Are
Tobacco Companies The Ones To Blame?
The tobacco industry is up there with some of the biggest
and most successful industries in the world. People have been trying to blame
tobacco companies for smoking-related illnesses and deaths for a long time. They
try and blame the companies because they argue that the products are addictive
and they cannot stop using them. However, many people believe that the
companies should not be blamed because the people that use the tobacco made the
choice to use the product. Tobacco companies should not be blamed for the
deaths and illnesses that people develop from using their products.
Those who do blame tobacco companies say that there are “more
than 400,000 tobacco-related deaths annually” (“Tobacco Regulation”). The
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act want to pass a bill that “would
give the FDA the authority to oversee and regulate tobacco marketing and sales
in the U.S.” (“Tobacco Regulation”). They would “restrict tobacco advertising,
especially to children” and “require changes in tobacco products, such as the
removal or reduction of harmful ingredients” (“Tobacco Regulation”). People who
smoke also have a greater chance of getting Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
or COPD. There have been reports that “15 percent of smokers will develop the
disease” (“Tobacco Regulation”). If tobacco companies had “larger, more
effective health warnings on tobacco products” (“Tobacco Regulation”) then
maybe people would look at smoking in a different way and stop. Some tobacco
companies focus mainly on advertising to youth. They advertise a lot on
channels and networks that are very popular with younger children and mainly “market
their products where youth can be easily reached – in the movies, on the
internet, in fashion magazines and at music and sporting events” (“WHO”).
Valero, “one of the nation’s largest gas station chains” (“Attorney”), said
that they will “reduce sales of cigarettes to minors” (“Attorney”) in 38 states
including the District of Columbia. Many other gas stations have agreed to the
changes which include Exxon, Mobile and Chevron and also big chain stores such
as CVS, 7-Eleven, and Walgreen’s. Overall, greater health warnings on tobacco
products and decreased advertising to children can help stop people from
smoking all around the world.
However, society makes decisions each day that can
ultimately have an effect on our lives. We make decisions on whether we should
tell the truth or tell a lie. We decide whether or not we should go to school
on a nice day or go to the beach. Some of these decisions involve risking our
health, like whether or not we should smoke. People try to sue cigarette and
tobacco companies for illnesses that they have developed from smoking the
tobacco products. A recent case was presented by a man named Laurence Lucier,
52. He had a “30-year pack-a-day habit [that] left him with terminal cancer” (“Jury”).
Lucier sued the top two largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris and R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co. (“Jury”). Lucier “had asked the jury to award compensatory
damages in excess of $3 million, plus punitive damages” (“California”). He
supposedly could not stop smoking because “he was addicted and even though he was aware of the government health
warnings on cigarette packs, he never took them seriously” (“California”). He
is asking for all of this money but he made the choice to smoke and ruin his
health. Lucier knew about the risks and still smoked anyway, which is his own
fault. A lawyer representing Philip Morris “argued that awarding a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit to Lucier would amount to an assault on the freedom
of choice” (“Jury”). Philip Morris is right because he should not be suing a
tobacco company for something that he knew would harm him after he used the
product. If he is not taking the warnings seriously then he has no right to sue
the tobacco company because his illness was brought on by his own decision. The
tobacco company is not responsible for his actions or his faults. There have
been many warnings “for some 35 years on packages of tobacco products [that]
have cautioned against the hazards of smoking” (Bartlett). In Bartlett’s
editorial entitled “LETTERS” he states that “when [he] had [his] first
cigarette in 1952 at age 18, [he] knew of the risks. Still, [he] decided to
smoke. No one twisted [his] arm and no one crammed that first cigarette into
[his] mouth” (Bartlett). People have to take responsibility for their actions
and stop blaming others for the choices that they made.
Putting tobacco companies at
fault is like saying McDonald’s is responsible for giving people who eat their
products high blood pressure. People could also say that they were addicted to
their food and that the products made them obese. In 2002, the parents of two
obese teens “filed lawsuits against [the] McDonalds Corporation” (“McLawsuit”)
claiming that the McDonalds products made their children “develop severe health
problems including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes” (“McLawsuit”). The judge of the lawsuit stated that “it is
not the place of law to protect people from their own excesses” (“McLawsuit”). People
are making their own decisions to eat food that can potentially have a bad
effect on their health. No one is making them eat the food product. Blaming
tobacco companies can also be compared to someone saying that car companies
should be at fault for polluting the air that we breathe. Alcohol companies can
also be attacked for someone saying that their products caused them to be an
alcoholic. These people can argue that these companies are sucking them in by
making addictive products but they are choosing to use the product so they have
no argument. There have been “written warnings, stories in the newspaper and on
TV [informing] the public of the dangers of smoking” (Bartlett).
Furthermore, warnings about smoking cannot be stressed
enough. The dangers of smoking have been advertised on packages of cigarettes
since 1966 (“Blame”). Smokers know what the dangers are and they still choose
to ignore them. People think that banning tobacco advertising would help
decrease the smoking population. That is true, banning some of the advertising
would help to decrease the amount of smokers in the world, but tobacco
companies are just trying to make a living. They are not forcing people to
smoke; they are simply promoting their product but leaving the people with the
ultimate decision. If there was a plan to go through with banning tobacco ads
then the ban “could cost 1,000 printing jobs” (“Tobacco ads”). There are
commercials that advertise tobacco products but there are also commercials that
tell kids to stay away from drugs and other smoking products. They tell parents
how to talk to their kids so that their kids do not start smoking at a young
age or when they grow up. The anti-drug and smoking ads help teens understand
that smoking can be detrimental to their health and that they should not smoke.
The government has also “devolved [society] to the point that we are no longer
responsible for the dangers we expose ourselves to, no longer responsible for
the risks we take, [and] no longer responsible for our actions” (“Blame”).
Smokers want to shift the blame from themselves and their own weaknesses to
those who produced the product (“Blame”). Now that people know that they can
make a case against big companies like the tobacco industry everything that
affects someone’s health in a bad way can be argued against.
In conclusion, tobacco companies are being blamed for the
choices of others. Making a choice to smoke is much different than saying that
the company is making an additive product that they cannot stop using. The
product is not addicting, the habit is addicting. Biting finger nails is a
habit, just like smoking, that can be very addicting and very hard to stop. However,
the habit of biting finger nails or smoking sticks in the brain and is hard to
get rid of. People can stop these habits at any time but the process takes will
power and if they are not willing to put forth the effort then they cannot sue
a company for making a bad choice.
Tobacco companies are just advertising their products,
not sticking cigarettes down people’s throats. If people know that what they
are doing is potentially dangerous then they should not have picked up the
product in the first place and if they do use and continue to use the product
that is harming their life then no one is to blame but themselves. Tobacco
companies are not to blame here; the people that make the choice to smoke are
to blame for not making the right decisions.
