Tobacco company liability and individual responsibility for smoking-related illness

Tobacco Companies Should Not Be Held for Smoking Related Illnesses and Deaths

While certainly court litigation, rules and laws are important in the area of consumer products, the legal question of whether tobacco companies are responsible for smoking related illnesses and deaths, the work of Richman (1996) entitled: "Escape from Responsibility" states that the implicit lesson taught be the welfare state is that "you are not responsible for yourself. You will be taken care of. The 'safety net' will catch you if you fall." These ethics not surprisingly 'spill over into the legal system..." As increasingly the system is 'used in novel ways to pervert the notion of responsibility." (Richman, 1996)

This is true certainly in the case of tobacco use as individuals have successfully sued the tobacco companies for damages they suffered in relation to their smoking habit. In 1985, Chambers reported that a jury sitting on the case of John M. Galbraith, a chain smoker who had died due to lung cancer and whose family had sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company found in the company's favor and that 147 cases following Galbraith had been won by the tobacco companies. However, this work in writing examines this question and concludes with a greater question that should be addressed in the work of scholars and academics in the study of producer product liabilities.

I. Free Will and Smoking

It is reported by Health Promotion International in the document entitled: "Individual vs. Corporate Responsibility for Smoking-Related illness: Australian press Coverage of the Rolah McCabe Trial" that smoking "is a choice: no one forces people to smoke. Citizens should be responsible individuals who accept they are ultimately accountable for their health and well-being." (2003) Richman reported in 1996 that Massachusetts and several other states were "suing the tobacco industry to recover money spent by their Medicare program on people who suffer smoking-related illnesses" upon the theoretical bases that "the cigarette companies caused these people to become ill, costing the taxpayers millions of dollars; hence, they should reimburse the state." (Richman, 1996)

Richman states that there is "A host of problems with the theory. First, the tobacco companies don't force anyone to smoke. People choose to do so. Moreover, people quit every day; there are more ex-smokers in America than smokers. Advocates of those lawsuits say the tobacco companies withhold information about the risks of smoking. But that doesn't wash. People have long known that smoking entails risks." (Richman, 1996) Indeed, free will means that people can choose to consume alcohol, fatty foods and to smoke tobacco. It does not seem rational that tobacco companies should be sued for the individual having exercised their own free will in choosing to smoke tobacco.

III. The Functions of Tobacco Litigation

The work of Vernick, Rutkow and Teret (2007) state in the work entitled: "Public Health Benefits of Recent Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry" states that the litigation against the tobacco industry "...as with lawsuits involving other dangerous products...can serve several important functions." (Vernick, Rutkow and Teret, (2007) Those are stated as follows: (1) Lawsuits can compensate individuals harmed by the product; and (2) Lawsuits can serve a public health purpose by encouraging manufacturers to change their products, sales, or marketing strategies to reduce risks. Information obtained in litigation also can be used to support future regulatory action." (Vernick, Rutkow and Teret, 2007)

Summary and Conclusion

Lawsuits in this area have served to bring about a reduction in the risks of some products however, the risks associated with lung cancer and smoking is one that is probably a moot point as all scientific evidence points to increased rates of lung cancer due to smoking nicotine which is a primary component of tobacco. It appears that this is a case best left to the individual choice or individual free will in choosing to die at the hands of a specific addiction however, with no assurance that this will be the ultimate fate of the individual who chooses to smoke as certainly the best laid plans of mankind often are for naught and it just could be the case that the individual who had aimed for lung cancer would instead die of stomach or some other cancer instead. It is also within the realm of possibilities that the individual who adamantly avoided smoking tobacco to avoid dying from lung cancer would instead suffer death from sepsis or some other human response immunological disease. Ultimately however, is a question of what other or additional contents found in tobacco products which could be avoided for inclusion through better processing and packaging standards were enacted and what standards are instituted for ensuring the integrity of those same tobacco products that were released to the public for use without the stated contents and warnings that were present in addition to nicotine being disclosed? The question posed by this work in writing of whether tobacco companies should be liable for tobacco disease-related deaths and illnesses in tobacco users if examined from a legal view would be compelled to ask questions relating to product standard regulation however, from the simple view of liability of tobacco companies in consumer related disease and death the view of this writer is that free will would certainly provide the release of liability of the tobacco companies on any legal or ethical scales of justice. This view appears to be that within rationality of thought lies according to the experts reviewed and cited herein this short study.