[Daradon]

The reason the tabacco industry put itself in a position to get sued was not because it sold a harmful product, but because they not only knew it was harmful but actually worked at making it more addictive which increased the danger of the product.

One person in the industry coined the phrase, 'nicotine delivery system'. That's what a cigarette is. Nicotine is the drug. The reason you find all those other wacky chemicals and substances in there is because they were slowly added over decades of research in order to get the nicotine into the system faster. I remember reading something that original methods of consuming nicotine including smoking, chew, etc. got the nicotine into the body in about 10 minutes. Which is a long time to create a dependency. However, the modern cigarette gets it into the blood in 7 seconds! That's why all those other things are in your cigarette. It encourages the system into making a pathway directly to the brain for the nicotine. And of course, these chemicals don't just make the smoke far more addictive, but they are very harmful themselves.

That's why they got into trouble. They were actively working at creating the perfect drug for decades. They were not selling a product, they were trying to create a dependency. And doing it a very subversive way.

Add that to their questionable marketing campaigns, many even aimed at children, and there are very good reasons why they get in trouble.

Now don't get me wrong. We have known smoking is bad for you for a very long time. And I too get tired of people that complain they got taken advantage of both in this situation and other situations that are similar. People are responsible for they're own lifestyles, I do agree. Sometimes we do things that aren't healthy. Sometimes we down right enjoy doing these things and search them out. And the majority of responsibility should be ours. But there is a balance that can be struck between consumer responsibility and company responsibility and in this case it has been legally argued very well that big tobacco broke many rules and did many horrible things.

If we can cash in why not? So many other people and jurisdictions have.

I don't even smoke, but as someone who depends greatly on the health care system I would love to see some extra money infused into it. Maybe don't do it for the smokers, but for people like me who were born with problems that were not our fault, unlike these smokers.