Phillip-Morris has officially declared that smoking is hazardous to your health and addictive.
http://www.philipmorris.com/tobacco_bus/tobacco_issues/index.html
Do you think that by declaring this on their website (according to Reuters this is brand new to their website) they are reducing their risk to future lawsuits or increasing their risk?
Any other comments besides “well duh”?
What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?
Nothing short of shipping all the lawyers to Iraq will stop or even slow down any lawsuits. But they gotta try.
Maybe gun manufacturers should print a warning on the handle of handguns. WARNING: This gun may be harmful to yours or someone else’s health. or WARNING: If you point this and pull the trigger you could severly hurt or kill the aimee.
Jeffery
Tobacco companies are pure, unadulterated evil. The only time they will do anything is if there’s something in it for them. So yes, I’d guess the only reason they released this statement is to try and forestall future lawsuits.
The only time I was ever at a loss for words (you know me) was when I was seated next to a PR woman for a tobacco company at a dinner party. Good manners dictated that I make polite chit-chat with her, but all I kept thinking was, “how do you sleep at night, you evil trog from hell?!”
She would have said that if she didn’t do it, somebody else would have.
To answer my own questions (seems only fair), this is a remarkably stupid thing for them to do. They have just admited that their product is extremely harmful and addictive! I mean I hope this helps put another nail in the coffin of the tobacco business, but what are they thinking (from a legal/business perspective)? It seems to me that this will only make it easier to prove that the company knew all along that their products were lethal and addictive.
Anybody think that this was a smart thing for them to do, and if so please explain to me the legal principle why this makes sense for them to do?
What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?
StrTrkr777 wrote:
I knew a young woman named Aimee once. She even spelled it that way. Damn, she was cute, too.
Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.
Glitch said:
Honesty?
Oh, wait a minute, you said legal principle…
Glitch, I had a pithy response all ready to go, and you had to ask a factual question to which I have an answer. Oh, well. Here goes.
Yes. It is smart for MO to shift gears.
The reason is that they have already lost the battle with scientists, with regulators and they are starting to lose it in the courts. And let’s face it, the number of people who will use today’s admission as inspiration to quit is negligible. The company’s cost is essentially nothing.
What’s the benefit? Well, tobacco companies have been arguing in court for years now that one of the reasons they are not liable for smokers’ illnesses is that the smoker knew or should have known of the riskiness before lighting that first cig, the tobacco company’s lies to the contrary notwithstanding.
Their record arguing this has been near-perfect. But now we’re entering a new era. And as the States’ suits settle (and the union and other suits get underway), a strategy change is called for.
No one who starts smoking after today can claim in court with any hope of success that they did not understand the risks of smoking, because even the purveyor of the product owns up to those risks.
So they are protecting against lawsuits 10, 15 years from now.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
Well, it’s been on the package for how long?
Yer pal,
Satan
It made for some interesting reading.
I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the first few words:
“As a responsible cigarette manufacturer …”
All this anti-tobacco rhetoric is nothing more than a prelude to a prohibition against tobacco. If I recall my simplest history class, the government tried to outlaw one of America’s favorite vices in the 1920’s. All this did was lead to bootlegging and more money for the criminal elements.
Sooner or later, the anti-smoking lobby will convince congress and the states to outlaw tobacco as if it were a hard drug like cocaine or LSD. When this happens, all the tobacco farmers, tobacco product manufacturers will be out of a job. Then, Castro, or who ever is ruling the Cuban people, will become as infamous as the Columbian drug cartels when smugglers start bringing in tobacco to sell to the addicts.
It is pathetic that some people try to force our government to micromanage everybody’s lives. If I want to lounge around the house smoking cigarettes and drinking hard liquor all day and die at the age of 40, it’s my choice. Just don’t force me to live till I’m a 100-year-old vegetable that needs diaper changes like a helpless baby. It was bad enough that I had to go through that once in my life. 
Hey, I’ll gladly give up my Marlboros for a fine Cuban cigar. So maybe there is an upside for the American smoker afterall.
“The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” - Humphrey Bogart
The hardest test of my Libertarian views is arguing with my mom, who has over 35 years as a Registered Nurse under her belt.
Sure, Daniel, you should be able to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, snort coke, eat twinkies and swap needles with your HIV-positive buds to your heart’s content. It is, after all, your body.
But, what happens when you get hauled into an emergency room to treat your cirrhosis, emphysema, lung cancer, high blood pressur, bowel cancer, AIDS, hepatitis C, and myriad other disorders brought about by your lifestyle choices?
I, and the rest of society, are probably going to end up footing the bill. If not for you, then for an overwhelming majority of people who make decisions like yours.
That bill isn’t just financial - though that’s a big enough reason to stop and think. What if you have children? Those kids deserve a father, and the choices you have (hypothetically) made may easily preclude you from being a good father. How much more likely is it that those kids are going to have problems that harm me or mine because you were too busy with feeding your habits?
I think prohibition is a bad idea. I believe - and this is born out by what I’ve read and seen - that it makes the problem worse instead of better.
But, no person is an island, and your decisions have an effect on the rest of us. We have millions of people who made an informed or uninformed decision to begin smoking. The costs may be beyond calculation, and they are certainly outside the scope of any government agency’s ability to recoup them from a lawsuit.
Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua.
You know, RIGHT NOW would be a wonderful time to start a new tobacco company! After all, if a new tobacco company were to start producing cigarettes tomorrow, they wouldn’t be legally liable for ANYTHING! They could say, correctly, “Smoking causes cancer. You know it, we know it, everybody knows it. But so what? It makes you feel good! Buy our cigarettes!” That tobacco company could make a fortune, and would never have to pay a dime in legal damages, because they’ve never misled anybody.
Of course, the main reason there HASN’T been a new tobacco company lately is that the federal government has all but guaranteed a monopoly to Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds! By putting so many restrictions of cigarette advertising, they’ve made sure that the EXISTING favorite brands of cigarettes will continue to dominate the market!
That favor, courtesy of the feds, probably makes up for any taxes or extrorted settlements the feds get from Big Tobacco.
astorian wrote:
Wasn’t that how Death Cigarettes were marketed?
Phouka: You can use the same logic to argue against Skiing, riding motorcycles, skydiving, etc. All of them carry risk, and if you are injured it may cost society. If you are killed, your family will suffer.
Where do you draw the line? What makes smoking any different?
Messrs. Hanson and Smith, go back and check out the “Why the HELL does anyone still smoke?” thread, which covered a lot of these arguments.
Everyone agrees that prohibition would not work–us anti-tobacco people as well. There will always be people weak and stupid enough to smoke (and take cocaine and heroin, etc.) because the human race is, as a whole, weak and stupid.
But as the dangers of second-hand smoke become more obvious, us non-smokers want, quite rightly, to be protected from smokers, who are far more dangerous than other drug addicts. Mr. Smith, smoke all you want in your house, but not in restaurants or airplanes!
And it’s also important (but difficult) to keep kids from starting–most people are bright enough after the age of 18 to not start smoking; so we have to try and keep cigarettes away from kids, some of whom are too damn dumb and influenced by peer pressure.
dhanson:
I haven’t drawn a line. It’s still a concept I’m turning over in my head.
At what point does personal liberty conflict with society’s best interest? At what point does society get to withdraw all support for an individual who has made self-destructive choices?
If you (or anyone) chose to participate in a wildly risky activity without having the resources to take care of yourself in the face of the consequences (f’r instance, Xtreme skiing with no health insurance or financial resources to cover the emergency room bill for an accident), society (me and everyone else) is going to have to pick up the tab. I don’t know you. I don’t have the choice of not associating with you because I don’t agree with the choices you’ve made, yet, I’m going to get screwed - by taxes, health insurance premiums, higher costs in the ER - because you (or whomever) couldn’t handle the consequences of your decision.
On the other hand . . .
Who am I to say that you can’t throw yourself off a mountain if that’s what floats your boat? You’re the one who’s going to face grievous bodily harm, and compared to that, a few more bucks for my health insurance isn’t a big deal. Perhaps paying that extra bit is MY guarantee that you won’t be telling me to stop eating those twinkies. Does it all even out in the end?
See . . . I’m torn. Politically and ethically speaking, I lean towards a Libertarian point of view. I should have no say in your decisions UNLESS you physically harm another person or another person’s property without their consent. Of course, I’m also aware that things are never so simple as that.
Hmmm . . . perhaps this would be a good start on another thread?
OR
Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua.
It’s universally agreed that smoking is bad for you, but is nicotine bad for you? What if instead of promoting smoking tobacco to get a nicotine fix, the cigarette companies dropped the smoking idea all together and invented an acceptable way for a person to get nicotine into their bodies without having to inhale smoke?
It’s been a while since my “the evils of smoking” lecture in the smoking cessation program (3-1/2 years today, WOO-HOO!). But IIRC, nicotine has some negative effects on the arteries (in terms of encouraging the formation of plaque, I think). It has some other negative effects, which I can’t remember, as well as some positive ones.
Since it’s also highly addictive, and quite toxic, I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to encourage people to ingest it. Of course, I don’t think that it’s a good idea to encourage people to ingest other toxins either (e.g. alcohol) even though they may have some benefits.
The Cat In The Hat