I wasn't sure about where to post this, so, moderators, please fill free to move it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5378794.stm
Quote:
Tobacco firms sued over low tar
Cigarette
A lawsuit which accuses tobacco firms of duping smokers into thinking low tar or "light" cigarettes are less harmful has been given the go ahead in the US.
Federal judge Jack Weinstein has ruled that the case can proceed as a class action, involving potentially tens of millions of plaintiffs.
Experts estimate that if successful, the case could cost the tobacco industry up to $200bn (£105bn).
Defendants include Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and British American Tobacco.
They are joined by Lorillard Tobacco and Liggett Group.
Low tar cigarettes were introduced in the 1970s.
'Disguise'
Spokesmen for Reynolds American, parent company of RJ Reynolds, and UK company British American Tobacco said each would now be appealing the judge's decision.
The appeal is likely to last up to a year.
Altria, parent of Philip Morris, declined to comment on the ruling until its lawyers could review the decision.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that the tobacco companies in question reaped between $120bn to $200bn in extra sales through the deception that light cigarettes are less harmful than full strength versions.
"They [the cigarette firms] understood that they were selling death," said attorney Michael Hausfeld.
The question, he added, was "how to disguise it...They put on 'lights'."
Defence attorneys had argued that the lawsuit relied on flawed data.
They also said that without surveying each and every smoker in the lawsuit it would be impossible to determine their motives for buying light cigarettes.
The link between smoking and lung cancer was first confirmed in 1954.
British American Tobacco said that to date there have been 60 class actions cases against tobacco companies in the US and none have been successful.
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I've always been of the idea that there are two types of people in the world: 1.- smart, and
2.- plain and all "fucking stupid"
With that in mind, i've always thought that in the US "fucking stupid" type of people seem to be the constant object of frivolous and idiotic lawsuits because they're been manipulated by "smart" money seeking, gold digging attorneys. Examples about the latter abound, people that gets burned with "hot coffee", people that gets pranked in OD's toilet, etc... It seems that if you were stupid or naive enough to cause harm to yourself or others, the solution is to sue everyone's asses in a desperate and lucrative effort of not look like an idiot in front of everyone, cause, if it was McDonalds fault to serve me "hot coffe", i should not be embarrased about spilling it over my lap.
And in that line of idiotic lawsuits there are the sues against the tobacco industry. As stated in the article, the link between cancer and tobacco was discovered as early as 1952, yet, people has continued (me included) smoking. Now, if everyone knows that smoking is bad for yourself, and still you smoke, is the tobacco industry at fault or is it me? I'm taking a contious and well informed decision, so my guess is it's MY FAULT.
Yeah, we can argued that in this case, the Tobacco industry lead us to beleive that low tar tobacco was "less harmfull" than regular one, but isn't "less harmfull" equal to "harmfull anyway". Yeah, a .22 is deadly, just as a .45, maybe not as deadly as the .45, but deadly no doubt about it.
Should the Tobacco industry be held responsible for all the people that gets cancer over smoking? not as much as McDonald's should be liable for people that gets fat or the school i attended because I dropped out. Those were personal decisions that i made and me, and only me, nobody else, am responsible for those decisions and their consequences, so face them! and stop blaming everybody else. It's time for all of us to start assuming responsability over our actions