Dr's In: For sure, sue the bums and worse

I had an interesting blog exchange with some folks who took exception to people suing tobacco corporations for their own smoking related cancers.  Essentially, I argued that the law suits were valid and the corporations should pay through the nose.  I cited 100+ years of misinformation and vicious personal attacks on smoking critics. 

Tobacco corporations paid plenty to politicians, the health care industry, and marketers with gross misinformation and phony studies to protect their right to fill everyone’s lungs with carcinogens.  Smoking continues to directly or indirectly kill hundreds of thousands each year (US). 

Initial scientific reports on the dangers of smoking were published around 1914.  In fact the tobacco corporations kept warning labels from cigarette packs for decades and when the health related problems were overwhelmingly clear, influenced the label content and how warnings would appear on the pack.  A nonfiction work Ashes to Ashes details tobacco corporation efforts to keep people smoking.  Corporate interests circumvented the health and welfare of the American people.  I am not going to get into the international efforts to keep folks smoking world-wide which continue to this day. Two very funny dark movies worth seeing when they pop up on cable are “Thank you for Smoking” and “Cold Turkey.”

Other similar concerns can be raised for Saloon owners when a drunk leaves a bar, gets into a car, and hits a family van causing death and injury to the occupants.  Fortunately, organizations like MADD have gotten the support they need to reduce the number of drunken related deaths on the highway but the carnage to a lesser degree continues. I say, sue the bar owner and of course the hopefully jailed drunk driver!

The dark comedy “Thank you for Smoking” mentions the MOD squad.  They are defined as the merchants of death who meet regularly to discuss strategies on how to better sell their products.  One represents firearms, another alcohol, and of course the tobacco industry.

The nation just literally dodged a bullet on a recent school shooting with some deranged character toting a military weapon.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  Let’s hope the shooter isn’t on the streets soon to try again with more success in the near future.

The corporations with the most to lose with the potential outlawing of tobacco, firearm restrictions, or increasing penalties related to alcohol impairment casualties, will continue to spend millions to protect their right to do business at the expense of a vulnerable victimized public.  As for the faulty paid-for interpretation of the 2nd Amendment – that’s a subject for another day.