself? I guess the ABA, ADA, AMA, NRA, and other lobbies must be truly evil as well.
As to the responsibilities of the men and women who make up the companies - good point, in a way. Except that in most cases corporations limit tremendously or even remove the liabilities of the company officers. Is this right? I honestly don’t know.
Please explain to me how a smoker “bears his or her responsibility (paraphrasing)” when they sue for $1 billion? Does that mean they are responsible for coming up with half of the damages out of their own pocket? Or does that mean that, well, they COULD have sued for $2 billion, but decided they were half at fault so they’ll settle for just $1 billion? Your assertion that the both share responsibility is meaningless in real life. In the case of the husband who supplied his wife with the cigarettes - was he sued? For how much? No, of course not. Even if a smoker is just 10% responsible for their actions - does that mean they need to come up with $100 million out of their own pocket? Of course not. There’s responsibility, and then there’s re$pon$ibility.
See Holocaust example above.
Ok, that’s a fair criticism. My point about the types of sick, disgusting ex-60’s “radicals” who delight the most in demonizing tobacco and refusing to take responsibility for their own actions was not conducive to the actual debate at hand. I yield on this point.
You know what? (since I’m not an RP, most people don’t read my long responses this far, so I’m probably wasting my time) I think you make several really good points. I really have no ill will towards you or others at all for making them, in fact as I’ve listened to counter-points in this issue I must admit I’ve started to re-think some of my original hard-line positions. Which is the point of debate, yes?
But I keep coming back to the overall issue, which is, I would really like to see just HOW the smoker is taking responsibility for their actions. How is this not another symptom of the continuing decline of America? Can you show me, honestly now, no sarcasm, that this is not just another step down the slippery slope of becoming a lawyer-centric society of people suing people in continuity?
Don’t even get me started on how Steven Spielberg just won so many $$ over 28 seconds of freaking AIR TURBULENCE!!!
Believe it or not, I’ve made it through all of your posts in their entirety. Of course, my eyes are watering now from having been at the computer for so many hours.
Anyway, I have to be quick, because the computer is about to reboot (see my Syracuse Pit thread, if you really care why). I believe that the Holocoust example was a bad one, but most of that post was very good and well thought out.
ABA, ADA: Who are these guys anyway? Maybe I’ve just never heard the abbreviation. As for the other two, well, those are two entirely different issues, but let’s just say I’m not happy about them.
On the issue of how you divide responsibility–I believe it can be decided by the court (am I correct in this–law help someone). If you sue for $1 billion, you can get a judgement of less than that because you were partly at fault. Of course, I could be off-my-ass wrong about that one. Well, I’ll be back when it reboots (I hope).
At NO point did I compare the tobacco companies’ behavior to that of the nazis in the holocaust. You are reading into what I wrote. What I was saying was that responsibility for misbehavior on the part of a corporation in the past does not simply “run out” after some amount of time has gone by. The business with the Swiss banks was just the first example that came to my mind of a corporate misdeed from the past that was in the news recently (maybe because it was referred to in a James Bond movie I saw a couple of weeks ago. Come to think of it there’s a story about some reparations by European corporations to slave laborers they used in WWII in the news now, too). But if you don’t like the example, fine; I’ll drop it. I know the holocaust is a charged issue.
To start, I have to ill feelings towards y’all on the other side o’ this thing either–it’s kinda fun to have some intelligent people to debate this thing with. It makes you have to defend yourself damn well and think things through.
It seems to me that we have pretty much fought each other to a standstill on most issues, or come to a median position. Not bad for a few days work
There are a few things I have left to say, though.
pepperlandgirl: please don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to be beating a dead horse here. You have taken the view that all this is ridiculous, and that smokers bear the full cost of their (admittedly not-too bright) actions. I don’t think I’m going to change your mind on this, even a little (barring an extraordinary leap in my abilities of persuation). However, right now you’re not persuading me either (which I assure you can be done–with a little torture maybe :)) with the same argument for the last few posts. If there’s something I’ve missed here (God knows it’s hard enough to keep track of what * I’m * saying, much less somebody else), I apologize. As I said, I don’t want to offend–you seem like a bright person and I would like your response to some of the other points that have been brought up. Of course, you can always tell me to fuck off too
I think APB summed up something I’ve been trying to say but haven’t expressed clearly, as well. Minors should not be held to the same standards of responsibility as adults. This is not to insult minors (I’m only barely removed from being one myself)–I know many who are more responsible and intelligent the vast majority of adults I meet. Certainly more responsible than me, anyway.
Despite this, our laws our based around the premise that you aren’t able to make certain decisions in a responsible manner until you reach a certain age–of course this is bullshit. But, our society being what it is, it may be neccessary bullshit.
For example, I’ve met 12 year-olds who can drive a car perfectly well (lots of farm children learn to drive real young). Should they be given a liscence? I really really hope not. We don’t prosecute minors in the same manner (or didn’t, anyway–but let’s not get into * that * ). So it seems to me that this relieves some of the burden of responsibility from those smokers. Notice I said “some”, not all.
Well, I had something else to say on the matter, but this is getting kinda long, and I forgot anyway. Bummer. Catch y’all later.
ADA = Something I made up 'cause I can’t type well tonight. I meant to say ADL, which was the Anti Defamation League. A cause which has very worthy goals, but some believe a disproportionate amount of political clout.
I want to say that I don’t harbor any ill will to anyone here, either. I’ve become reconciled to the world often not realizing that I’m always right . Also, sorry about the “guy”/“gal” mixup, Anthracite.
WRT your (Anthracite’s) post above (10:13), I agree that cigarettes deliver nicotine in more dilute form than crack is usually used, and is therefore generally much less addictive as used.
Also, I wasn’t condemning tobacco for buying clout, I was just pointing out that since they do so, the fact that tobacco is legal does not really carry much moral force as an argument. Or intellectual force, for that matter, IMO. All it carries is legal force.
Well, if for no other reason I don’t like it because IMO in the context it was presented it appeared that the two situations were being compared equally (responsibility wise, anyways). But you explain yourself very well, and I understand what you meant now. Thank you.
Oh, and I am reconsidering my viewpoints somewhat, but still hold them. I think I must always question and re-question them to ensure that I am taking a correct stance on an issue.
After re-thinking, I agree with you on this point. I see that what I was really bothered by were the actions of our current Administration, and that spilled over and prevented logical thought on my part w.r.t. this sub-issue. I agree with you now that all it carries is legal force.
They are not. But it may bar recovery depending on the state. there are different laws governing this. Some states have comparative liability laws wherein the plaintiff must be less than 50% liable in order to recover. OTher states have a pure comparative law in which the plaintiff can recover 5% of damages if they are 95% responsible for their injury.
Wyoming had a law for a while wher ethe plaintiff could recover 100% of damages if a product mgf was 1% liable.
most states have the 50% rule. It is purely subjective if the tobacco plaintiffs have this much liability.
I hold that as a matter of public policy, it is detrimental to society to allow those knowingly engaging is risky behavior to recover when the probable outcome of such behavior materializes. But, hey, I am a conservative and have spent my career mounting defenses to such suits. What do you expect?
When I was in Costa Rica they did not make you sign a waiver before surfing, or river rafting or engaging in a dangerous activity. Theri opinion was that you shouldn’t be able to sue for assuming an obvious risk. I like that philosophy.
Ok, Mr Z., I get your point about the person having liability for engaging in risky behavior. what I"m interested in, is why you apparently think the corporation does not bear ANY liability for their risky behavior (NOT in relation to each individual smoker- liability at large for extremely risky behavior). I DID read your comments about percentage of liability. so, help me out here: Cig manufacturers KNOW that many people who use their product as intended will die directly from that use. Cig smokers KNOW that any single individual raises their risk for dieing by engaging in that activity. So, how come, the individual who’s risk factor is mearly increased from zero (non smoker) to say 75% even (picked number out of the air, don’t know the actual factor of increased risk of death by smoking) should be more responsible for their choice of risky conduct than the cig manufacturer who is virtually certain that a sig. number of their consumers will die?
If it is commonly known that the product is dangerous, and the user decides to use it, I believe that the mfg has done its duty and is no longer liable. (so let’s put aside the pre-warning label smokers for a second.)
Lot’s of things in life are dangerous even when used properly. Life is fraught with peril. But if the cigarette manufacturers can be held liable, I fear that all similar products will be subject to such suits which will bankrupt the manufacturers. Guns, booze…whatever. If I want to use something dangerous, well, that is my problem.
See, way back, I was taught that a Corporation WAS an individual, legally. So, I tend to break all that down to two people. One makes a product (S)he KNOWS will kill say 50% (again, the actual # isn’t the basis) of the folks who use it, slaps a sign saying “hey, this is dangerous, but will only cost you $5…” and thereby removes all responsibility?
say I’m operating a bungee cord jump. I know it’s an inherantly dangerous thing, but, I know that I can get more folks doing it if I market it to youth, provide this snazzy orange neon colored cord and do a wink wink nudge nudge routine about the dangers. Now, what I’ve NOT told my consumers is that by using the orange neon colored cord, I’ve INCREASED the probability that 50% more will die 'cause it’s a cheaper cord, more prone to break, but I do it anyhow, because I know that by using this snazzy color, I’ll get more of you to use it (increasing the nicotine levels to increase the levels/rate of addiction, to create the future use of the product)
Now how is it, again, that I have ZERO liability ‘cause you choose to take the risk? - even tho’ I’ve KNOWINGLY increased your risk? I’m cool with the smoker acknowledging some responsibility.
The fact that the corporation CHOOSES through free will to continue to make a product and increase it’s negative qualities (increasing the addictive properties)without attempting to minimize those bad aspects, I just want THEM to accept the same level of responsibility for free choice that the individual smoker does. After all, they could CHOOSE to make just the damned Marboroough (spell check?) t-shirts instead…
The difference is Wring, as a consumer, I KNOW cigarettes are deadly. But I may not know about the orange bungee cord. For 40 years, consumers have KNOWN it’s deadly. But they buy anyway.
It’s like this:
Cigarettes are dangerous.
Cigarettes are legal.
Because we live in a captilistic country, they sell cigarettes.
People buy cigarettes knowing they are dangerous.
People die.
Once the cigarettes are sold to a knowledgeable consumer, it’s not longer cigarette company’s responsibility.
Now, I don’t know that a certain car will blow up if it goes to a certain speed. The car blows up, I sue the car company, because I didn’t know the danger involved
I know that excessive drinking could damage my liver. It’s something I have learned since grade school. But I choose to drink, a lot. I damage my liver. I don’t sue Jack Daniels because I knew the dangers
This of course, is not in a legal sense. It should just be common sense. Of course, most of the citizens of this great nation no longer have any use for common sense.
I don’t understand why cigarette manufactures have to be lible for individual’s stupidity. Especially when the majority of those individuals insist it’s their RIGHT to smoke. And nobody has yet demonstrated why they are.
There really isn’t a middle road here, is there? I still can see a clear link between Cig manufactures chosen course of action (increasing the risks without informing the consumer - as in increasing the adictive qualities of the product to increase usage and dependency etc.) and responsibility. As a smoker of some 15 years, I KNEW cigs were harmful. I just chose to believe that it wasn’t THIS ONE I was smoking right then that would kill me. Stupid? yea. Yea, I quit, yea, I was strong, yea, everybody should quit yadayadayada. I still want to see the manufacturers held to the same level of “specific chose= specific liability” that you want to hold only the individual smokers to.
None of what you’ve said changes for me, the Cig manu. 's chosen course of action to continue to increase the dangers of their products, to minimize to the consumers that risk, to advertise to illegal markets (youths - and even if you don’t believe that kids start smoking 'cause of the advertisments, the fact remains, it was a studied and considered course they took - they intended to get kids hooked, took actions to make it so, the idea that maybe kids got hooked through other means doesn’t eliminate their responsibility. If I intend to shoot Frank, point a gun and fire, but the gun misfires, yet he falls dead of some other cause, I’m still tried for the crime of attempted homicide, ya know?
And, I suspect, none of what I’ve said changes your thoughts. so be it. I’ll continue to enjoy my smoke free life, and hope you do as well.
*:: going back to lurking :: *