The Devil's Advocate
On Aug. 24, a jury ordered Phillip Morris USA to pay $13.8 million to Jodie Bullock, daughter of a deceased smoker who passed away from lung cancer which her family and their attorneys state came from smoking Benson & Hedges and Marlboros, both Phillip Morris products.
Reading this makes me think of how dumb people are. Without trampling on the deceased, let's state that she knew, at the tender age of 17 when she started smoking, what she was choosing to do was harmful to her health.
As she continued through her 64th year of life, she had undoubtedly heard many times that smoking was bad for you. At what point do we assign blame to cigarette companies and take all the blame away from people who make and keep dumb decisions?
In my opinion, I think we should do what we can to get rid of the tobacco companies altogether. They are drug pushers who prey on vulnerable people looking for a bad habit. They hope to get you hooked and then bilk money from you for the rest of your life, regardless of how long or short a time period that may be.
However, the bigger problem is the people making the dumb decisions. In the old days, you can say no one knew. That's probably true. No one knew cigarettes would kill you, and the cigarette companies sure weren't going to tell you.
Nonetheless, if you've had access to a television, radio, newspaper, or any other media in the past 30 years and you smoke, you are making a dumb decision. Plain and simple. You know the risks. You have to understand cigarette products are going to kill you. I find it hard to believe that you could have managed to escape all the ads, public service announcements, and printed materials that tell you you're going to die.
While I feel sorry for the family of the late Ms. Bullock, the problem isn't Phillip Morris USA. The problem is the Ms. Bullocks who refuse to take responsibility for the decisions they make to smoke and then whine (or sue) once the expected, advertised, well-known, and well-documented outcome occurs.
Let's fix the problem, not put a band-aid on the symptoms.
Jim Thacker, CRT, AE-C, RCP