Federal Courts orders

[Racket_Man]

BIG tobacco to actually tell the Truth about how they purposely lied and deceived people for decades about the dangers of smoking.

[Seifer]

I honestly don't understand how this is going to help. People generally understand the health risks of smoking (all tobacco products have labels that state in clear English: "THESE HURT YOU"), and they understand that people get cancer from different forms of tobacco. Are more signs and advertisements going to make them think twice?

I've literally had people come up to me, looking to buy tobacco, and they have a clear sign of mouth cancer. It's fucking disgusting, and they obviously realize they're sick, but they keep buying tobacco.

Maybe it would be more useful to print advertisements and signs with information on how to quit tobacco. Give numbers to free quit lines, information on free products and services, etc.

[Andara Bledin]

My mother is old enough to get senior discounts, and she started smoking before she was old enough to legally buy cigarettes, and she knew then that they were dangerous, as did anyone else who paid the least bit of attention.

People who start smoking don't care about the dangers. Hell, for some of them, that's part of the allure.

^-.-^

[crashhelmet]

But as much as people know the risks, that doesn't stop them from successfully suing the companies. This court order is nothing more than a result of those lawsuits.

[Greenday]

I asked my grandfather, before he died, if people knew back when he was a kid that smoking was bad. He picked up smoking in the early 1940s. He said everyone knew it was bad, how could it not be? They just didn't know exactly what kind of bad stuff it did to you specifically.

People still pick up the habit these days and no one old enough to smoke doesn't know what smoking can do to you. Forcing the companies to admit that smoking is bad isn't going to change a damn thing.

[HYHYBT]

As far as actually getting people not to use their products, I don't see this as effective. But there's still something to be said for making businesses which have lied in the past not only to tell the truth which they were hiding, but to *admit* they knew it all along and were deliberately dishonest.

[Nekojin]

As Greenday is pointing out, some people know/knew that it's "bad for you," but in the same sense that eating at McDonald's is "bad for you." It wasn't clear in the 50's that it was a carcinogen, and the tobacco companies spent millions of dollars to suppress that fact.

[Andara Bledin]

It's still a complete waste of resources. From the order through to ensuring compliance, it's time, effort, and money that would have been better spent elsewhere.

^-.-^

[NorthernZel]

As it is discussed in the E-Cig thread, nicotine in itself isn't carcinogenous (it's just nasty and messes with your brain, but not deadly unless you ingest it in its pure form), the burning of the tobacco is.

Thus it would be interesting to know whether the tobacco companies have added carcinogeous additives to, say, chewing tobacco or "snus" and therefore have increased risk of cancer to those who delibaretly chose not to use cigarettes/cigars because they didn't want the tar and extra chemical fumes in their body.

Also, re: a lawsuit that was filed over here (but unfortunately discarded since the plaintiff passed away) it is also attempted to get discovery on whether the tobacco companies have added addictive chemicals that makes it EVEN HARDER to quit smoking than it would have been had the cigarettes contained only tobacco.

[Panacea]

As it is discussed in the E-Cig thread, nicotine in itself isn't carcinogenous (it's just nasty and messes with your brain, but not deadly unless you ingest it in its pure form), the burning of the tobacco is.

Not exactly. While not officially a carcinogen, nicotine does impair apoptosis (cell death) and is known cause tumor growth and metastasis. The only reason it's not officially a carcinogen is because it hasn't been studied specifically to be classified, bit is well known through other research to cause cancer.

The tobacco companies do mix tobacco with a lot of other chemicals (including arsenic and formaldehyde) to increase its addictive properties.