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Big Tobacco Loses 11-Year Fight, Forced To Broadcast 'Dangers of Smoking' Ads (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
Smoking kills 1,200 people a day. The tobacco companies worked to make them as addictive as possible. There is no such thing as a safer cigarette. Ads with these statements hit the major television networks and newspapers this weekend, but they are not being placed by the American Cancer Society or other health groups. They're being placed by major tobacco companies, under the orders of the federal courts. "The ads will finally run after 11 years of appeals by the tobacco companies aimed at delaying and weakening them," the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund said in a joint statement.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
It's enough that we understand the cost of smoking in terms of human lives. We don't need to know how much money could have been made exploiting them.
And who makes more money from tobacco sales than anyone, including the tobacco companies themselves??? That's right, friends. The government.
Hopefully to eventually be followed up by advertisements by the sugar industry reporting the severe risks to health posed by their product. Honestly, if I had any kind of power at all, Big Tobacco and Big Sugar's leading figures would be defendants in crimes against humanity trials. They've killed more people than the Nazis, and with as much planning and strategy as the Third Reich.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Their existing and past attempts at prohibition have worked out really well!
Agreed, since probably the late 60's you'd have to have lived under a rock your whole life not to know smoking is bad, very bad.
Most people start smoking when they are still minors, and don't have the maturity to disregard peer pressure and make good long term decisions.
Many tobacco ads specifically targeted young people.
Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid. No amount of despotic decrees by the government against the companies allowing you to purchase addictive cancer is going to fix people's stupidity. It, however, will set a precedent for stupid despotic decrees for propaganda.
Mr. Mackey: "LSD's bad, mmmkay?"
I wonder what the cost to society would be if all the smokers dropped the tobacco this instant and started to microdose LSD.
So what would you prefer - Prohibition? That's always been a disaster when tried, creating black markets, crime, and making millions of people convicts for non-violent drug use. Forcing tobacco companies to break up and cease operations? You'd have Rand rolling in her grave.
Cigarrette taxes are a market-based approach (aren't you guys supposed to love that shit?) to discourage people from smoking and make users pay for (some) of the immense medical costs they'll be generating for themselves and non-smoker's close by them.
So - what should be done instead of taxes?
American stupidity is only part of the problem.
The other part is that the tobacco companies have been DELIBERATELY, and FLAGRANTLY, lying their ASSES off about it.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was the SERPENT who got the worst punishment of all for fibbing.
I don't like the speech ramifications of curtailing messages I don't like, nor would I choose to curtail your freedom to say what you did, but I also think the reasons why people smoke are far more complicated and require more compassion than can be addressed by calling them "stupid". Persistent messages telling people smoking is socially advantageous plus addictive chemicals engineered to keep users hooked are apparently a potent combination.
We do ourselves and the people suffering from a problem we seek to "fix" a disservice by belittling them. Real solutions won't come in the form of curtailing free speech or such namecalling. We could do a lot better to get the tobacco companies to fund health and recovery programs for smokers, programs they fund but have no say in designing or administering (since they've clearly declared themselves to be untrustworthy for such a task), even if that means these companies end up paying billions of dollars which reallocate all of their profits. Putting more people into single-payer healthcare (Medicare for all) would help focus people's attention on chronic issues as well.
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