is the tobacco industry unfairly demonized?

[© tweed]

is the tobacco industry unfairly demonized?

[??????????]

Yes, and by doing so they are putting hard working farmers out of business.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No. They want people to get addicted to their disgusting crap and deliberately target minors in their advertising.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Yes they are.

[Person Man]

Yes they are.

[7,052,770]

No. They want people to get addicted to their disgusting crap and deliberately target minors in their advertising.

^^^^^^

If anything, they aren't demonized enough.

[JSojourner]

My hatred of the tobacco industry goes back a long way.  Back to the days when they hired "experts", first to advertise that smoking was healthy (the real old days) and later, to testify that is was not harmful or could not be proven harmful.

However, I treat big tobacco like the purveyors of alcohol and gambling.  No one is forcing anyone to smoke or chew.  No one is forcing anyone to drink or buy a lotto ticket.  And though tobacco is far more addictive to more people, there are also casual smokers.  There are people who smoke like I drink.  They have a cigarette after supper or they chew a wad during the big game.  But they are not constantly at it.

I do not give the tobacco folks (or the alcohol/gambling industries) a free pass.  I believe in sin taxes and in education efforts to prevent addictive behavior.

But to me, there is a difference between these jerks and the oil industry, the utilities and the pharmaceutical scumbags.  People need their products to live and work.  Gouging the consumer and/or rewarding already fabulously rich executives with multi-million dollar bonuses while consumers go broke is criminal and immoral.

It's one thing if your town is wiped off the map by a storm and I roll in with cartons of overpriced smokes to sell...and it's quite another if I come into town with heating oil priced ten times what I paid for it. 

[NDN]

... and deliberately target minors in their advertising.

So have the Alcohol Industry.

With that said I have no sympathy due to all of the things they've pulled before plus the subsidies they still receive. Although a lot of these smoking lawsuits are ridiculous. I'm sorry but if you chose to pick up the habit after they put warnings on their products, you have no right to complain.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Yes.  Just like alcohol; they don't force people to smoke.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Yes.  Just like alcohol; they don't force people to smoke.

     To add, the health dangers of tobacco are well-publicized.

[Ban my account ffs!]

There are also conservative causes that are hurting hard working American farmers... and unfortunately the only results of those causes are unsafe food and horrific labor and sanitary practices.  At least by demonizing the tobacco industry people might be better off.

[Eraserhead]

It's a tough call as to who's worse, the heads of Big Tobacco or the people behind the terribly unfunny and unappealing anti-Big Tobacco ads. Those ads have probably got more people to smoke than anything BT has ever done.

[John Dibble]

Yes, but only because of the degree to which they are demonized. The larger tobacco companies are by no means the most ethical companies in the world and they've certainly done things that should be abhorred, but the level of criticism they get is excessive.

[Beet]

The tobacco industry has no real power anymore, so there's no point in "demonizing" them. People who are addicted to nicotine just need to get help.

[Iosif is a COTHO]

Yes.  Just like alcohol; they don't force people to smoke.

I'm assuming you have no problem with any drug dealers then? They don't force people to take drugs, do they?

[Keystone Phil]

I think that they deserve a lot of what they get but I was just thinking about how we now refuse to take personal responsibility for deciding to smoke. It's always someone else's fault...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The tobacco industry was very slow to ever admit that smoking could be harmful. Obviously such a statement is bad for profits, but it's good for the millions of lives put at risk.

[7,052,770]

I think that they deserve a lot of what they get but I was just thinking about how we now refuse to take personal responsibility for deciding to smoke. It's always someone else's fault...

I always come down hard on my smoking friends for being such f***ing stupid immoral dumbasses for smoking, but I think they're smart and affluent and should know better.
I think a lot of poor uneducated young people don't really grasp how bad for you they are, though, and the tobacco companies love that.

[Jake]

I'm assuming you have no problem with any drug dealers then? They don't force people to take drugs, do they?

How often do you see stories about people burglarizing houses or robbing people to feed their nicotine habit? Or launching gang wars over the cigarette trade? And which foreign terrorist groups receive money from sales of tobacco?

[opebo]

I'm assuming you have no problem with any drug dealers then? They don't force people to take drugs, do they?

How often do you see stories about people burglarizing houses or robbing people to feed their nicotine habit? Or launching gang wars over the cigarette trade? And which foreign terrorist groups receive money from sales of tobacco?

That's because its legal.

[Jake]

The last two are, yes, what's your point? My problem with drug dealers is the affects on society, not the affects of the drug on the individual. Now you can argue that those affects would be removed by legalization (which I would largely agree on), but the previous poster was not discussing the legal status of drugs, rather that drug dealers are somehow bad because people get addicted to their products.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

... and deliberately target minors in their advertising.

So have the Alcohol Industry.

Yes but the drinking age is too high anyway, so I don't care.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the government that cares about YOU demonizes BIG TOBACCO but if everyone quit smoking tomorrow the government would in the tank because they take in a criminal amount on tobacco taxes.

[7,052,770]

I love how the government that cares about YOU demonizes BIG TOBACCO but if everyone quit smoking tomorrow the government would in the tank because they take in a criminal amount on tobacco taxes.

We would make it up in by collecting more income, sales, etc. taxes on people in their longer lives, and people would become more productive members of society, thereby increasing the tax base and decreasing what the government needs to spend to fix.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the government that cares about YOU demonizes BIG TOBACCO but if everyone quit smoking tomorrow the government would in the tank because they take in a criminal amount on tobacco taxes.

We would make it up in by collecting more income, sales, etc. taxes on people in their longer lives, and people would become more productive members of society, thereby increasing the tax base and decreasing what the government needs to spend to fix.

Long term thinking, Harry?  We're gonna make a pubbie out of you yet.