CROSSVILLE CHRONICLE

Opinion

 

David Spates
"Therefore I Am"

I've got 145,000,000,001
points to make this week

I've written the be-responsible-for-your-own-actions-and-don't-blame-anyone-else-for-your-own-stupidity-and-weakness column a few times already this year. It's an axiom in which I firmly believe, but I had hoped I was done beating that dead horse.

Well, late last week I came across 145,000,000,001 reasons to pull out my bullwhip and give Secretariat a few more lashes.

I'll provide you the basic background, in case you somehow missed it on the news or have spent the last few days at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. A Florida jury has decided that the tobacco industry should pay $145 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers. The two-year trial ended after the jurors spent five hours deliberating. The cigarette makers are, of course, going to appeal the verdict, tying up the matter for what could be decades. When you're talking about what could mean the survival of a multibillion-dollar industry, you can be sure that it won't end with a Miami jury's decision.

So once again, people who I am absolutely sure knew what risks they were taking each and every time they decided to light up have gone running to the government asking for compensation following their poor judgment.

Should the tobacco industry be held accountable for its decades of deceit, denial and treachery? Absolutely, but right-thinking people have a little something philosophers call free will. The cigarette companies make a product that is more addictive than heroin (wow - that's the second time in as many columns that I've used the word heroin), but it's still the free will of the consumers to consider the risks and decide to smoke anyway. Plenty of people, myself included, exercised my free will to smoke and then again exercised my free will (plus lots of determination) to stop smoking.

There was a time in history when science didn't have the medical knowledge to determine that cigarettes kill. That time has long since passed. No reasonable person can shrug his shoulders and claim ignorance. Modern-day smokers can be placed into two categories. The first category is the group that knows cigarettes are bad but have decided to smoke regardless of the well-documented dangers. The second category is the dead. It's that simple.

I smoked for years and enjoyed every cigarette I ever had. If cigarettes didn't kill you I'd probably still be smoking today. Apart from that whole cancer thing, cigarettes are just really, really good. I had the choice to smoke or not smoke. For about 10 years I was an idiot and decided to smoke. I have since decided not to smoke. The cigarette companies had no influence on either one of my decisions. It was me, me, me. Someday I'll die of something, but it won't be a result of smoking. I took that one off the table.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I had 145,000,000,001 reasons to revisit this issue. The ...001 is Mary Farnan. She is one of the three Florida smokers chosen to represent the entire class during the class-action lawsuit. Mary has lung cancer and brain cancer, and she smoked for 29 years. Mary probably is going to die soon, and for that I am truly sorry. Doctors have no doubt that the smoking led to the cancer.

By the way, Mary, who called the verdict "absolute justice," is a nurse. Medical school, day one: Smoking causes cancer. She knew the risks, but she decided to smoke anyway. Now she wants her share of the Tobacco Industry Lotto. Mary, you of all people should know better.

So who will be next to call themselves a "victim," hire a gaggle of lawyers and sue a company that makes a product everyone knows is bad for the human body? The gunsmiths are already in the pot. If I were with the fast-food industry, the butter churners, the brewers, the automakers, the television producers, or if I were associated with the guy who organizes the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, I'd be worried. There's a jury just waiting for you, too.

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