Chain Smoker

[tommy.irene]

www.itv.com/news/2014-07-20/chain-smokers-wife-awarded-23-billion-in-damages-from-cigarette-firm/   

A widow of a chain smoker who died of lung cancer has been awarded damages of more than $23 billion (£13.8 billion) in her case against the USA's second-biggest cigarette maker.

Cynthia Robinson successfully sued the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company over the death of her husband Michael Johnson, who died 18 years ago, claiming the company failed to inform customers of the health dangers and addictive nature of its products.

Johnson died aged 36 after smoking one to three packs a day "up until the day he died", after he took up the habit at 13.

The verdict was returned after a four-week trial and over 11 hours of deliberations by the jury.

[merehazle]

Absolute madness!

Well the tobacco company are challenging it.   And surly they should win.

My sympathies to him and the family -  but he had the choice !!!

[tommy.irene]

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@merehazle wrote:

Absolute madness!

Well the tobacco company are challenging it.   And surly they should win.

My sympathies to him and the family -  but he had the choice !!!

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I agree.. but if she wins then everyone who had a family member who died of lung cancer will be sueing.. this opens a big can of worms.. The drink companys could be next..

[merehazle]

And lots of BIG cans of ''chains'' Maybe? 

Well it seems they will try anything!

[bankhaunter]

I don't think the case was unreasonable.

At the time he started smoking the health risk were known and the tobacco companies should not have ignored them.

They were also plugging tobacco use as much as they could and in fact in some parts of the world still doing it.

Early plans for bar promotions were prepared for RJ Reynolds in the mid-1980s as part of a general industry trend toward increasing use of promotions to reach young adults. RJ Reynolds' 1983 marketing plan strategy discusses the benefits of a “field marketing” strategy using person-to-person interaction at parties, concerts, and nightclubs to “reinforce Camel's masculine psychological image within the context of programs which are lifestyle oriented” and to integrate smoking with nightlife, music, and sports

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447091/

Personally I think they deserve all they get.

[rose2008-2008]

Ban smoking and stop selling all fags then thats what i say. If people say electronic or vaping is not as harmful, allow that and stop the sale of High Nicotine Cigarettes anywhere.

[evoman3957]

In one thread, people are saying how their lives are their own and that they should have the right to end their lives in certain circumstances. Now we see, that almost in the same breath, people saying they they can't control their own freedoms to do what they want; or make the choices they make..................somebody ELSE should be blamed if they get those choices wrong. You pay your money and you take your choice in life................Grow up, get real and live with it !!

[bankhaunter]

You pay your money and you take your choice in life................Grow up, get real and live with it !!

So drug pushers are blameless then?

[evoman3957]

Trust you to try and mitigate, weak willed, characterless people, who are always trying to find somebody else to blame for their inadequacies in life. Of course Drug pushers are not blameless, but without cutomers; they'd be out of business. There are always people in life who will seek out the weaknesses in others for their own gain, that doesn't absent people from those weaknesses; or make the Parasites that pray on them, any less to blame. Experience in life is totally pointless, unless ones learns SOMETHING from those experiences.

[bankhaunter]

weak willed, characterless people, who are always trying to find somebody else to blame for their inadequacies in life.

That would be most of the general population you are talking about.

There are always people in life who will seek out the weaknesses in others for their own gain, that doesn't absent people from those weaknesses;

Those would be every company that ever used advertising, tobacco companies are no different from any other leaving aside they are promoting something known to be harmful.

There is a very good reason why tobacco advertising is banned.

It is known to work and some groups in society are more susceptible than others.

Tobacco industry bar and nightclub promotions in the 1980s and 1990s included aggressive advertising, tobacco brand–sponsored activities, and distribution of samples. Financial incentives for club owners and staff were used to encourage smoking through peer influence. Increased use of these strategies occurred concurrently with an increase in smoking among persons aged 18 through 24 years