The agreement by the cigarette maker Liggett Group to settle a major class-action lawsuit that claims nicotine levels in cigarettes are manipulated to keep smokers hooked is a breakthrough in getting cigarette companies to pay for past wrong-doing and to change their conduct to restrict the harm their products do in the future.
Liggett, the maker of Chesterfield and Eve cigarettes said, without admitting wrongdoing, that it would pay a portion of what it earns over the next 25 years to be used for quit programs. If the settlement is approved by the federal court, it would be the first time a tobacco company paid anything to settle a smoking lawsuit.
Liggett’s action shows the untenable position of the other four larger defendants, R.J. Reynolds, the American Tobacco Co, Lorillard, and Philip Morris. Further, Liggett in settlement talks with the attorneys-general of five states who are trying to get the tobacco companies to pay for the states’ costs under Medicaid programs of treating smoking-related illnesses.
Of course, it would be impossible for tobacco companies to ever pay even a fraction of the cost of the financial damage they have done, and continue to do human society throughout the world, let alone pay for the human misery they have caused.
The message should be that there are no profits to be had in manufacturing and selling cigarettes; that peddling addictive drugs is morally more heinous than consuming them. Tobacco companies have known for decades that the products they sold, when used in the way intended by the manufacturer, could only be harmful. No other product is like it.
Unfortunately, Liggett did not settle the action because it had a change of heart and realised its past wrong-doings. Rather it did it so that its assets would “”no longer be held hostage by the tobacco litigation” and to avoid the financial catastrophe from product liability suits that could destroy the industry, according to a Liggett statement.
For decades the tobacco industry has glamorised its product with misleading advertising, fighting every attempt by health authorities and others in the community to stop them from increasing their markets and the addiction rate. They have tried to maintain political influence by whatever means possible. Even now, they are still at it, trying to insinuate their advertisements and glamorisation of their product indirectly through events like the grand prix. And having had their activities curtailed in industrialised countries, they have become more active in the Third World.
As knowledge of tobacco’s harm increases, the morality of making profits from its sale becomes less defensible.
The fact is cigarettes kill people through lung cancer, heart attacks and other diseases. Governments should take steps to stop any form of encouraging tobacco smoking, to continue quit efforts, to stop profiteering in the tobacco trade and to recoup some of the damage done by tobacco companies. Governments, however, should recognise that outright prohibition will not work and that if adults, knowing the risk, want to smoke in places where they cannot harm others, then that should be their right.