I'm not a smoker. The few times I tried to smoke, I got a sore throat and laryngitis.
I grew up in a home where my father and mother both smoked. I married a man who smokes. I've never had a problem with my lungs, don't get colds. I've only had pneumonia one time in my life, and I wasn't hospitalized for it.
I don't scream when I smell cigarette smoke, in fact, I usually don't even notice it.
I fail to understand how a company that has sold a product for years, a product that people *know* is bad for them, and that they are risking their lives by using, can be *forced* to put itself out of business and be made to pay medical costs for any physical damage their product might cause.
Smoking is a personal decision. Anyone who smokes is aware that it's bad for them, that it could cause medical problems at some point. But they *choose* to continue using the product.
Now, a group of people are trying to force the courts to make the tobacco companies pay for the money Medicare has paid for smoking related injuries.
While watching Fox News today, I heard someone mention that it was like a person being hit with a hammer while walking past a construction site.
Come on. If that person were to accidentally be hit with that hammer, yeah, I'd agree. But smoking isn't something that's forced on anyone. If you want to continue the hammer analogy, it's like a person walking past a construction site and picking up the hammer, then, knowing that it's going to hurt, hitting *himself* on the head with the hammer.
Asking the construction company to pay for the person's injuries under those conditions are as stupid as asking the mower company to pay for the injuries of a man who uses a lawn mower as a hedge trimmer.
It's called self-responsibility. Something that is apparently lacking in this country of late.
I feel sorry for the tobacco companies, being forced to practically put themselves out of business in the name of 'public health'.
As always the ideas and comments are my own. If you disagree, start your own blog.
