In MY American, people are responsible for their own choices. As Bricker points out, there are a lot of risky activities that a lot of people participate in. If you choose to take the risk, you need to accept the consequences. Even my 2-year-old is starting to grasp this concept…you would think adults could do so, as well.
Dave, thats just plain silly. Your analogy implies that what is being sold is “tar” compared to “tar”. But of course it isn’t, its “less tar”. Note carefully that first word, “less”. Surely you can see how it implicitly accepts that the product is harmful (having “tar”) but that the alternative product is less harmful, having “less tar”.
There is no need to belabor the hamsters. A simple reference will suffice.
You make the “point” that all forms of business have drawbacks, thus creating an utterly false equivalence. Knick-knacks produced for the tourist market do not poison and kill the customer when used as intended, unless, of course, those knick-knacks are functional handgrenades. In which case, a simple warning will suffice? “Do not stuff this object into your rectum and remove the pin (A) or it will spread your sorry ass over the countryside”.
I will continue to offer my opinions, as always. I don’t see why you must necessarily impugn my character in order to contradict my arguments, save that you haven’t, perhaps because you can’t. When have I offered you such a slur? You dishonor us both.
Far be it from me to suggest that your youth and inexperience casts doubt on your argument. Perhaps, alternatively, you can explain to me why offering “less tar” does not imply that such cigarettes are safer? Surely one does not profer less of something as a selling point unless “less” is more desireable than “more”? Have you seen any ads offering “More Tar!”?
Do let me know.
Um, you’re responding to someone else’s post, accidentally quoting mine I think. I never mentioned, or even implied, any such laws. I just pointed out that an American should always have recourse in a court.
Doors was suggesting they shouldn’t be suing; I was responding that “taking it to court” is a pretty fundamental American right. Warning labels or no warning labels, let a judge decide; slapping on perfunctory warning labels should not render you completely immune to legal remedies.
I would have thought you’d agree, Bricker.
Search for the many threads on this topic, my pedantic friend. The historical detail is Flavor-Aide; the cultural meme is Koolaid. “Drinking the Koolaid” is a well established cliche; “Drinking the Flavor Aid” is a confusing exercise in dorky didacticism.
So . . . you *are *saying that the warning labels are the best thing that ever happened to the tobacco companies? That they are a bulletproof shield that absolves them from all responsibility for any such labelled product, and further–my only point–that no court or judge will ever again have any say in the matter?
Then you’re actively trying to avoid seeing the evidence.
“Cigarettes are highly efficient nicotine delivery devices and are as addictive as drugs such as heroin or cocaine.”- Royal College of Physicians, February 2000.
Or do you think that heroin and cocaine aren’t addictive, either? Sure, some people have managed to kick their addictions to those two drugs (and tobacco)… but most people have a bit of trouble with it- hence the descriptor, addictive.
It’s coming. But bear in mind that, unlike the Big Cocaine or Big Heroin, Big Tobacco has tons of money behind it, and lots of lobbyists. Oh, and there are quite a few people employed by the tobacco companies who would be pissed about losing their jobs.
Hell, look at how much hue and cry we’ve got about public places banning smoking.
Sure, he doesn’t recognize the risk- he’s eighteen and immortal. I remember that age very well, and I’m constantly surprised I survived it.
However, saying “he can stop if he wants to” is deliberately understating the addiction of tobacco.
Pardon me if this has already been covered, but:
Could you please identify the addictive chemical contained in a Big Mac, that Mc’Donalds has known about for years, that has been manipulated to be more addictive, and which Mc’Donalds has repackaged in order to give the impression of being better for the consumer?
The analogy between fast food/beer and the nature of tobacco is poor. There is nothing physically addictive in fast food. While it is possible to become addicted to alcohol, it is at far lower rate when compared with tobacoo use; it is possible to drink beer without being physically addicted to it, while it is next to impossible to be even an occasional tobacco user without becoming physically addicted to nicotine.
Thanks.
So why isn’t this a good point? I’ve named a number of actions committed by the tobacco companies that they did their damnedest to avoid responsibility for. They marketed their products as healthy when they knew that was false; they claimed their product wasn’t addictive when they knew that was BS, and they aggressively marketed to minors. I’d like them to take responsibility for those actions, which misled millions of people into getting addicted to a lethal drug.
The fact that cigarettes are legal is neither here nor there. If a company makes a product, but conceals the risks involved in using that product, they are legally liable in most circumstances. And legal liability aside, they’re damned sure morally liable.
Do you have a cite to back that up with? Joe Camel’s been gone for awhile, but I sure remember him well from the 1980s.
I know that. It was a purely useless nugget that I just tossed out there. Forgive me.
What are they going to say? “I’m sorry you can’t read, I’m sorry that you can’t understand that coughing is never good for you, and I’m sorry that your apparent blindness made you unable to see all of the warnings of the dangers of smoking that have been out for the last 40 years. Here’s your money, idiot.”
There can be no claim of ignorance in this case. None.
Do you perchance happen to remember the Joe Camel commercials during the Saturday morning cartoons? How about during the football games or other sporting events? No? Do you know why? Because they didn’t exist! There were no cigarette commercials competing with the supersaturation of other less-than-healthy product advertisements. A fleeting glimpse at a billboard every 10 miles does not an addict make. 15 commercials for a Big Mac in an hour does an addict make.
I know that.
How about a billboard right in your neighborhood, that you walked by 5 times a day, and had plenty of time to look at it each time? Not everyone grew up in West Bumfuck; some people (including much of the target audience for Joe Camel) were growing up in inner cities.
So if you don’t have data on Joe Camel being ‘a blip’ relative to Ronald McDonald or the Bud Clydesdales, kindly stop asserting that it’s so.
You’re welcome!
Because no one these days lacks the info they need to know that smoking is bad for you. We’ve been satured with that info for almost 2 generations now. That’s what personal responsibility is all about-- being responsible for your own decisions and not blaming someone else. Also, can we have a cite that cigarette companies ever marketed their products as being healthy? Maybe back in the pre-WWII days, but even doctors were shilling cigs then.
The moral argument is a different argument entirely. I don’t disagree with you on that.
Coincidentally, my boss & I were talking about smoking just yesterday, and he asked me if I ever smoked. I’m 39, and he is in his late 50s. I said to him that I never did, and that I think that anyone under the age of 40 who smokes has got to be an idiot or crazy. I remember making anti-smoking posters in grammar school! My generation & people younger have had this pounded into our brains our entire lives. So many people I know spent their younger years begging their parents to quit. Why why why would they start when they know how bad it is? The information is out there. If you choose to ignore it, whose fault is that, really? People have to take responsibility for their own lives. It’s not like the cigarette companies or anyone else can give your life back to you.
Same here.
Shoes on the other foot now, bucko. I’ve rebutted, you’ve “avoided”. Any time you’re ready, just let me know. And in case you get the wrong idea, like maybe you think I’m a bit ticked at you for that “dishonest” slur…
You bet I am.
I’m about 10 years older than you, and I had the experience growing up. I’m willing to agree that some people find it harder to quit than other people, but I don’t accept the idea that some people “can’t” quit. If someone has some data to support that, I’d like to see it.
that should’ve been: I had the same experience as you growing up.
Where would one get “data” on an entirely subjective response? Anecdotally, I’ve known people who kicked heroin addiction who can’t quit smoking.
ditto. a substantial number as a matter of fact. many who’ve quit cocaine, booze etc. said as a 23 year non smoker (I’ve “not smoked” 5 years longer than I smoked)
Fair enough.
Oh, boy! It has less tar! The implications of that are profound! Imagine the lines of people who can’t wait to get their hands on Dioxin Light, or on Light Hemlock by Miller! Why, how could they possibly reasonably expect that such things would kill them? They say “Light”, right there on the package! :rolleyes:
You can pull other people’s legs, not mine. Naivete only goes so far.
It’s absolutely not a false equivalence. Not only do the people who create said harmless consumer goods divert resources, but they pollute even as they manufacture them. Even the most innocuous consumer good causes you some harm if only through the pollution due to the manufacture of said good, hence the need for regulatory agencies like the EPA and legislation like the Clean Air Act. But that’s a little bit too pie-in-the-sky for the purposes of this discussion, so I guess I’ll leave that one alone for now.
I have never considered your argument as valid, not from anybody. That doesn’t mean that it is dishonest, simply a dfference of opinion. I was a bit too forceful with my language, and acordingly I withdraw that comment with my apologies.
Advertising something as “Less Poisonous” scarcely absolves you of your responsibility as a consumer to know what you’re consuming. There has never been a time when Light cigarettes didn’t have a warning label, therefore it is incumbent upon the consumers of said product to prove that they were totally unaware of what was perfectly evident from day one given the big warning on the box. Good luck wth that. When your only defense is “I’m a moron” you’re already in trouble, and in my view this abdication of responsibility is aided and abetted by the judges that let this nonsense go through.
Cigarette companies are providing a legal product to consenting adults, and that consent is implicit through the requesting of cigarettes, through the payment of the product, and through the lighting and inhaling of the product. I hope you’re not implying that there is no implied consent here? That’s the rub here: nobody made them light up. Nobody made them delude themselves. It’s all on them.
All of that is true. That still doesn’t mean that the courts cannot be a recourse. I’m not saying they should necessarily win the case–although I think you and I would find some details to disagree on there as well. I’m just saying that your apparent suggestion that a warning label equals perpetual immunity in the courts is preposterous. What kind of precedent would that set, if slapping on a warning label rendered the tobaccao companies safely outside of the judicial system, completely untouchable? That’s the “not in my America” part I was referring to.
The warning labels should certainly be relevant in a court case, but you seem to be suggesting that the warning labels should entirely preclude a court case; that the label renders a judge irrelevant. That, to me, is monstrous.