Smokers Stand Alone in Blame
It is puzzling to what lengths some people will go to deny their own humanity. A good case in point is the rash of lawsuits against tobacco companies by people who have smoked and then been diagnosed to have lung cancer. In some cases the plaintiff has already died but the case is still being adjudicated. In all of the cases the central claim is that the tobacco companies are responsible for the plaintiff’s ailment.
Let no one think that I have any great stake in this issue. I smoke about one cigarette a month, if that much. My wife smokes a pack of one of those tasteless brands every two or three days. I own no tobacco stocks. But I am appalled at how glibly people will maintain the line--and how readily the news media will fall for it--that it is those who sell them the products and not themselves who are to blame for what befalls them as a result of their consumption of harmful products.
The point to be made is not the one that some of the tobacco companies’ lawyers have argued. They have tended to focus on the technical-scientific issue of whether any clear-cut causal relationship may be established between heavy smoking of tobacco products and the debilitating disease that the plaintiffs tend to suffer from. That is not the major concern; it can be granted that for many people, tobacco smoking is unhealthy, if not eventually fatal. One can, of course, reasonably doubt this idea.
It is possible, based on current scientific knowledge, that only those with special genetic make-up are hurt from smoking. Some people in their 80s have smoked all their lives and have experienced no discernible adverse health effects. And even if people do experience adverse health effects from it, this does not clinch the case against smoking; one can benefit from unhealthy or risky activities. Mountain climbers may die younger than the rest of us but presumably they get enough of a benefit from what they are doing so that it’s worth the risk to them.
But what if smoking is all wrong? Why should it be those who sell tobacco rather than those who use it who should shoulder the blame? Many people who have a higher-than-average cholesterol count like chocolate. Eating chocolate is, therefore, risky for them. They could--given what is the most recent medical nutritional information on this topic--suffer a heart attack because of their consumption of chocolate. And in the case of eating chocolate--or drinking spirits or eating potato chips--there is nothing terribly positive that these persons gain, outside the satisfaction of the taste. And yet people carry on, and it is not the producers’ fault.
Cigarettes are widely known to be capable of causing serious harm to people. Alas, even without the U.S. surgeon general, who forced the companies to announce that fact on each tobacco product sold in the United States, we would be amply informed. Even in Europe, where smoking is much more widespread than here, we all grew up knowing well enough that it could hurt us, especially if we wanted to engage in an active sport.
To suggest that people are persuaded by tobacco advertising that cigarette smoking is good for them is utter nonsense. They are not dumb. They just like to smoke, whether or not it is good for them, whether it is a high risk or not. And they decide to do it, and to continue it, and they do not seek help in trying to quit if it is difficult for them. This is their responsibility, no one else’s.
That is what is true, and the claims of the plaintiffs, as reported in the national media, seem to be so much denial of personal responsibility for their actions, choices, decisions throughout their lives.
But if you go by the press, you would think that the idea of self-responsibility simply has never surfaced in this land. In their coverage of the litigation, reporters never even mention that possibility. All we learn about is how rich the tobacco companies are, their economic reasons for vigorously fighting these lawsuits, and how unfair the legal system is for allowing the companies to hire those expensive attorneys to defend them.
No doubt, there are cases when various people selling a product exploit the weak-minded and do so perhaps even knowingly. But why not simply admit that millions of smokers want to smoke, whatever the risks. They keep it up, despite all the chances for gaining help and stopping, never mind all of the information hurled at them about the hazards of excessive smoking.
The surgeon general wants to make this country smoke-free. But he would have to become a dictator to do that. Nor will it help to thoroughly distort the legal system by blaming not the perpetrators of risky activities but those who accept that consumers know what they want and proceed to provide it to them.
