“So who’s to blame for addiction? Give me a break. If I’m a cocaine addict, who’s fault is it? I have no one to blame but myself.

If you know that a substance is addictive and harmful and you begin using it anyway, then yes, you are responsible for your addiction. Many older Americans began smoking before it was widely known to be addictive and harmful. As recently as 1992, a string of tobacco executives under oath before Congress insisted that they believed tobacco was not addictive. Of course, not many Americans believed them, but these execs were under oath.

I know smoking is hard to quit, but I hardly think that excuses people from refraining from doing things that they know are harmful to themselves. Personal responsibility is the issue here, not evil tobacco companies.

What part of the word “addiction” don’t you understand? It is a physiological response, not a conscious choice.

Maybe not, but they certainly knew by the late 60s. I distinctly remember an incident in elementary school that made me realize how bad smoking was (and I told the relative I was very concerned about their health). My relative had been a smoker from the 50s, but there really is no one but her to blame for getting lung cancer. Even I as a young kid knew it was bad.

How stupid can people be? If you suck black smoke into your lungs for a long time, it’s going to kill you, or at least have a severely bad effect on your health, just as pouring gallons of alcohol down your throat on a regular basis is going to do serious damage. I can’t believe that people in the past didn’t know that it was bad for them, even though they might not have known that it was really, really bad.

I know smoking is hard to quit, but I hardly think that excuses people from refraining from doing things that they know are harmful to themselves. Personal responsibility is the issue here, not evil tobacco companies.

“Howver, in the case of smoking, there is the fact that most people know it is harmful–and then they light up and take the volitional act of bringing it to their lips and inhaling. Hardly “victims” except as victims of their own lack of responsibility and awareness around their pullution their bodies.

I do not know how this squares with the law, but from a philosophical/moral standpoint, I would throw it out of court.”

The health risks of smoking were not well known when my mom got hooked in the late 1950s. She was working as a records clerk in a hospital and started smoking in order to get cigarette breaks! She tried so many times to quit over the next 45 years and finally achieved success with recent medical technologies like the patch that help smokers kick a powerful addiction. Her chronic bronchitis is gone, but now she is permanently disabled by COPD. I am thankful that I did not grow up in an era when smoking was glamorous.

We are all very aware of the dangers of smoking, but most people become nicotine addicts when they’re risk-taking teenagers who think they’re going to live forever. Cigarette companies deny that they target young people, yet place ads in magazines like People and Sports Illustrated with a youth readership just under the 15% restriction established in a court settlement.

Legalized tobacco is sort of a catch-22. We can’t ban it without making criminals out of 25% of the US population, yet the noxious weed continues to turn young people into addicts as tobacco companies jack up the nicotine to keep customers hooked (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press01182007.html ).

Our best hope is science, which recently discovered the area of the brain that regulates addiction (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/science/26brain.html?em&ex=1170046800&en=f64c4cf2aee3614a&ei=5070 ). Until science develops effective treatments for addictions, I don’t mind seeing sick smokers harass companies that push addictive poison.

However, in the case of smoking, there is the fact that most people know it is harmful–and then they light up and take the volitional act of bringing it to their lips and inhaling. Hardly “victims” except as victims of their own lack of responsibility and awareness around their pollution their bodies.

I do not know how this squares with the law, but from a philosophical/moral standpoint, I would throw it out of court.

There’s a massive hypocrisy about all this. Why does society allow companies to legal sell products and then turn around and wreck their business with massive payouts because said products are dangerous? Either ban tobacco or shut up.

A very close relative died of cancer at a relatively young age, but it would be ridiculous for me to blame a third party for it.

dogbertt