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Come one, come all lets sue Tobacco companies!
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| itikia |
| quote: | Nova Scotia gears up to sue Big Tobacco
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia's Conservative government cleared the way today for a lawsuit against big tobacco companies.
Justice Minister Michael Baker introduced a bill during the opening of the fall session that will give the province the legal authority to sue for smoking-related health-care costs.
"This legislation is all about holding the industry accountable for the huge sums of taxpayer dollars spent to fight lung cancer and related illnesses," said Baker.
"More than 1,600 Nova Scotians die each year from smoking-related illnesses, another 200 from second-hand smoke. The tobacco industry must bear financial responsibility for that devastation."
The bill is similar to one in British Columbia that was recently upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Baker said the legislation will give the province the ability to go back perhaps as far as 50 years in preparing a legal claim.
It will also give the government the authority to sue for the future cost of treating today's smokers.
When passed, Baker said the legislation will make it easier for individuals to sue tobacco companies over loved ones who become sick because of smoking.
Government lawyers will begin preparing the lawsuit, but Baker said they haven't decided on a figure.
However, he said it's safe to say the figure will be in the billions of dollars. |
I can't say I agree with this one. People choose to smoke and therefore should assume responsibility for their own actions. If the government is worried about fronting the health care costs for smoke related illness, they should not cover it under our current health care system (assuming they had a fool proof way to test whether the illness was smoking derived).
If this passes what's to stop alcoholics from suing beer and alcohol companies because they have developed liver disease? lame:whip: :whip: |
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| MarkT |
^^^
many studies show that alcohol in moderation is actually good for you...same can't be said for cigs. I think that difference alone would prevent similar lawsuits from being successful, if they're even heard by the courts at all.
Alcoholism is also an illness that does not stem merely from repeated consumption of alcholic beverages...many of us drink, even to excess, with the vast majority not becoming alcoholics or suffering from major disease/illness as a result.
Repeated use of cigarettes does result in addiction for the majority of users (to varying degrees) and health related problems in most long-term smokers(eventually...and again to vayring degrees).
apples and oranges, IMHO, from a legal standpoint.
still...the gov't lawsuit thing does seem a bit silly...shouldn't they just ban smoking if it's so dangerous? I don't think there's really any way for the gov't to deny services to those who they think became ill from their habit...although private insurers would if you identified as a non-smoker and then it was found out you were. |
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| techead |
+1
I've gotta go with Mark on this one |
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| Jayx1 |
| if they win the tobacco companies should sue the government as a co-conspirator since they make more profit from tobacco than the companies themselves. |
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| tranceinurpants |
Well, this may mean nothing, but big tabacco are bunch of dirty wankers, and whats it to them to loose 1 billion dollars(even if that is in canadian funds).
We shall see what happens |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by tranceinurpants
Well, this may mean nothing, but big tabacco are bunch of dirty wankers, and whats it to them to loose 1 billion dollars(even if that is in canadian funds).
We shall see what happens |
ahahahha why because they sell a legal product that the government makes money on?
if the government is serious about tobacco they will ban it. Otherwise they look pretty damn silly suing a company that they regulate and profit from. |
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| tranceinurpants |
allright, allright that is true, they are just another business selling a legal product. I believe that eventually you will see a ban on smoking. Canada will be the first place you see something like that happen, because of the affects it has on your public health care system.
Think about this though, when car companies find a problem with the design of thier cars that ends up killing people, they have a recall. The make the product safer for its customers. There is only one way for big tabacco to make thier products safer for customers.... |
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| MidnightClubber |
When the government adds , or in some cases allows, additives to be added to cigarettes to make them addictive (haha so many a's) they're not gonna pass such a law, although it would save me a few headaches for the future...
it's a catch-22, without the catch:toothless |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by tranceinurpants
allright, allright that is true, they are just another business selling a legal product. I believe that eventually you will see a ban on smoking. Canada will be the first place you see something like that happen, because of the affects it has on your public health care system.
Think about this though, when car companies find a problem with the design of thier cars that ends up killing people, they have a recall. The make the product safer for its customers. There is only one way for big tabacco to make thier products safer for customers.... |
cars always have hazards associated with their use. The risk of accidents and pollution.
Same thing with tobacco.
People argue that smoking does nothing. Thats not true. Some people get pleasure out of it. Believe or not many people LIKE smoking.
i dont defend tobacco companies for the product they sell, i defend their legal right to sell a legal product and i also defend the right of adults to choose whether or not to buy the product. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by tranceinurpants
Well, this may mean nothing, but big tabacco are bunch of dirty wankers, and whats it to them to loose 1 billion dollars(even if that is in canadian funds).
We shall see what happens |
First of all, it's tObacco.
Second, it doesn't matter how much money they make, that doesn't make it OK to steal from them.
Last but not least, you're a dirty wanker, so I think you owe everyone on this forum $100. |
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| ShadoWolf |
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columni...02/1245555.html
Lawsuit smokescreen
Government is senior partner in tobacco industry
By Ezra Levant
Let's get something straight. The government does not want Canadians to stop smoking.
If they were serious, they could ban tobacco tomorrow, just as they ban dozens of other drugs, just as they banned alcohol during Prohibition.
Such a ban would be difficult to enforce, of course, as marijuana laws are, and as Prohibition was. But Canada's three cigarette companies would be shut down, and so would tobacco farmers, and cigarettes would be taken out of convenience stores across the country. Smuggled or home-grown cigarettes would still be available, but fewer people would smoke.
That's what the government would do if they really believed their own anti-smoking rhetoric. They don't believe it, because they are actually the senior partner in the tobacco industry.
Depending on the province, 60 to 75% of the retail price of a pack of cigarettes is tax. Tobacco farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers and convenience store retailers share about $3 from each pack, and the profit for "Big Tobacco" is about 50 cents a pack. Governments get about $7 a pack -- all profit for them, or 14 times as much as all three companies combined.
There is no industry in Canada more closely regulated than cigarette companies are. They are not allowed to advertise, or even sponsor public events; their product packaging has been expropriated by the government for shock-style messages; their product development and marketing decisions must be approved by government bureaucrats. The chief remaining function of the cigarette companies themselves is to be the party to shoulder the blame. Their job is to look evil and be called "Big Tobacco" while federal and provincial governments pocket 93% of the profits.
So what should we make of last week's Supreme Court decision to permit provinces to sue tobacco companies to recover health care costs? Not much.
It will pave the way for the actual money-grabbing suits to follow. Those suits will surely be successful, just as they were in the U.S. And, just like in the U.S., the cost of those lawsuits will be passed on to smokers through higher cigarette prices. The nine provinces that sued could avoid all the lawyers' bills and simply tack on another buck a pack in taxes. The coming lawsuits will simply continue the tradition of shifting the government's dirty work to the tobacco companies.
The model being followed here is the nearly $250-billion legal settlement 46 U.S. states came to with tobacco companies in 1998.
That sounds like a back-breaking sum, but it's spread out over 25 years, so it's just a small tax-hike. It allowed 46 preening attorneys-general to declare "victory" in the press against big, bad tobacco. But it actually was the consummation of the merger between Big Tobacco and Big Government. Those 46 U.S. states now depend on smokers to keep on smoking -- for at least 25 years -- or they won't get paid.
Two years ago, a $10-billion trial victory in Illinois by private citizens threatened to bankrupt Phillip Morris.
State attorneys-general from around the U.S. intervened in court -- on behalf of the cigarette company, desperately trying to stop Phillip Morris from going under. Didn't those private litigants understand the game? Take the golden eggs, but don't kill the goose!
Canada's governments have made the same calculation that every ruler has since King James wrote his puritanical Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, while filling his treasury with tobacco taxes: Tell people to stop smoking, but hope by God that they don't.
Levant is Publisher of the Western Standard. |
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| Tunnel Rat |
| quote: | Originally posted by itikia
I can't say I agree with this one. People choose to smoke and therefore should assume responsibility for their own actions. |
My mom died of cancer at age 41 in 1988. No one else in her family before her had any type of cancer of any kind, and no one else has since. The catch...she smoked. And had she known back then what is known now about the dangers of cigarettes and second hand smoke, I can say with alot of certainty that she would have never started.
I can't speak for everyone who has ever lost someone important to them to cancer-related smoking, but I can speak for a few people who I also know lost loved ones; sue the f**kers!!! I hope these lawsuits are what finally puts them all under. They have literally been getting away with murder for decades, and only recently have they actually acknowledged that they sell a product that is PROVEN to cause smokers and people around them (i.e.second-hand smoke) life-threatening consequences. They are starting, then feeding additions and profiting off it.
And if Ontario jumps on this lawsuit bandwagon...I'm riding it, not for the money....but to hit them where it hurts them the most (their pockets) for the unethical manner in which they produce a life-threatening/shortening product and sell it to the public. |
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